I recently adopted a ten year old dog; most things were known about him but one very important facet of his character was not. How he behaved around cats. As I have cats as part of my family this was crucial. So he came to me initially on a fortnight's trial. Marigold, familiar to those of you who have read YOUR TALKING PET and THE POWER OF THE CAT, her photo appears in both, at twenty years old and only a few weeks before her death, showed me once again how much we can learn from animals. All her life she has lived with dogs so could be said to be an expert. As the car drew up and my new canine friend stepped out, Marigold who was in one of her favourite snoozing places on the verandah, jumped up and raced to greet him, standing on her hind legs to rub against his chest. I was aghast and convinced that at any moment I would see the demise of my dear old friend as I learned that he was not good with cats!

Gus has now been with me much longer than his initial trial period, the cats love him and he loves the cats. I could have listened to Marigold and said I would have him the moment he stepped out of the car.

I have thought of this often and wondered how Marigold knew that this large ferocious looking dog was in fact the kindest most loving creature while he was inside a car coming up my drive. Family members often visit with their dogs and although she treats them courteously never with such spontaneous enthusiasm. It was as if she not only knew what he was like but felt it was her place, as the oldest four legged member of the family, to make him welcome.

After living with Gus a while I now know what she knew when he arrived, He is a very kind dog with excellent manners.

Marigold was laid to rest in my flower garden with a rosemary bush for remembrance over her grave.

Contrary to what was once believed older animals bond very quickly with new owners; they seem to know that they have been given a second chance at life and the new owner is rewarded not only with love and devotion but can bask in the comfortable glow that is bestowed by doing a good deed!

The negative side is that by adopting an older animal your time together may be shorter but if quality rather than quantity is important you will not miss out.

Most of us who love animals and who consider themselves to be a spiritual being, or to put it another way, to be a soul inhabiting a body will be prepared to acknowledge the same for our beloved animal friends this should help to ease the pain when they go before us to the next plane of existence. Sometimes, if we are lucky, we will see them in dreams, we may even, as time goes by, feel that they have returned in a new body to share another life with us. How wonderful to think that someone has loved us enough to want to spend another lifetime in our company. I have written about some of these experiences in my books including the latest, THE POWER OF THE CAT. And my novel OUT OF TIME explores reincarnation. Click on the link to www.louisepakeman.com

Tabitha was a cat I loved very much, she walked out of the house one day and never came back, a heart-breaking way to lose any animal; my grief was assuaged a little when she appeared to me in a dream telling me not to worry because she was alright. A few years later she came back to me in the form of another cat who shared my life for eighteen years. Tara had barely been in the house an hour before she showed us all that she remembered things she had learned and known before as Tabitha.

If you have met your dear departed in a dream or think they have returned to spend another lifetime with you share your experience with others on the blog.

Tabitha                                                              Tara

In my current cat/dog family I have one cat who actually prefers the dogs to the other cats. In fact she doesn’t really seem to like them at all but loves the dogs and they her. She regularly washes both dogs' faces, sometimes holding them still with a paw on either side. Neither has any objection to this, in fact they seem to appreciate the attention.

Puppies and kittens brought into the home at the same age soon pal up and usually make a life long bond. In most cat/dog relationships the cat is usually the boss.

Dogs and cats are not the only animals that form close friendships. When I was a child my pony struck up a friendship with our bull which didn't please me because I wasn't game to approach her when she was standing close by him. Later on I had another pony that became good friends with a cat.

We think it odd when animals have these friendships with a creature of a different species, but is it any stranger than the relationships humans form with dogs, cats, horses etc. I think it highlights how we all, whether we have two legs or four, are basically so alike. We all share the same need for friendship, companionship and love.

Morty, my Koolie, having his faced washed by Cilla

Puppies and kittens brought into the home at the same age soon pal up and usually make a life long bond. In most cat/dog relationships the cat is usually the boss.

Dogs and cats are not the only animals that form close friendships. When I was a child my pony struck up a friendship with our bull which didn't please me because I wasn't game to approach her when she was standing close by him. Later on I had another pony that became good friends with a cat.

We think it odd when animals have these friendships with a creature of a different species, but is it any stranger than the relationships humans form with dogs, cats, horses etc. I think it highlights how we all, whether we have two legs or four, are basically so alike. We all share the same need for friendship, companionship and love.]]> Fri, 08 Oct 2010 01:43:00 GMT Our beloved animals live such short lives, compared to us, that endings come all too soon. Rudyard Kipling reminded us of this when he wrote:  "Brothers and sisters I bid you beware of giving your heart to a dog to tear."

My dear little Maltese, Tammy, died on Aug. 30th. She was just approaching 16 and had lived with me for 10 years. I had known her for 3 years before that because she belonged to a very good friend of mine. Always loving, always cheerful and at the end of her life, when she went completely blind, very courageous. I felt she was a lesson to me on how to live the best life possible with the deck we are handed when we come into this world.

Animals can teach us so much if we open our hearts and our minds to them and recognise that they are not 'things', not even pets but living creatures who have all the same feelings and emotions we do ourselves. Like us they are trapped in their physical bodies and the circumstances of their lives over which humans have complete power. To assume because of this that they are inferior and have nothing to teach us is quite wrong.

Even their shorter lifespan is a lesson for us in making the most of our time with loved ones while we are together and letting go graciously when the time comes.

I have seen ‘simple’ chooks display both intelligence and courage. A tiny Bantam hen standing up to a large dog, even to the death, in defence of her babies, is being anything but ‘chicken’. I once saw another hen with a clutch of chickens who was being pestered by a small boy wait till she saw he had his back to a brick wall before closing in and retaliating. She was too smart to waste her sharp pecks on his gum boots but directed them at his chubby knees.

