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�tention / Marceil May, Holistic Healing Practitioner
Several years ago, in my first month volunteering at the Jacksonville Humane Society, I arrived for my scheduled shift to walk dogs. I entered the ‘bark, bark, barking’ echo of the long hallway of kennels looking from left to right through the vast and varied lot of homeless hounds, and checking out the updated notes on each chained-link gate to find out who was in need of a good romp. It was very common for the shelter to be at maximum capacity, with most dogs positioning themselves toward the front of their kennels vying for the attention of whomever was walking by.
treatment, which is a very painful experience, and he’d just been taken out of isolation into the main kennel area.) I started to speak to him very quietly, using his name over and over again. I reached over and extended the back of my hand. He looked up and started to move toward me, looking straight into my eyes. My heart was breaking right there in my chest.
As I explored who was in attendance that day, I stopped by a kennel that, at first glance, appeared empty. I looked closer to realize there, in the back corner, was a wet, shivering, dirt-grey pup with his head hung low. My heart responded instantly with a simultaneous hard pound that seemed to leap right out of my chest and a plummet into the depths of my belly. What in the world was he doing here?
After a short time, I reached over to gently offer some Healing Touch, a type of animal healing energy work. I focused on his chest, also known as the Heart Chakra, and within mere seconds, Marty began to to let go even further. Clearly, my heart wasn’t the only one breaking. Who knows why he’d come to be there, but what I did know was that he had been traumatized.
He was Marty, a 4-year-old Schnoodle, quivering, petrified, and jammed against the wall. Marty needed some one-on-one attention, STAT! I went into his kennel and sat about five feet from him. He looked at me as if to ask, Why am I here and who are you? ( I’d come to find out later that he was going through heart worm 28 | Transformation
Within several minutes of continuing to speak his name softly, he literally began to relax his tense posture. Just by the tone of my voice and intention by which I was connecting with him, he felt safe enough to soften.
As I sat there with him, I realized that this would be the most important moment of my day—just Marty and me, together, giving and receiving from heart to heart. He needed reassurance, he needed to feel the presence of intentional, focused care, he needed the healing process to begin. I found it so hard to leave Marty that day, but my
