Do Dead People Walk Their Dogs? (12 page)

God’s got a
lot of secrets and that’s not one I’ve been given the answer to, but I can tell you that I have heard some stories that lead me to believe that at the very least, our pets can act somewhat like our guardian angels and human spirits on the Other Side, in that they have a hand in sending a new friend our way. Sometimes they have enough of a connection to us that they are able to let us know what’s going on, when a new pet is coming so we can keep our eyes open.

After my first book came out, I was at the Rockaway Mall and I went into Book World. I always liked to stop in whatever bookstore I’m near and be sure they have it—I’m so proud of it. I saw a guy who worked there and I started to ask, “Do you have
Do Dead People…
?” He says, “Stop right there—we just got a shipment in. I’m just opening the box.” I told him, “Oh, that’s okay, I wasn’t looking for it, I just wanted to be sure you had it—that’s my book!” He says, “Oh, my god, you are, like, the most famous person in Boonton!” That cracked me up. But I’ll take it—it might be a small pond, but I’m the big fish! Anyway, we got to chatting a bit and I told him that for the book I was working on, I planned to put in a lot of stories about pets because so many people asked me this kind of question. He said, “Really? Well, I gotta tell you about my cat. My cat was more than just a pet; she was everything to me. But when she was eighteen years old, she got sick and I had to make the very hard decision to have her put down. I just felt terrible about it, but I couldn’t stand to have her suffer. It was just the kindest thing to do, even if it killed me. That night I had a dream that my cat was sitting at the end of my bed. The dream was so real, and in it my cat told me, ‘In six months I’m coming back.’ She said, ‘I’ll be all black, and I’ll be with my brother.’” Well, six months go by and this gentleman is watching his calendar and he knows it’s time for his cat to return to him if this dream is at all true. So what does he do? He begins checking out all the shelters in the area, one after the other. He told me he literally went to ten different shelters, looking for an all black cat with a brother. Finally, in the last shelter, he finds a pair of cats that fit the description, just like his cat had described to him in his dream—a brother and sister, the sister all black. She needed surgery for a hernia, so nobody wanted to adopt them and take on that expense. Well, he did, and the cats have been with him ever since.

Another amazing story: My friend Barbara is a monkey—that is, according to the Chinese zodiac. She’s also part wood nymph (not to mention, she’s more psychic than most). She lives in Queens, very close to Alley Pond Park, which is mostly woods, and for many years has loved nothing better than taking her dogs for walks along the trails there. Barbara has only one human child, her daughter, but she’s had lots of furry-faced, four-legged children, and that’s really how she feels about them. Where another person might have framed photos of their family, Barbara has framed her favorite pictures of her beloved dogs. When one of her pets crosses over, for her it’s just as crushing as losing a child. A good number of years ago, Barbara had a little mixed terrier with big, brown eyes named Penelope who looked a lot like Dorothy’s Toto. Penelope was a bossy little dog, but well-behaved and a sweetheart. One day in March—March 23, to be exact—when Penelope was eight, Barbara’s daughter was talking with friends in the street in front of their home, and she inadvertently made a motion with her arm, which Penelope understood as “Come.” Sadly, a car was coming and Penelope was hit, and later that night died at the vet’s office. Barbara was just devastated. She decided she could never have another dog because she just couldn’t bear to replace her dear “child.” For ten years, she lived without taking in another pet. Then one night, she had a super-vivid dream. In it, she saw Penelope, who was telling her that it was all right for her to get another dog. She was so moved by the dream that the very next day, which “happened” to be March 23 and Easter Sunday, she put Penelope’s photo in the breast pocket of her blouse, right over her heart, and she and her daughter went to the North Shore Animal League shelter. (She told me that at that time North Shore used to go around to other shelters and take the animals who had outstayed their welcome, the ones who had not been adopted and so were scheduled to be destroyed; so many of the animals there were on their “last chance.”) Amazingly, it was open on Easter Sunday, but given Barbara’s usual family holiday gathering, they only got there in the evening and it was near closing time. Still, they were shown the animals and as they walked, cage to cage, room to room, her daughter would say, “What about that one, Mom? Don’t you think that one is cute?” But Barbara just wasn’t feeling it and kept saying no. Finally they get to the last room—as they walked in, there were cages directly ahead of them, and to the left and right. But suddenly Barbara felt an intense burning on her upper back, right between her shoulder blades, like her back was on fire. It was so intense and strange that she turned to see what might be causing it, and noticed more cages behind her that she hadn’t seen before. Her eyes were drawn immediately to a cage on the top shelf and she saw a dog completely identical to her Penelope—except that this dog was male and had amber eyes. Without even asking a single question about the dog (how old is he? is he in good health?), Barbara walked up to this dog and said, “Do you want to go home with me?” The dog’s lips quivered like he was trying to talk to her, and his eyes communicated, “Yes!” Barbara wasn’t even surprised to learn that this dog, which she named Zachary, had been brought in from another shelter only hours before Barbara and her daughter arrived. On the way home, poor Zachary threw up in the car, but Barbara didn’t care. She said to her daughter, “Just you watch! When we get home, this dog is going to walk right in and act like he’s lived there all his life.” And from her lips to God’s ears, that’s exactly what he did!

