I’ve been very quiet online, I’ve not been blogging or vlogging much, or otherwise sharing posts – yet it’s not that there’s little to share. On the contrary, I have so much to share that right now I don’t know where to even start.
Ever since the move from the farm in South Africa to our new home here in Panama – so much unexpected points have been opening up and I’ve been flagging so many points and processes as ‘things to share’ inside myself, literally accumulating them and not ‘finding the right time’ to share them. Now with a new change on the horizon (not moving to a new country again, don’t worry 😊 ) – I’m really seeing it’s time to start sharing what I’ve walked so far, cause only more points will be opening up with the change ahead. I was watching a tidying house episode with Marie Kondo and in this episode a couple was getting ready to welcome a baby in their house and seeing the need to really declutter – and I related so much to that point of ‘time to make space NOW’ lol – cause it will only become more chaotic and more daunting if I keep accumulating without sharing. So, I turned off the episode and started writing here.
I would prefer for some reason to make videos for these points – to speak them and share them in that way – but things rarely align for me in a way where I can just ‘quickly make a video’ – and really needed to make this first step and commitment to starting the sharing process by writing this, to get this process moving.
So, let’s start at the beginning. And right as I look at ‘what the beginning would be’ in this case – I have this huge sadness welling up, my eyes become teary and I kind of really want to stop and ‘leave this point for another time and start with something else’.
The beginning for me as the first point I flagged as wanting/needing to share – is the process of deciding whether or not to bring my dogs with me to Panama. I didn’t bring them.
We had 6 dogs – 2 black labs, 2 maltese crosses and 2 pyrenean mountain dogs. Three of them we put down for medical reasons in the months before we decided to move to Panama. I am really bad with gauging time frames, so I really can’t say how long before, but there wasn’t too much time between each of them. Blackie had hip problems and was in severe pain due to arthritis, Chimera suddenly passed away from a rare and very aggressive form of tickbite fever and Bumi had to be put down due to a massive cancer growth by her spine that was affecting her qualify of life at a rapid pace. Bumi’s was the last of them to go and her issues only became apparent after we had already decided to move to Panama and that she wouldn’t be coming with.
So, when we were looking at the question of whether or not to bring our dogs, we were looking at 4 dogs – Boeboe, Nibble, Snowy and Bumi. Boeboe was an old boy and going blind, and because of that had also been showing more anxiety than he normally would. For him we quickly saw it would be unnecessary to put him through such a big move at this stage in his life. Nibble was also an older dog and like his brother, had hip problems that were becoming more prominent with his pain levels increasing, so for him as well, we decided not to bring him early on.
Bumi and Snowy were the tough ones for me. They were these huge white fluffy dogs that gave the best cuddles – they were sweet and nutty in equal measures and, at the time, they didn’t have ‘issues’ aside from food allergies. They weren’t young dogs, but they still had a lot of life in them.
We wanted to bring them, we really did, but we were also very concerned about doing so. We didn’t know what we were walking into – we were going to travel to the other side of the world with our 2 year old and a few suitcases, to a country we hadn’t been to before, where a different language is spoken, and start a new life there. I wanted to bring Bumi and Snowy into this new chapter with me – I wanted them to stay in my life, and I definitely wanted their support in the face of this huge change. I knew that’s what I wanted for me… but what about them? The question I needed to ask was not whether or not I wanted to bring them, the question I needed to ask and answer was: what would be best for them? Very different question and definitely much harder to answer.
Bumi and Snowy had a very grounded nature – they were SO here and didn’t get caught up in energy too easily, so we knew they could adapt, that if we asked this of them, they would ‘manage’. But still, what was it we were asking of them, how much of that did we truly understand and did we want to ask that of them?
Sunette offered to let us speak with Bumi and Snowy through the portal so we could speak with them directly and ultimately make the decision together. It wasn’t as easy as them telling us ‘this is what we want’ – nope, lol, that would be too easy. The first thing they said is it’s our decision. So, what we did is put everything on the table together with them. For instance, they mentioned they had flown before when they were puppies, so those memories would support for instance in going on a plane again. Honestly, I had completely forgotten about that and hadn’t taken it into account at all, so it was cool they brought it up. We looked at concerns in terms of the climate in Panama, it’s generally always hot and humid here and while we knew there were cooler climates at higher altitudes, we didn’t really have any certainty that that is where we would be living. We looked at a lot of points and they shared for instance also what such a change would be like for them in terms of them not having a mind consciousness system like we do, where we filter information and are only aware of so much happening within us at a time and process things ‘over time’. For them, they experience everything rawly, physically and they experience everything all at the same time, there is no ‘step by step digestion of things’. So – the actual flight, the change, new climate, new food, was an extremely daunting prospect for them. They did share that yes, they would move themselves into the depths of their being and into a quiet to help them stabilize, but despite that, it would be grueling still.
They shared that they were good with either decision – sure, they didn’t ‘want’ to die, but their relationship with death is also much different to ours, they were okay to move on into a new phase. And that if we decided to bring them, then too, they would manage. But then a very specific request came that if we do decide to bring them – they asked that we be absolutely stable for them, to support them in this transition and experience of change where they experience everything so physically and deeply. Honestly, I wanted to say that I could and would be that for them, but at the back of my mind I knew that this is actually what I wanted them to be for me, I wanted them to be that familiar grounding rod as I go through change. In hearing an animal so directly share that they absolutely need us to be that stability for them, I realized I couldn’t guarantee that, not under these circumstances. We were planning that we go first for a few weeks or months to set things up and only if we were satisfied we could bring our dogs over, let them come. Maybe after we’d had some time to settle in and go through an adjustment process ourselves, by the time they’d come we could be that stable point they would need us to be. But in that scenario, they would first be on the farm without us for an extended period of time, which in and of itself would be de-stabilizing for them, and then ask them to, from that already ‘compromised state’ so to say, undergo this big trip. Here they simply said ‘no’, and having a better idea of what that would mean for them from their sharing, we also realized, it wouldn’t be fair to them.
So, we made the unpopular decision to put down our dogs even though we loved them to bits. Every pet owner wants to be able to say they brought their pets with them through such a change. Every pet owner wants to say they treated their animals like they would their children. On the surface, it seems like ‘the right thing to do’ and I’m sure there are many stories of pets that have moved across the world and were fine. But we don’t necessarily understand what we put them through and for what reasons. That being said, every case is different. There’s no ‘one answer fits all’. So, not to say that it’s wrong/evil/selfish to bring your animals when you move to a new country, but just to share more of the points that did go into the decision making and what that decision entailed for us specifically.
Looking back, I don’t regret our decision, having made this move with dogs would have been so much harder on everyone, ourselves, our daughter and most of all the dogs. It’s a completely different country, a completely different climate, different language, food, customs, everything - and we had to figure out and learn as much and as fast as possible, not only for ourselves, we were also preparing the way for 5 other people to join us here.
Of course that doesn’t mean I don’t miss them. Most of the time, I don’t think of them, but when I do, or when I come across a picture of them, or when I dream of them, it still hurts like hell every single time. And it breaks my heart to know that Syntia didn’t know them long enough to even remember them. This was by far one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make – and a loss that I will experience deeply for quite some time still.
For anyone who is faced with similar questions or decisions regarding their pets – you might not have the opportunity we had, to speak with your pets through the portal, but since then some recordings were released on EQAFE that will support with getting a better understanding of an animal’s experience in relation to both death and their relationship with you. Definitely suggest you check these out:
Animal Support Through Life and Death:
How Do Animals Experience Death?