A younger Bantam hen lived with a rooster and two more hens I had decided in my wisdom (or lack of) would be good companions for her. They were a self contained group who had been together since hatching, and they didn't want her. She ate alone, and slept by herself at the far end of the perch. Eventually I moved her to another run where the resident rooster was her clutch sibling. There was none of the usual disturbance when a fresh hen joins a group, the rooster welcomed her joyfully and she is now one very happy little hen. I learned something about family ties and memory in these so-called simple creatures.

Hens are not alone in being the victims of our patronizing attitude. We talk about “silly asses”, “stupid donkeys” and “stubborn mules”, not only about the animals but people who we believe are foolish. We more often than not call animals stupid when their intelligence exceeds our own!

Cats are not at all “catty” as we use the word. They do not gossip and say spiteful and hurtful things behind people’s backs, they are honest and up front.

We profess to love, almost revere, dogs calling them “Man’s Best Friend” and rely on them to do a wide range of very responsible tasks from guiding the blind, herding our flocks, assisting law enforcement officers and helping in dangerous rescue work. They give us companionship and unconditional love ungrudgingly, yet when we want to say something really denigrating about another person we call them either a bitch or a son of a bitch.

Most unfairly we refer to people unable to get on together as “fighting like cat and dog” yet the vast majority of cats and dogs sharing the same home do so far more amicably than many humans.
Pigs - forced to live appalling and unnatural lives have given us expressions like “Greedy pig”; “pigging out” and “living in a pigsty”.

If we say a person is “bovine” or “cow like” we mean lacking in intelligence and sensitivity. The list is endless and speaks more for the superiority complex we exhibit in our relationship with our animal friends than their shortcomings..
We need to revise our way of describing badly behaved people as “behaving like animals” and instead say that anti-social animals are “behaving like humans”!

Time to think before we speak- and remember we are the species lousing up the world for ourselves and the other creatures who share it with us.

But what has this to do with animals? A great deal for those who share our homes to the environment and the rest of the world.

Dogs and cats, just like us can be allergic to certain chemicals and can be made quite sick by them. By cleaning with safer alternatives we make a safer home for them to share with us. But - and here is the big plus - we are apt to overlook or forget entirely that pulling the plug in the sink or pouring stuff down the drain is NOT the end of it. Everything we use in the home eventually goes into the environment, into rivers and drains and at the end of the journey out to sea. This overload of chemicals from our super clean 21st. century homes is a serious health hazard to the animals, birds and reptiles, all the other life forms who call planet Earth home.

We are all very good at sitting back regarding the world around us, tut-tutting in horror and saying, 'But what can I do about it?' and assuming the answer is nothing. Wrong - we can all do something.

Read the labels on cans, jars and bottles, shop ethically. Do not buy products tested on animals or harvested with child labor or containing palm oil produced by destroying the habitat of many species, including orang-utans.

If you want a dog or a cat take one from a shelter, don't impulse buy from pet shops or off the Internet. These are two of the main outlets for the operators of puppy farms, keep your own backyard chooks or if that is impossible make sure you never buy eggs from hens kept in batteries.

If you want to learn more about ethical shopping go to www.ethical.org.au who produce an amazingly comprehensive pocket sized booklet called The Guide To Ethical Supermarket Shopping. Each one of us can make a difference.

This is Lily, glamour puss cover girl of THE POWER OF THE CAT, saved from infant death by Ingrid Arving of INGRID'S HAVEN - http://users.ssc.net.au/ingridshaven/, a shelter worthy of the name as it has a no kill policy. Thanks to Ingrid this exquisite little cat never knew her life could have been snuffed out before it began.

Having followed his guidelines for many years I agree with him. Raw meat and bones is the natural diet for all carnivores. At least I haven’t met one yet, dog, cat or ferret, that actually cooks its food before having a meal. When it comes to bones the raw is important, cooked bones splinter and can cause internal injury. Raw bones get chewed up and digested and in the chewing clean the teeth and clean teeth means a healthy cat or dog.

This is a great little book, very reasonably priced and available from www.rawmeatybones.com. Tom’s earlier book, RAW MEATY BONES is much larger and more in depth but of great interest not only to those concerned with giving their animals a healthy lifestyle but the many of us who care about the health of our fragile planet and are unhappy with the ever expanding tentacles of Big Business in the form of huge international conglomerates squeezing the life out of small business and ultimately out of us all. Nestles and Mars are just two examples. You may ask what this has to do with feeding our cats and dogs, after all most of us know enough n
ot to feed them coffee or chocolate, but how many realise that they are the biggest manufacturers of pet food in the world? Don’t be fooled by the great variety of brands in the pet food aisle of your local supermarket, almost all are owned by these giants and their aim is to make big bucks for the manufacturers and their share-holders, not to make your dog or cat the fittest on the block!

Almost all dogs will joyously embrace a change to a raw and natural diet, cats, notoriously conservative, can be a little more difficult, it may even be necessary to put those delectable raw chicken wings under the grill for a very brief period to fool them into thinking you are cooking them. Cats often have the strangest tastes, I have known cats who have loved oranges, nuts, and tomatoes. If you have a cat with bizarre taste buds tell us about it.

Thank you Ingrid for the wonderful comment on hens you put on the March blog. It was good to hear from someone who shares my love for these endearing, and very useful, creatures. Please – everyone – continue campaigning for a better and fairer deal for them. And continue to add your comments to the blog – it is your input that makes it interesting and lively.