Who is Transfering to Whom

Picture Copyright (c) 2007, Todd A. Mercer "From an animal's perspective"
Text Copyright (c) 2008, Mia Mattsson-Mercer

Animals in pain transfer their pain so intensively that I can feel it. If they are having pain in their stomach I get pain in my stomach, but as soon as I have written it down or otherwise acknowledged it, the feeling disappears. It took a long time before I understood this. In the beginning I thought I had become a hypochondriac.

I discovered one thing that is very interesting: In two thirds of the cases the owner has the same symptoms as their animal.

So who transfers the pain and emotions to whom?

I wrote the above in my first book 1999 and I made presented some examples in the book too.

Tjojs my 13 year-old German Shepard/Rottweiler/Border Collie mix started to walk slower and has been limping. I heard how she walked slow on the stairs and putting both feet at the same step like limping up. At the same time I started to have pain in my hips all the way down to the toes. When I was trying to get off the bed in the morning, I was walking slower and limping, it felt like painful electricity in my legs. I went to see the doctor!


The doctor told me I had arthritis. The type that afflicts the joints, since apparently there are more than 100 different types, but I guess I got the most common one. I was prescribed medicine that I still haven't gone to pick up yet...But with Tjojs, I got her medicine and started immediately...a mother always puts her children first!


The next day I could see a difference in Tjojs. When time to get food--her specialty--she was dancing around like a puppy. I laughed and applauded, and suddenly I realized that I felt better too. I am not saying that we are 100% better, but we sure know how to dance now, without any cane!

Are we not "just" sharing Amore symptoms?

Poisoned Again

Last week you could read about Tjojs being sick. We had to go to the veterinarian clinic for treatment and later give her an IV at home. What I didn't write was that one week later Clyde got the same symptoms as Tjojs and another round to the veterinarian clinic for Clyde's treatment. In my mind I couldn't understand how my dogs that are otherwise so healthy started to get sicker and sicker. They where kept more isolated from other dogs than before, no play friends. And de-wormed and front line regularly. Same food as always, I couldn't understand what was happening!

Outside our house is a small area of dirt and high grass that ever since we came here, we let out the "kids" once a day so they can run off some energy. Sometimes, our neighbors had their dogs out also, so little new "business cards" to read by our dogs. This area is slightly downhill from the street where trash piles up.

Recently, suddenly, two of our dogs became ill, with internal bleeding. My intuition told me it could be rat poison. With all the garbage here it didn't feel like a wrong thought at all. I talked to a veterinarian who said it was very rare that they would put out poison, but my husband commented that there was a noticeable lack of rats considering the abundance of trash at the moment.

One evening my landlord came by and in poor Italian I asked if he had put out any poison. Oh yes he had, but the doctor told him it was not harmful for children or dogs. --Eh, mammals-- we all have stomachs and of course it is about the volume of poison. Even if our dogs don't go snooping around the trash, rain run-off from the trash could come down into the grassy area, and end up in the grass. The same grass that Tjojs and Clyde will eat when their stomach isn't quite right.

I asked for the name and froze when I got the label in my hand...Facorat/Brodifacoum a very strong rat poison that can kill not only rats, but possums, fish and even humans. When rats eat it, it causes a long and painful death. When the rats who have eaten it are urinating they are even letting out poison in grass--where some dogs chew.

Internal bleeding, painful and long death. I do wonder how many stray dogs have gotten this poison into their system, and are right now laying somewhere waiting and waiting to be relieved from their suffering. And how many stray cats have caught and eaten a dying rat... and are now poisoned themselves?

Wouldn't it be better if they just collected the trash like every other civilized country?

This is painful Amore