A Tribute to General

 

I started my career in the healing arts because of my dogs.  I was an artist by profession, with a deep longing to help animals.  I didn’t want to be a veterinarian or even want to heal their wounds; I have an aversion to blood, unsightly things and the thought of dealing with any of that was absolutely not on my agenda.  At one time, while recovering from a very serious injury, I experienced the work of a few gifted “healers” and I longed to know what they knew, not because I wanted to help other people (no offense intended, just a rocky start with people that left me rather disconnected from them), but, to help myself and family.

Instead I wanted to stop what I believed were wrongs that I had observed being done to animals.  I felt they occurred because society saw animals as lesser beings and I set out to change that. In particular, I hated it that we had safari hunts where gorgeous, spectacular specimens were hunted and killed for pride.  As a little girl I committed myself to working for lions, tigers and bears.

In my work as a clay artist I tried to portray the beauty and the spirit that I loved in animals.  I was moderately successful as an artist, it paid my way.  I didn’t think I was that good but people loved the animals I created and I truly loved feeling what I felt about animals when I worked on the pieces. I finally decided people bought my work because it did convey the spirit of the animal world and so I named my company Spirit Symbols.

Not to bore you with the details of my life but just to share some relative facts about the  dramatic life course change all of this was for me, I need to tell a little more of my personal life.

My transition into the healing arts for both animals and people started with a dog named Blue.  In 1993 Blue was 13 and dying a painfully slow death.  I found a product line of supplements that reversed all of her “old age” aliments and allowed her body to cope with her cancer.  She joyfully lived another 3 years and I became an animal nutritional advisor as a result of what I saw.  Her story was published in several places including the Physiologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, where I proposed that we study animals with existing conditions rather than give them diseases so we could learn.

I became a passionate promoter of Cell Tech products, created a conference call that 100’s attended monthly, I named the call and that part of my business “The Animal Connection Network©.  I collected 1,000’s of testimonials and became a writer and publisher of a by-monthly newsletter on the topic, with circulation in the hundreds of thousands.

I gave up my work as an artist and whole heartily researched animal well being.  At the time my daughter, Summer, was involved in the 4H Guide Dog Puppy Raising Project. Her second puppy, Nicolet, was raised on the same supplements and this lead to a branch of my business that specifically worked with service and working animals.

This is where General’s story begins. He was Summer’s third and last puppy to be trained for Guide Dogs. When Nicolet graduated in 1993 General had began his training in our home.  By then I had built an extensive business in the animal health industry just based on what I knew worked for Blue and the other animals I had helped with Cell Tech products.

General was a different story. In his first year of training he did very well, traveled extensively, loved his work and was a role model of discipline and health, he had a good nutritional foundation with the supplements I used but he did get raised on a processed diet.  In 1994 when he returned to Guide Dogs for his final formal training he got an ear infection and some other problems arose that resulted in his being dropped from the program after three months and he was returned to us as a career change dog.  He missed doing his job, going into stores, being excepted everywhere, but he remained true to his training.  He exuded confidence, a calm, solid, deep soul, full of pride.  He also remained true to sticking by my side, if I moved, if I breathed, he was watching, waiting to do what he was suppose to do.  When I left on trips he would lie by the door waiting patiently for my return, whereupon he would twirl around in circles in the most beautiful dog dance of welcome.  In his old age, with aching hips, he continued to follow me step for step, true to the last minute of his life.  We shared every meal, two bites left for him.

What a begging face he had.

 

 

In all of his years of watching my every move he developed a knowing that went way beyond what words can convey and he shared that knowing with me when I was working on others, more on that later.

General may not have been an official Guide but he became an incredible “Service Dog” that contributed in so many ways it seems impossible to tell without writing a book, but I will try here to do tribute to him in a few short pages.

General’s ear infection was a chronic condition and all of the things I knew that worked for all the other animals I helped did not help him, nor did allopathic methods. This brought me to a different phase in my learning.  I had to look at all the things that negatively impact our animal friends.  I was appalled at how toxic pet foods, treats, dishes, toys, beds and etc. are.  I became not only a raw food advocate, but, an organic raw food advocate.  I even purchased a whole organic cow for General to eat, only to find that wasn’t the problem either.  I tried fermented chicken diets, organic futon pet beds, used loads of supplements and became further and further educated on the subject and I used all of this information to educate others.

General was finally diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder, believed to have been triggered by vaccinations.  He had anti-bodies to all the proteins he had eaten previously, including my wonderful supplement line.  When he ingested any of these things his immune system would attack not only those proteins but his own tissues, not a pretty sight.

