In this Article:
- How can an intuitive connection enhance our understanding of dogs?
- What challenges are involved in forming a deep bond with a Huskie?
- How does intuition play a role in managing canine behavior?
- What lessons can be learned from a close relationship with a dog?
- How can pet owners apply intuitive insights to better understand their dogs?
My Intuitive Life Journey With a Huskie
by Ren Hurst.
Huskies display more wolf-like traits and behaviors than any other breed of dog. They are notorious for being difficult to contain, and they are a common sight at animal shelters. On local social media groups, I regularly read of huskies escaping and just shake my head with humbled knowing.
I am certainly not the first or last person to experience the havoc of these Houdini dogs, but I felt alone on an island of confusion because of what my journey with the horses had exposed. Training animals was no longer an option, and I couldn’t see how to bridge what I was doing with the horses to another species, even though my heart knew the work was the same.
Where Did You Go?
I could always hear my heart beating any time the search was on. Usually, there would be some clue as to which direction she ran in, but mostly I would be driving up and down dirt roads looking for any sign of Denali until she’d suddenly appear. Sometimes, I’d think I would see a ghostly flash of white through the trees, and it would make me change direction. More times than I could call coincidence, those moves would often lead me right to her, though there was no way what I had seen previously could have actually been real.
My mind and body started communicating in ways I did not understand, but somehow knew to trust, and it slowly began to get easier to find her.
Once I was more familiar with my local environment, I started looking for Denali on foot whenever she’d take off. It took about six months of living in nature before I finally began to feel part of it.
When she would run at that stage, I’d be right behind her, often barefoot. A tuft of hair on sagebrush; a paw print in the dirt; subtle changes in the air I couldn’t make sense of—chasing her brought out something primal in me. I had instincts I hadn’t consciously felt before, power derived from my own clear perceptions and my legs beneath me.
I experienced exhilaration at levels I had only previously known from the back of a horse or in the arms of a lover, but for the first time, it was coming from and through me alone.
As frustrating as it could be to have this feeling associated with anxiously searching for my dog, I loved closing in on the connection to her and bringing her home again and again. Often, she barely had time to enjoy her escape before I was upon her. It started to feel like some twisted game.
The thrill of the chase was always short-lived, though, and never outweighed the burden of responsibility I felt toward keeping her safe. I was heavily torn between overcontrolling her and not knowing how to give her freedom in a responsible way.
For weeks, the escapes subsided, but in reality, I had merely become hyperaware of her every move as a means to avoid the anxiety that accompanied searching for her. I didn’t take my awareness off her. After a while, though, my attention relaxed, and she made her move.
I was in my trailer working, when suddenly, I felt the urge to look out the window. Denali’s white tail was swaying to and fro as she trotted nonchalantly toward the road. I threw open the door and said in a stern but calm voice, “Denali. I see you.”
She stopped and casually looked back at me over her shoulder. I stared back at her. She sighed and slowly turned around to walk over to me. We stared at one another for a few moments, before she sulked back to lie down where I last remembered seeing her.
Something was new. Now, not only could I track her effortlessly when she left, but my body had also started warning me before she took off. Of course, I knew Denali had only listened because she knew I would find her and bring her back.
What I really wanted was to keep her from wanting to leave in the first place. Given the stress her escapes caused, I could at least appreciate that some control was better than risking her life, but I knew there was so much more to understand.
My Dog’s Great Cunningness
What I didn’t count on was the cunningness of my dog. Every moment I was spending keeping some of my attention on her, she was doing the very same thing toward me, waiting for her next opportunity to run.
Even if she could not see me, she somehow knew the exact moment when I became distracted enough for her to slip away undetected; almost as if she could energetically feel our connection weaken just enough to disappear unnoticed.
I did notice, though, very quickly. For me, it was as if I could feel the distance between us, and when it became too much, I was on her heels again and trucking her home.
One day I had to leave Denali in someone else’s care Taking her with me wasn’t an option as I needed to be dog-free to take care of some things.
Since I had no way to contain her, I left her harness on, with a 25-foot-long rope attached, and reiterated to the person watching her that she would run if given the opportunity. They must not have believed me. I returned home to find Denali missing, dragging a rope, with fast-fading sunlight and no idea where to start the search.
Searching for Clues
In the past, I at least had clues about where to pick up the trail to find her. This time, my anxiety was in overdrive, overpowering my instincts. After examining the perimeter of the property I did not feel any hits as to which direction to go.
When she didn’t return after dark, I knew that the rope must have gotten caught on something and that made her vulnerable to the countless coyotes we shared the area with. Overwhelmed by emotion, I shut down, crying myself into an exhaustion-induced sleep. I felt that I had failed her, and that my failure had sealed her fate.
Here I Am… Come Get Me
That night, I had a vivid dream, in which Denali guided me to the neighbor’s property east of us. I could hear and feel everything that was happening around and inside their home, and I was afraid.
I woke up with a jolt just as the sun was offering barely enough light to see. I jumped out of bed, and ran to the neighbor’s property. There I found Denali, lying contentedly in the dirt and staring right at me as if she were expecting my arrival.
She was indeed stuck, less than a hundred yards from home, her lead tangled up in sagebrush, but completely at ease.
