animal instincts

Brown saucer eyes and a black button nose were such a contrast to the snowball of fur a friend handed me several years ago. My friend pleaded with me to give the 10-pound puppy a home and it only took one look, eyeball-to-eyeball, and I swallowed the hook, line and sinker without even opening my mouth! I was little aware at the time that instead of doing someone a favor, as I foolishly believed, I was receiving an incredibly rare gift.

She was given the name Astra, meaning ‘star’ and from the beginning was the perfect pet for our little family.

While I was busy making fruit leather snacks, tying shoes, ironing shirts, working for money and developing and making skinfood, Astra, at 115 pounds, was by my side and under my feet every step and misstep along the way. She was strong, funny, instinctual, stubborn, protective and loving…a noble being. Did I mention smart?

Once, Astra carried a newborn mole (in her mouth) a few hundred yards and gently lowered it to the ground at my feet and looked up at me with those big, brown pleading eyes! It took a second for me to get what she wanted. Uh-uh! No! It ain’t happening. I’m not going to take care of one more creature– especially one I know nothing about, I told Astra, raising my voice for emphasis. No way!!!

I gently picked it up, took it back to the bush she’d found it under, laid it down with a prayer for its well being and started back to the garden. Giving me a look that showed her disbelief at my lack of sensitivity, (I swear!), my four-legged Florence Nightingale once again gingerly lifted the orphaned, eyeless creature with her tongue, carried it to the shade of my daughter’s green bean teepee, put it on the ground and laid down beside it. The “Fine, I’ll do it myself!” look she was sending me was hard to miss – and one of the sweetest things I’ve seen.

When Astra developed a tumor at the age of 9, the doctor explained the surgery she needed: If he opened her stomach and found the growth attached to any of her organs, he would simply sew her up and we’d consider the next options, ones I refused to think about. He also explained that as large as the tumor was, she might not make it through the surgery at all.

By the time I finally got to bring her home a few days later, I was ecstatic – she’d made it! Sure she had a 13’ incision down the middle of her tummy, but no organs were affected, she was still with me and I could’ve danced for joy had she not been in horrible pain. Even though I knew a wound has to heal from the inside out, it was so hard to wait. I wanted to put skinfood on the painful incision, knowing it would not only ease Astra’s pain, but it would help fight infection and speed the healing process. That was the crunch – didn’t want to heal the outside incision before the inside trauma had recovered.

When her moans made it impossible for me to wait any longer, I opened the jar of skinfood dedicated to her and swiped a bit of it out with my finger. Even as careful as I was, Astra flinched and yelped the instant the skinfood barely touched her and I immediately abandoned the idea. The wound was still too tender.

But as I reached for a towel to wipe the skinfood off, Astra raised her head and in one swoop, licked the skinfood right off my finger. Amazed, I watched as she started licking the incision. I got more out; again she took it with her tongue and continued to coat the entire cut. Glory be! Once that was done, she laid her head down and sighed deeply. I was also relieved ….but more awed by the implications of what I had just witnessed. She knew!! Not only did she know what I’d been trying to do, but she knew skinfood would indeed help! What an amazing confirmation for skinfood – from the animal kingdom no less, from one who lives instinctually…like, wow!

After a few days of repeating this process, Astra was up and about exploring the world like nothing had ever happened. The doctor was amazed with her rapid healing and I had a new confidence about the healing powers of skinfood and the amazing instincts of animals. Thank you my loving companion!

 with love, Peggy