Shortly after his diagnosis I met a man walking his dog on our favorite mountain trail. The man’s dog was covered with very unsightly open sores, some even exposing bone tissue.  The man explained that it was an auto-immune disorder, the same one General was diagnosed with, and his dog had been on steroid treatment for quite some time.  I promised that I would not allow General to suffer that way, thus began another 12 year long search for answers that benefited many thousands of animals including lions, tigers, bears and people.

At the time of Generals diagnosis I was told if I put him on steroids he might live to be four and if I didn’t, he would not see his second birthday.  This was not an option in my book and by now I had substantial interaction with some of the top holistic veterinarians in this country and I was offered other options.  I took them and General was not put on steroids until he was 12 and1/2 years old.

Briefly, I will explain my course of action and how it leads to my becoming a Bowen therapist and creating Touch Balancing/Animal Bowen™.

I worked with a veterinarian for a year, using homeopathy, the supplements from the Cell Tech line that he could still tolerate, which resulted in my collecting information on antioxidants, probiotics and enzyme use in animals, and a raw food diet that consisted of totally foreign proteins.  To keep General from developing new antibodies to the new proteins I had to rotate them every three days, for a year.  This left me with limited choices for meat, so I had to take up new work.  Sorry if this disturbs you, but, it was out of necessity that I began to butcher road kill deer and elk.  This practice had three advantages, one, it made that animals death have a positive result, two, it kept General alive and three, I had began learning how to use the Bowen Therapy technique for humans so that I could figure out how to use this therapy to help my dog and other animals and butchering the road kill is how I taught myself comparative anatomy. This allowed me to create my text books for my courses and learn human anatomy in depth.  Now remember earlier I mentioned how I have an aversion to blood and unsightly things, so this was not an easy task for me and I must say I am so glad I was able to turn it into something of value for all of us.  I won’t miss that work!

I am happy to report that after a year of this diet of raw proteins and vegetables and various changes in the homeopathic course, General lived relatively free of any symptoms of his disease.  Occasionally he would get a discarded hamburger before I could say no and it would set off his symptoms and it was awful.  He would lick at his groin area until it was raw and bloody and his ears were a disaster, sometimes requiring the veterinarian to clean them out.  I would use what I had learned with the Bowen to help clear some of the problems and other times I would try new Cell Tech products and learn how they worked in relation to his current problem.   I was able to pass on this knowledge to a very large audience of animal advocates.  I published a booklet called, The Black and White of an Empty Harvest, as well as created web site pages for the company so that everyone within the company could learn from my experiences with General.

Again I must add what a big change this all was for me as I am not a writer, but more importantly, I was not a people person.  When I first went to learn the Bowen Therapy Technique I had no knowledge of anatomy other than from an artist’s perspective, nor was I interested in actually starting a practice.  I just wanted to help animals and so I drew pictures of what my instructors were actually doing because the text book meant nothing to me.  I didn’t know medial from lateral, or distal from proximal, I was reading a language I had not heard or read.  Plus it was just work for use with humans; the academy I trained with did not have courses for work on animals at that time.  I forged my way through, running home on lunch breaks, taking a veterinarian friend along, to work on Blue and General and her two Jack Russell terriers.  We agreed that the work would be very beneficial for animals and that I might be able to figure out how to do it.

I spent two years in the study of human Bowen, anatomy and comparative anatomy and developed a program for my work.  At this point I joined my two business names and my school for Touch Balancing/Animal Bowen™ became Spirit Symbols Animal Connection Network™.  General played a key role in all of this.

I didn’t realize I would actually have to work on people to learn the technique. When I started to practice General would come into the room and lay down under the treatment table and offer his support and often I would work on him to show the people how the technique benefited animals.  This interaction kept me going and soon I had many clients, both humans and animals of a variety of species. To see just a few CLICK HERE.

General had great muscle definition so I could identify them easily and being the most patient critter around, I could fumble around trying to figure out exactly where I should work.  Not only that, his connection to me became an asset to my human practice.  As a result of teaching my courses I worked on a large variety of animals, learned the anatomy of an iguana and opossums and other odd beings and learned a great deal more from the animals as to how I could help people.  An example being, a horse I worked on at one clinic had a specific digestion problem.  He was a handful to try to work on and I kept expecting the work I was doing to settle him down.  This did not occur, nor did the results I expected from specific procedures for the digestive track.  Feeling quite frustrated I finally did the procedure for the coccyxgeal vertebrae, and walla, all the results I was looking for occurred.  Out came the veterinarian’s text books, we searched for the link from those vertebrae to the digestive track and found the answer.  Now I had another way to look for similar problems in humans and other animal species who were also not responding to the other techniques for digestive disorders.  It has shown itself to work well for all I’ve used it with.

