Part 3: Learning Reiki To Help Your Animals

The first and easiest way to start using Reiki immediately is to pick up the book Reiki for Dogs. The purpose of this book is to open up the world of Reiki and energy healing to animal lovers and those who do not know anything about it. It has exercises that will help the person experienced in energy healing as well. I also included some traditional Japanese techniques to use with your animals, and I have written lots of new meditations. The meditations in the book are explained so that you can do them with your animal for a variety of different physical, mental, emotional or spiritual issues. I even discuss transitioning animals.

I invite those who have an elderly animal or an animal who is very sick and maybe they feel there is nothing more they can do for the animal -to consider doing Reiki with the animal all the way up to the transition and even through the transition and beyond it, for their own grief, separation and loss.

The book talks a lot about all the different ways we can use Reiki, and although it focuses on dogs, it can be modified to use with any animal. This would be an easy way to start working with Reiki right now.

The second, more formalized way to learn the system of Reiki would mean finding a teacher in your local area who teaches Reiki and what you learn are the elements of the system of Reiki:

• The Five Precepts, which are guides to balanced and harmonious living.
• Meditation and breathing practices, which help you go deeper into your physical body and help your physical body get in touch with the energetic aspect.
• Healing treatments, which include putting your hands in different positions on your own body or on other people. And then, of course, the healing treatments for animals, which we can do off the body because it is usually their preference. But the purpose of these treatments would be to support healing.
• Symbols and mantras, which are learned in Levels II and III. They are ancient tools that help your focus as a practitioner.
• Reiju, attunements or initiations, which are symbolic rituals used to create an energetic space for the student to learn. It is a way to directly experience the energy with your teacher in a kind of one-on-one energetic conversation.

You would take Reiki classes over one or two days and get a chance to discuss the elements and to practice (work with animals and come back and talk about it). But really, the key to all this is practice, practice, practice, because you are learning a new language of energy. So you can't expect to speak it fluently right away. The more that you practice and sit with your animals, the more you will understand and the more you will be able to sense and feel what's -- happening and the more you will be able to help your animals because they will keep showing you when you are doing it right.