Animal Reiki: Exploring the Possibilities of Reiki Healing for Pets
What is Animal Reiki?
Animal Reiki is simply Reiki applied to animals. Then you may ask, well what is Reiki? As I shared in my recent blog, Reiki: A Japanese Modality for Stress Reduction and Healing, Reiki is a Japanese biofield/energy healing technique that promotes stress reduction, deep relaxation, and healing by channeling universal life energy and supporting good health. Although Reiki technology has existed for thousands of years, the modern version of Reiki that is practiced today traces its roots back to Mikao Usui, aka Usui Sensei. In 1922 he established the Reiki Institute in Tokyo. He developed a system that also included the training of new Reiki practitioners. Another important figure in the history of Reiki is Mrs. Takata, aka Takata Sensei. She is credited with simplifying the administration of Reiki and by living in Hawaii, brought the technology to the west. The energy channeled by a practitioner to a client is then used by the client for self-healing. How does the client do this? By simply being receptive so that the energy can flow to where it is most needed, realigning energy imbalances caused by injuries and/or trauma.
All living things have chi running through them. So it should be no surprise that animals, four-legged, winged, and others, can benefit from Reiki. According to the American Kennel Club (AKC), Reiki has been shown to support animals in the following ways:
Stress relief and reduction of anxiety;
Coping with illness and surgery recovery;
End-of-life care.
How Is Animal Reiki Different from Human Reiki?
Human Reiki is administered by laying the hands of the Reiki practitioner either directly onto the client during a treatment session or by hovering the hands over the client’s body. The practitioner is a channel of this energy, which s/he transfers through her/his hands. Since Reiki is about transferring energy, it can even be channeled remotely in what is called distance Reiki treatment. Although there are hand positions for applying Reiki by direct touch on animals, I have found that it generally doesn’t work very well to try and conduct an entire Reiki session with direct contact for the following reasons:
they are fearful and want physical distance;
they won’t stay still for that long;
the energy is too intense.
So How Do I Offer Animal Reiki?
As a Reiki practitioner, I apply a combination of techniques. I still prepare myself and the space as I would for a human. This includes both my sacred prayer and applying the sacred Reiki symbols to the space and myself. I also maintain a heightened meditative state of mind, filtering out my own preconceptions and expectations, which need constant monitoring. From there one of the most important techniques I apply is from the Let Animals Lead® method, created by Kathleen Prasad, whereby Animal Reiki is defined as animal-guided healing through meditation. As I sit in meditation, offering Reiki energy, the animal decides whether or not to make physical contact. The animal decides where and when s/he receives touch.
In my meditative mind, I channel love and compassion for the animal to establish an energetic connection. Once I connect with the animal’s biofield, I sense the type of Reiki energy that would be most supportive and simply offer it through the appropriate Reiki symbols. If the animal shares where there is an energetic imbalance, I may visualize a supportive hand position on that part of the animal's body from Harriette-Rose Malone and Molly Malone’s book, Animal Reiki Master Teacher Manual.
A typical session lasts about 30 minutes. The animal decides when the session is over. They show me in different ways when the time is up. As an animal Reiki practitioner, here are some of the changes I have observed, which have signaled that the animal is ending the session:
Animal becomes more active, almost like waking up from a nap;
There is a subtle shift in energy;
Animal may wriggle on their back
What are the Benefits of Animal Reiki?
Reduces Stress
All of my animal Reiki clients’ guardians note an increased calmness, even after just one Reiki session. This is particularly noteworthy in an animal shelter setting where dogs have to navigate a lot of stimuli (other dogs barking, people coming and going, etc) and maybe adjusting to a new and foreign setting. Common observations include: decreased jumping and mouthiness, less pacing in the kennel, and reduced “stranger danger” reactions. For a shelter dog, these are key characteristics not only for his/her well-being and coping with shelter life but also to increase the odds of finding a forever home.
