Changing Views

January 27, 2014

  

I just watched a video about a new study at Emory University where they are trying to understand canine cognition. They’ve trained a dog to be still in an MRI machine and they watch the brain while they give commands that sometimes involve food treats and at other times don’t.

With MRI, the team can visualize how specific parts of a dog’s brain respond to stimuli like food and social rewards. By evaluating brain activity, they can infer how much of a dog’s motivation is about food rewards and how much is the result of social interaction with a human. They say, “We’re finding strong evidence that it is not just about food.”

Duh! It’s hard for me to not be a little irreverent when I read this stuff. Have they ever spent any time with a dog?  Maybe it’s these kinds of studies that will finally ‘prove’ that animals are feeling, thinking, emotional beings, and should be treated as such.

It is very difficult for me to see that science still hasn’t yet embraced the field of telepathy. The quantum physicists are on board, but when will the behaviorial sciences and biologists catch up?

I had wanted to do animal research when I was young – sit in the jungle with Jane Goodall and study chimps. Then I wanted to do cetacean research to understand whales and dolphins. When I discovered telepathy I realized that this would answer so many scientific questions. What could be easier than asking the animal directly the What, Why, Where and Who of their lives?

While it seems we are still in the infancy of accepting telepathy and animal communication, I am seeing slow progress. When I took my first class in 1988, now 26 years ago, people thought I was nuts. I couldn’t mention it to everyday people without them backing quickly away. That is not the case now. Almost everyone has at least heard about animal communication or know someone who has used a communicator or they have seen something on TV.

A former student of mine has been working for the past two years on her PhD project in animal communication. She has been talking to people’s pets and recording the accuracy of their interviews and her results are quite impressive. She’s blazing a trail to legitimize this field through the scientific method.

A few months ago, I was delighted to have a student in an animal communication workshop that is a professor at a Canadian university. She teaches a class in “multiple ways of knowing”  and wants to bring telepathy and animal and nature communication into the curriculum.

So I guess that things really are changing. It’s just taking longer than I would like.

Sea Turtle Nesting

January 16, 2013

Baby rescued from a nest

From May through October, Florida beaches are home to sea turtle nests. Females come ashore during the night and lay about 100 rubbery eggs the size of ping-pong balls. They haul themselves up on the beach, dig a hole about 18 inches deep, lay their eggs and then cover them up. In about three hours they are heading back to the water. I love walking on the beach in the morning and looking for fresh turtle tracks coming from the water and then going back out again.

Here on the gulf coast the most common sea turtle is the Loggerhead. We have a very active ‘turtle patrol’ group that stakes the nests so they aren’t disturbed. In about 60 days the hatchlings make their way to the water at night and swim out to the seagrass beds where they live for several years. These little babes weigh less than an ounce and are only two inches long. Their sex is determined during incubation by the nest temperature: boys like it cool and girls like it hot.

Digging up the nest

A few days after they leave, the patrol digs up the nest and counts the eggshells. Bob and I attended an excavation this summer and were delighted to find that about ten little turtles were stuck in the nest. This gave us a rare chance to see them! They were all released a few hours later under the cover of darkness.

This past summer there were 370 nests on Anna Maria Island alone. From those nests, approximately 23,178 little hatchlings headed into the gulf. Scientists estimate that only 1 in 1,000-10,000 hatchlings live to adulthood so it’s a pretty tough life. Adult turtles can grow over 3 feet long and weigh 200–300 pounds. Sea turtles live their entire lives in the ocean and only the females come ashore to nest.

All sea turtles are endangered but I’m thrilled to see that so many are nesting in my own backyard. Perhaps next year I can join the turtle patrol. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Cats and Grounding

January 8, 2014

If you’ve ever had a cat, you probably noticed how sensitive they are to energy or changes in energy. This is a big part of who felines are and it rules much of their world.

Many cats feel that their job is to keep the energy clean in a household. They are constantly moving around adjusting the vibration. Some dislike a particular person because their energy is too chaotic or disrupts what the cat has established. Other cats can sense and/or see spirit or vortex energies. There are also some cats that don’t pay attention to any of these things, but in general cats are concerned and involved in the energetics of their home and body.

It is not uncommon for me to get calls about cats that are anxious, aggressive, restless, or depressed. Very often these cats only live indoors and they tell me that they have a build up of internal energy that they have no outlet for. It is very important for these cats to get outside and touch the earth. This grounds their energy and lets the excess drain off. Of course it is also a wonderful way to stimulate the senses, but the grounding aspect is frequently overlooked.

I realize that some areas are not safe for cats to roam and in these instances there are a few alternatives. Some cats take well to walking on a harness and leash. It takes time and training indoors, but once they are comfortable you can begin walking them outside. When I was on my road trip, I saw many cats in RV parks that walked on leashes.

They can also spend time outside in an enclosure. This might be something you make yourself, or there are many companies that make kits to assemble. There are also ways to fence your yard so that your cat can’t get out and other critters can’t get in. Here are links to several cat enclosures or systems:

http://www.purrfectfence.com/

http://www.cagesbydesign.com/t-suncatchercat.aspx

http://www.petenclosuresnorthwest.com/

http://www.catiospaces.com/

http://catfencein.com/

http://www.catfence.com/order.htm

If you have a cat that needs to touch the earth for his or her mental and physical wellbeing, try one of these ways to help them do that.