Another way that General contributed to my work was often times when I was working on someone and they were experiencing discomfort that I was not detecting, General would barge into the room and lay down under the table and go into a very deep relaxed sleep.  I soon figured out he was giving me cues and we continued to work together for many years.  Later in my practice I began to make him stay out of the room but he didn’t give up his work.  Frequently when I was working in an area where I knew the person was quite uncomfortable I would hear General come and press his body against the door and start his snoring sleep.  I learned to love working with and helping people, in short, General helped me reconnect to humans, certainly a huge accomplishment!

Still another way he has contributed, however remotely, was that as a result of the Guide Dog Puppy Raising Program that my daughter participated in, she later received 2000 credit hours from Guide Dogs for the training of all three dogs she raised and that contributed greatly to her acquiring a position as a dolphin trainer for the Navy.

Lastly, several times General received injuries that I was able to help him with my technique and having these experiences has lead to helping many other animals with the same injuries, even lions and tigers, not bears, not yet.

However, through the nutritional information I gathered on his behalf, the educational materials I developed and distributed, the development of my technique, it’s instruction,


and presentations at many veterinarian medical conferences, the DVD I created on the basics of my technique in which General played a key role for older animal information, we have impacted over 85 species, young and old, sick, working, competing and beloved.

All of that equates to many thousands of people and animals benefiting, quiet a legacy for one dog!

Lastly, on a personal note, life with General was a joy for many.

He took care of Sara for seven and one-half years!


 




On his daily walks in the forest, for all his years, whether it was ten miles or one, with a group of people or one, with other animals or not, there was an order to the line and he held it firm!  Him first, then me, then who ever wanted to be next.  If someone got between us or ahead of us he would stop and quietly wait until everyone was back in order and then he would step proudly forward.

My favorite mental picture of him was of the day a bear wondered into our backyard.  Living close to the mountain forests and walking thousands of miles in them he had encountered a lot of wildlife. Deer, elk, squirrels, raccoon, rabbits, snakes, bobcats, birds, skunks and bear “evidence” (a substance he loved to roll in).  He only chased one type of critter, you probably guessed, the skunk.

If any of the above critters came into his backyard he would give them a commanding bark and then half heartily accompany them off the property.

One day a bear wondered in to the yard, the patio doors were open and Sara our younger, somewhat socially challenged lab, grabbed a pillow between her teeth and ran out barking hysterically through the pillow.  General stopped a foot short of going out the door, sat down and gathered every ounce of his awareness into a portrait of concentration.  The most regal statue, he almost appeared to be made of marble, he was so still, yet every fiber alert.  Breathtakingly noble, a gesture of protection, “I’m not going out there to take on an unnecessary fight, but, I will protect you!  I loved that dog, I love my memories, the life he brought my way.

If you have benefited from any of my work, it’s based on my connection to General, and if you would like to pay tribute to his life of service, following is a list of places where memorial funds have been set up in his name, be sure to fill in their message or note that the contribution is made in General's name.

IN MEMORIAM DONATIONS

I have been involved with four different projects for the last 15 years, each has benefited in some way from my programs and a need for financial support is always number two on their list of priorities, of course number one being the animals welfare.  Each one is very legitimate and  tax deductable, feel free to choose the one that seems most important to you.  Remember to fill in their message or note box as a contribution in General's name.

* Guide Dogs For The Blind  This is the school General was from.  When you click this link you will be on their donation page, if you would like to learn about their school just click on the words "Guide Dogs" on that page.

*www.WildAnimalSanctuary.org  This is the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Conservation Center that has participated with me in a seven year study of the benefits of Super Blue Green Algae for exotic wildlife.

* Locally I support Annie's Orphans, a non-profit, no-kill animal shelter that has been in operation for over twenty years, housing and adopting approximately 50 dogs at a time.  They currently are having web site problems and a contribution can only be made by mail.  When their website is back up and running I will list it here and you can even choose a dog to adopt if you are in need of a loving new companion.                        
      Send contributions to: Annies Orphans,  1630 County Road 214,  Durango, CO. 81303  
                             
* The All Creatures Sanctuary is a project I have been involved with another seven year study of the beneifits of Super Blue Green Algae for Floridian  wildlife.  This sanctuary is  a rescue, rehabilitate and release program that deals with approximately 1,000 animals a year. A contribution can only be made by mail, however, you can view their facility by visiting: www.allcreaturessanctuary.com  
      Send contributions to:
      All Creatures Sanctuary, P.O. Box 723, Ocklawaha 32183

If you would like to know more ...

If you would like to know about my courses visit: www.AnimalConnectionNetwork.com

There you can also purchase my DVD Animal Bowen for Athletic and Companion Animals.

If you would like to know more about the supplement line I use visit: www.HEALTHCONNECTIONNETWORK.com

Sincerely, Carol S. Bennett