Eases Pain & Support Recovery
We have evidence that animal Reiki can help address pain, such as from arthritis, as well as post-op recovery. As mentioned earlier, the AKC has found that animal Reiki can help animals recover from surgery. Unfortunately, there is not sufficient funding to conduct the types of clinical trials there are for addressing the human condition. However, we have anecdotal evidence to support that animal Reiki can aid in easing pain, as well. I had a six-year-old client at the animal shelter. She had arthritis in her hind quarters and so tended not to go for very long walks. After one Reiki treatment, a volunteer, who didn’t know that she had received Reiki, was stunned to see her run and jump the next day. Monitoring her behavior, we found that the final series of 4 Reiki treatments increased her mobility for 2 months.
Provides Palliative Care
Whereas we generally learn about research developments from what is done to animals first, in the case of Reiki, it is often the reverse. According to research published by the National Institute of Health, palliative medicine and complementary therapies (CTs) have developed within the NHS as parallel philosophies of care. As a result, the last decade has seen an increase in the integration and usage of CTs, as adjunct therapies to conventional medical treatment. Documented benefits of relaxation, decreased perception of pain, reduced anxiety and improved sense of well-being have been shown to enable an enhanced quality of life, where curative treatment is no longer an option. Reiki is a more recent addition to the range of CTs available to cancer patients.
Anecdotally, I can share that I had a cat as a client, who was struggling in the last weeks of his life. With regular Reiki treatments, his guardian noticed an increase in appetite and improved mobility. As we want to support our animals in the final chapter of their lives, providing them with the type of care that makes them more comfortable and improves their quality of life is incredibly valuable.
What is Animal Communication?
How Do Animals Communicate with One Another
When we think about how animals communicate with one another, we may think about how our pets communicate with us. In the wild, the ways and reasons for communication are a bit more complex. According to The Animal Care, there are 4 common types of animal communication that animals use to express themselves, which are:
Auditory communication involving sound
Visual communication involving gestures, posture, etc.
Tactile communication involving touch
Chemical communication involving pheromone
Usually, animal communication occurs between the same members of a species, but it can also take place between different species. Of course, humans and pets are common examples of that. Some animals are very social and expressive, while some could be extremely lone, communicating only among their own members of the species. Some animal species rely on one method of the methods mentioned above to communicate with each other, while some species use more than just one. Interesting facts about animals are that they use communication to express their affection, warn off of threats, or attract a mate.”
Let’s look at some interesting examples. According to HowStuffWorks, “Species often rely on verbal and nonverbal forms of communication, such as calls; non-vocal auditory outbursts, like the slap of a dolphin's tail on the water; bioluminescence; scent marking; chemical or tactile cues; visual signals and postural gestures. Fireflies and peacocks are classic examples of brilliant bioluminescence and impressive visual displays, respectively. Ants use chemical cues (in a process called chemoreception) to help guide their foraging adventures, as well as for other activities like telling friend from foe, connecting with new mates, and marshaling the colony's defenses.”
In new research published in Nature Communications, researchers found that turtles, along with other understudied animals, do in fact communicate using a diverse repertoire of vocal sounds. The study’s authors suggest that their finding may push the origins of acoustic communication back in time to the common ancestor of all lunged vertebrates. For me, this is a reminder to respect all sentient beings.
Animal Communication with Humans
When we think about how animals communicate with humans, most of us would probably list the first three ways, mentioned above, that animals communicate with one another. I thought it would be interesting to also know about the latest technology that is being developed to advance animal communication with humans.
A recent Guardian article, Call of the wild: the new science of human-animal communication, explains how technology is helping to expand how animals and humans can communicate. “Experts at the animal-computer interaction lab at the Open University (OU) are close to finding out. There, animal behavior specialists work with designers to create the kind of technology that helps animals communicate and work alongside humans more naturally – to raise the alarm if an owner falls ill, put a wash on, or switch out the lights for an owner who has a disability.”
Today, AI is being used to study animal communication, with researchers aiming to decipher animal languages in support of conservation and sustainability efforts. A World Economic Forum’s article, How artificial intelligence is helping us decode animal languages, shares “We are on the cusp of applying for the advances we are seeing in the development of AI for human language to animal communication,” said Katie Zacarian, the CEO and co-founder of Earth Species Project (ESP), an organization that uses AI to decode animal communication. “With this progress, we anticipate that we are moving rapidly toward a world in which two-way communication with another species is likely.”