Basically, karma is
the process of balancing our negative and positive actions from lifetime to lifetime. We are spiritually “held responsible” for our actions since we have the gift of free will. For the most part, the choices we make are not life or death choices. Sometimes they are, but for the most part they are preferences—we’d rather do this than that. No matter how sneaky you think your own dog or cat is, animals can’t intellectualize about whether a behavior is good or bad, right or wrong. They are simply acting on instinct. Does a cat have a karmic debt for killing a mouse? No. Does a dog have karma to balance if it chews up your favorite shoes? It might seem to us like it
should
, but again, no. If a guy gets eaten by a bear, it is because of the
guy’s
karma that that happened. The bear doesn’t get karma for eating the guy. The only karma our pets have is the karma of unconditional love. The only karma animals in general have is being a gift from God. Just don’t ask me how getting eaten is a gift!

Truly there is
something more to this question than what has been written other places, but I do think it’s a mystery that we won’t get the answer to until we get to the Other Side. There is something so special about this gift of animals to us; they are a real soul connection to God. But I just don’t know specifically what the situation is in regard to the animal’s soul itself. Still, it’s so obvious to anyone who has, for example, a seeing eye dog, or anyone whose pet has alerted them to the smell of gas in their home, or anyone whose pet has come up to them and licked their face in a consoling way when they are going through a divorce. There’s so much love being given. All throughout history we have stories of how someone was injured and some animal went through hell and high water to get them the help they need—way before Timmy and Lassie! God only knows what this connection is. As unsatisfying as this answer is, I just want to say, simply, it’s a gift, and I think those who understand this are truly blessed.

This is a story one of my clients told me: For years, she had had two cats, brothers, but they didn’t look anything alike. One was small and solid black; the other one, named Echo, was an oversized tabby. Because he was so big compared to his brother, she used to tease him—fondly, of course—and call him Double Cat. The smaller brother had passed away three months earlier when one morning around 5, before the sun was even up, she heard Echo making an unusual noise that woke her up. Actually, Echo was having a heart attack, and before she could do anything, he died. As you can imagine, she was really upset. The vet wasn’t even open yet. She called and got the emergency number, but it was past the point when anything could help her cat, so instead she waited until the vet’s business hours and took the body of her deceased pet to be taken care of. She went back home very sadly and lay down on her bed, crying and crying. Suddenly, she realized she was surrounded by an absolutely HUGE light. It got her attention and she stopped crying. In her mind’s eye she saw very clearly the image of a huge, regal lion, which she knew instantly was Double Cat, and she heard the words: “This is who I’ve been all along.” It was an amazing visitation. Her beloved pet was showing her his true divine nature, or soul, if you will—“This is who I’ve been all along”—and she knew that through all the gentle teasing, she had loved him, and that he knew it, and he really
loooooooved
her, with a lion-sized love, in return.