Did my dog communicate her whereabouts via the dreamworld? I couldn’t know. What I did know is how grateful I was to have found her alive and well. I got rid of that damn rope.
Overwhelmed and Misunderstanding What Was Happening
A friend of mine was visiting and doing some filming, when, while engaged in conversation with her about the horses, my body gave me the warning sign that Denali was about to take off.
I looked up just in time to see her moving toward the open wilderness, but this time, instead of calmly addressing her, I yelled out her name in a bit of a panic. She stopped and looked at me like before, but on this occasion, instead of turning around and coming back, she fully considered my “request,” then made a mad dash for rugged freedom.
My sandals flew off my feet as I took off after her. My emotional experience was caught somewhere between embarrassment, seething anger, and the full-blown bliss of running barefoot and wild, but overall, there was the definite frustration of not understanding why she deliberately ignored me.
Feeling Inner Calm or Outer Stress
The only difference between my first experience catching her about to leave and the next one was how I felt inside. On the day she had listened to me, I had been completely calm. I had been home alone and committed to going after her, so there was no reason to feel any stress.
This time, I had guests and was in the middle of something important, and the last thing I wanted to do was be witnessed having to chase down my dog after she clearly demonstrated a complete disregard for my authority.
Ha! As if I had ever had any authority over Denali. When she listened to me, it felt like a fluke, if not a miracle. That changed when I realized she may have been responding to my emotional state more than my words.
Of course, that was it. I had been using energy to manipulate horses forever, why on earth would I think it would be any different with dogs? Anything that even remotely resembled manipulation had become cringe-worthy, so the concept simply hadn’t crossed my mind.
Manipulating Energy to Control Animals… Not!
Manipulating my energy to control my dog was going to be a problem, even if it was in her best interest.
However, I could at least pay attention and see if my energy really was the deciding factor between whether or not she listened to me, assuming I would even be able to control it when the pressure was on. At this stage, it was merely something I was beginning to take notice of.
Between all the time I was spending with Denali, or keeping tabs on her, and experiencing some consistency with her coming to me when asked, I decided it was time to see if we could go on some adventures together.
I figured maybe if I got her out a bit, she’d be less inclined to take off on her own from home. The only challenge was going to be how awful it was being dragged by the other end of her leash.
Learning to Trust
When I used to start horses under saddle and then later go bridleless, there always came that moment where I just had to trust that I had put in the right amount of effort, so that when I swung my leg over their back or took the bridle off their face, nothing bad would happen.
The first time I took the leash off Denali felt exactly the same way. Granted, I chose a hiking path that I believed would set us up for success. The trail was narrow, circling around a cinder cone mountain with a pretty steep grade on either side of it.
It would not have been terribly easy for her to go off trail, and there was nowhere to go but up ahead of me. I took a deep breath, and unclipped the leash.
At first, her excitement propelled her up the trail like a white rocket, but she was barreling back in my direction in no time, and over the course of the next three hours, she stayed fairly close. I seemed to be able to more or less keep her close as long as I had my attention on her.
It didn’t change a thing at home, though, and I was just about at the end of my rope with how to end the endless escapes.
Teaching Me and Showing Me The Way
After nearly two years in the desert, a big change finally came. My first book was published, and I purchased a property to start a more formal and public horse sanctuary just over the border in Oregon. We would have a real home again, and it looked like my dream was about to come true.
Of course, Denali had other plans. A big house, plenty of room to run, and tons of visitors to adore her were not enough to curb her solo adventures.
Instead, she ran until I began to find in myself what had drawn me to her in the first place. She was always teaching, never really going anywhere; just showing me the way.
Copyright ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
Adapted with permission.
Article Source:
BOOK: The Wisdom of Wildness
The Wisdom of Wildness: Healing the Trauma of Domestication
by Ren Hurst.
How can we reclaim our wild soul and approach life with authenticity and emotional maturity? Looking deeply into the nature of domestication and humanity’s relationship to other animals, Ren Hurst finds our own domestication—and our resultant disconnection from nature—to be the root trauma for much of the human experience, which we seem to perpetuate by domesticating others.
Ren offers another path: she reverse-engineered the conditioning process that leads to domestication and discovered a practical road map for deprogramming and undomesticating yourself in order to heal, restore connection, and reclaim the innate wisdom of wildness within.
Click here for more info and/or to order this paperback book. Also available as an Audiobook and as a Kindle edition.
About the Author
Ren Hurst is an author, mentor, tracker, and guide helping people address the trauma of domestication. After 20 years of being a professional horsewoman, Ren produced a body of work called Sanctuary13 to help people restore connection to their most authentic, wild human animal nature. This work is now available and offered through the non- profit, Wild Wisdom, Inc. as part of their mission to address the trauma of domestication. To support Wild Wisdom, Inc. and access more Sanctuary13™, please visit www.undomesticate.me
Visit Ren's website: RenderMeWild.com/
Article Recap:
This article delves into the experiences of forming an intuitive connection with a Huskie, revealing the complexities of canine behavior and the power of intuition in understanding and managing these behaviors. It discusses the journey of navigating challenges, such as the dog's instinct to escape and the emotional dynamics that influence their actions, ultimately leading to a deeper understanding and bond between human and dog. The piece underscores the importance of intuition in recognizing and responding to a dog's needs, promoting a harmonious and fulfilling relationship.