Animal Communication Telepathy
Animal communication telepathy has always existed through time. What is communication telepathy? Wikipedia’s definition of telepathy is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. As shared in, Speaking With Other Animals through Intuitive Interspecies Communication: Towards Cognitive and Interspecies Justice, “while there are many books written by animal communicators, there is little scholarly research on them or their practices. At the time of writing, and after an extensive literature search, we identified just three research papers and two unpublished dissertations, from diverse fields. ”The field of intuitive interspecies communication (IIC) is nascent. That said, we have case studies and anecdotal information. Though I am personally curious about discoveries of further research and there are segments of society that will dismiss the experiences of animal communicators until there is further peer-reviewed research on the subject, we continue to help animals.
During my animal Reiki sessions, my four-legged clients communicate with me through my sense of sight and bodily sensations. We all have one or more dominant senses and it is through them that we can receive messages and information. I am often shown movie clips, or scenes, often explaining the animal’s trauma or a spirit animal that comes through to support my animal client. I also often sense where there is physical imbalance by experiencing sensations in my own body. Anxiety often comes up as tightness in my chest, sorrow as literal heartache. I may sense tightness in a part of the body, which I later discover after talking to the animal’s guardian that there is an old injury. Overall, I am an active listener to what they have to communicate.
I loved this quote from Clare Mancini with UK’s Open University, “ understanding animals better has wider moral implications. We tend only to listen to our own voice and that’s dangerous. We have forgotten we are part of something bigger – and if we don’t adjust our perspective, we are eventually going to destroy the planet.”
Animal Communication Examples
In a 2016 study, the participating animal communicators were also asked to include a standard question about potential mouth pain in their communications with the horse (clients).. In comparison with a subsequent dental exam conducted by a veterinarian who had remained uninformed of the outcomes of the communications, Erickson et al. (2016) found that, in all cases, the animal communicators reported correctly which of the horses were in need of dental treatment.
I had a Reiki dog client named Porcha. I knew that she had come from an abusive life on the streets with a cruel man. During our first session, she just wined and was fearful. Offering Reiki energy for emotional release, I also energetically communicated, “I understand” as a way to try and console her. She immediately communicated that there was no way I could understand what it is like to be a homeless dog with a cruel homeless man. I quickly apologized and communicated that I am here to be her witness. Her energy shifted and over the course of 3 days, her whining became less with each session and she became more relaxed and calm. A couple of spirit guide dogs came through during her sessions for support. They too lived on the streets but in better circumstances. In those sessions, I was merely the channel for the love and compassion that only those beings could provide to Porcha. Watch the clip below of us after one of her sessions.
Can Reiki Work on Dogs and Other Animals?
Energy flows through all living things so regardless of the species, Reiki can benefit any animal. I have worked on dogs, cats, and sheep. Many other Reiki practitioners have worked on fish, horses, etc. When we look at all living things as energy, it is less about how we are designed and looks like than whether there is energetic balance.
I currently volunteer at a local animal shelter and work with dogs who are experiencing the stress of shelter life, as well as carrying trauma from their past situation. The effects of the Reiki sessions are usually apparent after just one session. There is a marked reduction in the behaviors that dogs under stress often exhibit: mouthiness, jumping, and fear of strangers. I usually work with dogs for 3 consecutive days so that they have the energetic realignment that they need. Of course, if they let me know that they are ok after one session, we stop there. Shelter staff monitors the dogs’ behavior and we bring dogs back into rotation if they need additional support. Change can be stressful for any sentient being. To support dogs after they’ve been adopted, I offer Reiki at a discounted rate to support the transition to their forever homes.
Contact SoundWellness Today to Learn More About Animal Reiki and Communication for Your Pets!
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About SoundWellness
Monique Derfuss is the founder and President of SoundWellness offering gong sound therapy, Reiki, Kundalini Yoga, and meditation. Her wellness business is based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and has helped thousands of people over the past 6+ years move beyond only taking care of their physical bodies to taking a more holistic approach to their health by integrating support of their energetic, or subtle, bodies. Check out what others have said about her services.
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