For kids, losing
a pet is often like a dress rehearsal for losing a human loved one. It’s our first time with the experience of not being able to hold on to someone or something we love and who has given us joy and comfort. Even for an adult the loss of a pet can be traumatic, let alone for a child. Whether a pet has been hit by a car or simply died of old age, you can tell a child that God has asked that this pet come home so that He can give it the care that it needs. Tell the child that if he or she asks God to give them a beautiful dream about their pet who has crossed over, He will.

Probably both psychic
and telepathic. Animals are very in tune with us and with each other. And I think we all, maybe even to a greater degree than we are with each other, are in tune with them in return. This is probably because we don’t feel threatened by our pets, so we are more open to them and with them. It’s so true it’s a cliché that our pets (especially dogs—cats can be a little persnickety) give us unconditional love.

I have to say, I’m pretty good at tuning in to people, but nobody beats my very best friend Mushy for tuning in to animals. Mushy (aka Cornelia) and I have been friends since we were nine years old, and I can tell you she is the pet psychic of all time! She is just amazing with animals—growling dogs treat her like the Queen of Sheba—and nothing is more important to her than a creature’s well-being. I recall one time we were visiting Mushy’s mother at Marco Island in Florida. We were on the beach and Mushy saw a seagull stuck in the sand. Its wing was broken. Mushy swung into action—she ran up the beach and got a box from a concession stand, put her towel in the box, and laid the bird in it so gently. We’d never been to the area before, but that didn’t stop Mushy—she found out where there was a vet and we drove there. She told them, “I don’t care what it costs. If you can fix it, fix it. If you can’t fix it, you need to put it down. I don’t want it to suffer anymore!”

For a pet, Mushy’s preference was always for dogs. She had a pair of Siberian huskies—Beau, a male, who we called Bowsy, who she’d bought as a puppy, and a female, Nicky, who she’d rescued after her third home. It had been a real nightmare for poor Nicky. Mushy had found her chained in the basement of some loser’s house. She’d been completely abused. Nicky never really got over it and was always a little gun-shy. But Mushy took her in, gave her a ton of love, and the two huskies were her big buddies until they both eventually crossed over. At different times over the years before, I’d said to her, “Mush, why don’t you get a cat?” but she always said, “Nah, I’m really more of a dog person.” Well, lo and behold, right after her second dog passed away, these two feral cats showed up in her yard like they knew there was a heart open for the taking. But for a long time, they kept their distance. Slowly, slowly, she won them over and got their confidence, and to make a long story short, this pair, Red—a male—and Precious (aka Mookie)—a female—ended up the new pets-in-residence. Red since has crossed over from cancer, but Precious has been with Mushy for over ten years now. It was uncanny. Somehow these cats just knew. It was like a call went out in the wild:
Cornelia D’Nunzio has an opening!
and you didn’t have to tell them twice.

One of my clients who lives in a small apartment building in New York City shared with me a story that really is a great illustration of cats who just “know.” One of her cats had cancer—she was doing all she could for him, but there was a limit to the care she could give. The bottom line was that her cat was dying, so she was just trying to make him as comfortable as possible while he was still on this side. For months he would always be curled up on a pillow, next to her own, on her bed. The building she lived in was near Central Park and there were a lot of animal lovers living there, lots of cats and dogs, and during the time her cat was sick, before he crossed over, it seemed like every cat in her building somehow got loose or “ran away from home” and ended up at her door—at least six cats—which is a little much for a coincidence (and you know what I think of coincidences anyway). She was constantly scooping up cats and returning them to their own apartments. It was like they had come to pay their last respects to her dying cat. Somehow they were all connected; they
knew
what their four-legged neighbor was going through.