Meet Tilly – Find Out Why She Gets Scared to be in a Crate

Tilly is a 2 1/2 year old rescue. Tilly and her person, Diane, have been together for two years. Tilly is a wonderful dog, however she is afraid of being in a kennel environment and afraid of other dogs. Diane doesn’t know anything about Tilly’s past and she would like Tilly to feel safe and comfortable especially now because she and her husband have a short vacation planned. 

The only thing we know about Tilly’s past is that she was a stray found in Arkansas and she rode a bark bus stray pet transport to Wisconsin.

Tilly loves people but has anxiety around some dogs. Her people want her to know that when they take her to the groomer or doggie daycare it is just to help her be more healthy and happy. They want her to know that they will never leave her, they will always come and get her.

As I checked in with Tilly about her fears, I felt that she was ungrounded. I explained that it is very important for us to be in our bodies. When we are ungrounded, it is easy for anxiety to take hold of us and when we are ungrounded, it is hard for us to shed that anxiety. 

With Tilly, I felt it would be good to begin in a neutral space so I showed her a white blanket and asked her if she would like to lay on it. The white blanket represents the White Light of God. It is pure healing Light. My blanket did not suit her so she brought in her own neutral space in the shape of a large piece of plywood.

The first thing that we did was begin to ground Tilly’s energy. We started at the crown of her head. I imagined that we were bringing the White Light energy down through our crowns. We breathed deeply, and imagined the love move down to our Third Eye Chakra. As we moved towards our Throat Chakras, I could feel resistance from Tilly. We breathed and gently stopped there. The throat is about asking for our needs to be met, living our truth, and telling our truth, things like that. 

Here, Tilly showed me a photograph. The photograph revealed that she was locked in her crate (at her first house) for a very long time. She showed me four days, but I think she was exaggerating the time so I would know that she was in there, in her opinion, far too long. She said her legs were stiff when she was let out and that she needed to stretch and stretch and stretch before she could walk away from the crate.  In the photograph, Tilly showed me that she had pooped and peed while she was in her crate. She was absolutely mortified! I asked her if we could allow the anxiety, shame and embarrassment to discharge from this memory. With relief, she agreed.

I explained to Tilly and Diane that we hold everything in our cellular memories, every thought we have, every action we take, everything that was ever said or done to us. It is all recorded. I also explained that we can change the neurological pathways of these memories to release or avoid trauma.

Tilly was still willing to shift this memory and heal the trauma that had manifested in her body as a result of this experience. I asked Tilly if she were able to go back and change the memory, what would a new memory look like? Tilly showed me another photograph. This one was of the crate with the door open and White Healing Light surrounding it. Tilly said she would find a way to open the door to her crate and set herself free. She would then be able to relieve herself in an appropriate place. In the photograph, she was trotting out of the crate.

Now that we had the ingredients for a “new” memory, we went to the neutral space on the plywood platform and looked at the photograph of the locked crate with the pee and poop. On the platform with Tilly and I, were Diane, her husband, and their 10 year old daughter. I asked Tilly what she would like to do next. I saw us ripping the photograph of the old memory into eight pieces before we put it into a brass bowl. To cleanse the memory and bring it to neutral, we burned the photograph in the bowl. 

I saw a triangle with a round circle in the middle of it. The triangle represented Diane as the nurturer and wise one, dad as strength and courage and their daughter as the innocent one. The circle in the middle represented Tilly. Tilly also saw the triangle and the circle. She said she knows she is home. She is safe. She is loved. Forever.

I asked Tilly if there is another photograph that she would like to show me. She did. Again, I saw a photo of her in her crate (at her first house). There were two dogs outside of her crate running free and one was barking at her. One dog was about her size and the other was a tiny dog with a shrill bark and “jumpy” energy. 

The larger dog was pretty passive but the small dog was nippy and he was antagonizing Tilly. This could explain why she is afraid of some dogs and not others.

I asked Tilly if she was ready to release the trauma from this memory so she could shift the neurological pathways and balance cellular memory here. I started to rip the photo of Tilly and the dogs outside her crate, but I couldn’t rip it any further than 1/4 of the way.  I could see that Tilly was not ready and I didn’t want to force anything on her, so we went back to grounding her energy.

As we moved from her Throat to her Heart Chakra, I could feel more resistance. It felt like trying to pump air into an already inflated bike tire. The plunger on the bike pump would not go down. Another explanation is that it felt like holding two opposing magnets next to each other. We stayed at Tilly’s Heart and looked at the photo of the dogs outside the crate again. The word “forgiveness” came to me. We ask for forgiveness not always because others deserve forgiveness but because we deserve peace. Tilly and I asked for forgiveness.

Tilly allowed me to rip the photo further so it was almost torn in 1/2. We breathed. I told Diane to breathe deeply from her belly. She should feel her belly rise and fall. This way of breathing mindfully connects us to ourselves and to each other. As we breathed, Tilly released more anxiety. I knew this to be true because physically, I was yawning. I wasn’t tired, through yawning, I was helping Tilly to release energy that had been stored unnecessarily in her Heart Chakra and it was time to let it go.

Tilly allowed us to ground her energy in even more. We moved from her Heart down to her Solar Plexus Chakra. Her man’s (Diane’s husband) energy of strength and courage came in from the triangle and circle that I had seen earlier. Diane’s husband assisted Tilly in finding her own courage and he also helped her find her creativity.

We moved to Tilly’s  Sacral Chakra. Just below the naval. Tilly allowed us to settle there for a moment and bring in love. Next, we moved to her Root Chakra at the base of her tail. We talked about feeling safe with her people and safe with the three cats that live with her. Her tribe. Our Root Chakra is about feelings of safety and security with our families, friends and community, our tribe.

We moved Tilly’s energy down her legs, ankles and paws. We sent roots out of the bottom of her feet and into the earth. The roots went down, down, down into the center of the earth where they wrapped around a clear quartz crystal ball. We were at the center of the earth, the heartbeat of the Mother. As we went back up the roots we imagined life giving and life affirming blood pumping back up the roots like blood pumping through our arteries, our veins and our capillaries. We wound those roots back up through the earth, through Tilly’s  paws, her ankles and legs and then anchored them in the Root Chakra.

Again we looked at the photograph of Tilly in her crate and the two dogs outside, the smaller one antagonizing her. We ripped the photograph a little more. It’s almost ripped in half now and we stopped there. I am so proud of Tilly for moving through so much anxiety and being willing to release and shift the cellular memory and  the neurological pathways from her brain to her heart. We can work on this some more during a later consultation, but for now Tilly can be extremely proud of her progress! 

Before we completed our session, we talked about Tilly’s family going on vacation soon and that they will be gone for seven “sleeps.” The animals don’t understand the concept of time the way that humans do, so I use the word “sleeps” to convey how many times the sun will rise and set, and how many moons there will be. Diane wanted me to explain to Tilly that many of their other family members, people that she knows will be coming to stay at her house with her. Diane wants Tilly to stay home so that she feels safe in her own house while they are away. 

Diane wanted me to explain to Tilly that there could be too much stimulation for her if she goes on vacation with them and they don’t want Tilly to be afraid of being left behind at the vacation spot. 

Diane told me that she would keep me informed as to how Tilly is doing and if need be, she would schedule three 10 Minute Check-ins for Tilly with me if Tilly shows any signs of stress. 

Enjoy the summer! Tilly!

Photo by Brian Brxtn on Unsplash