Healing is in Your Hands
We all have the ability to give healing touch to our animals. Dr. Edward Bassingwaighte, an Australian veterinarian who is both trained in traditional medicine and holistic veterinary medicine explains his method of Whole Energy Body Balance, which he teaches in person and online. His unique perspectives on “Animal’s Invisible Pain” shed light on many mysterious health issues and even behavioral issues that haven’t responded to training.
For example, Benny, one big Staffordshire dog he worked with who had severe separation anxiety issues where he destroyed the house, was treated for pain, and four weeks later this behavior disappeared. In this episode we also explore the process of animals and people preparing for transition. He explains how we can release guilt once we understand the “perfect time.” His wisdom on the process of grieving and healing will help many to understand how to prepare to let an animal go and even in time to become ready to love another animal again. You can connect with Dr. Edward at TheHealingVet.com
Listen to Episode #48 Now:
BIO:
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte BVSc(HonsII) is a holistic veterinarian of 24 years experience, and the founder and senior teacher of the Whole Energy Body Balance (WEBB) Method. The WEBB method has arisen from his devotion to helping animals heal and be happy with holistic, hands-on work, and is inspired by a lifetime of working with animals: training and competing on horses (campdrafting), working stock, and training dogs.
Dr Edward is a Master WEBB Bodywork and Energywork Practitioner for pets, people and horses. Dr Edward is available for in-person treatments for animals and humans in Frankston, Melbourne and for distant sessions by way of video conference globally. Dr Edward is also available for private tuition if you want to experience the deep healing of WEBB, or if you are interested in expanding your skills in bodywork and healing with animals and/or humans.
Dr Edward lives in Frankston with Pearl (his lovely whippet) Mitzi, (a pugnacious silky terrier shih tzu cross, Parvati (miniature black panther) and Fred (big fluffy cuddly tuxedo cat). Dr Edward is a singer, songwriter, abstract visual artist, and loves growing veggies and fruit in his possum-proof enclosed garden, surfing, walking in nature, camping, dancing, cooking, and exploring this spiritual journey of life to the fullest.Dr Edward is also available for holistic veterinary advice for companion animals.
Transcript:
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Announcer: This is Pet Life Radio.
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Announcer: Let's talk pets.
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Announcer: Welcome to the Human-Animal Connection show, where we believe we can communicate with all animals.
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Announcer: Join us as we explore the 33 principles and healing methods of the Human-Animal Connection.
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Announcer: As animal lovers, we know that you share our commitment to making the world a kinder place for all creatures.
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Announcer: Together, let's embrace the transformative healing power of the Human-Animal Connection.
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Genie Joseph: Hi, everyone.
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Genie Joseph: Thank you for joining us for the Human-Animal Connection show.
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Genie Joseph: I'm delighted to finally get to speak to Dr.
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Genie Joseph: Edward Bassingwaighte.
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Genie Joseph: He is a traditional veterinarian as well as a holistic veterinarian.
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Genie Joseph: So he's blending both worlds.
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Genie Joseph: And he's got a lovely little friend here on his lap.
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Genie Joseph: Is this yours or a patient of yours?
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: This is Jem.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: She's a little whippet.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: She's about eight months old and she's a little rascal.
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Genie Joseph: Okay.
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Genie Joseph: And you like the little rascals, right?
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Well, I've certainly got one.
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Genie Joseph: Hi there, sweetie.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah, she's adorable.
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Genie Joseph: So I know you began in the traditional realm of veterinary work.
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Genie Joseph: And what inspired you to want to explore and expand and combine to more holistic myth?
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Well, a couple of things happened.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: One is that when I spent a year and a half out of graduation, I had left my first job because it was terrible and was doing a temporary job.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And another vet came to the regional town I was at from the city to help some horses called Dr.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Toma Hearn and he worked with horses' necks.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He would take horses that had a full femalaminus, that X-ray and nerve block couldn't find a physical reason for with those technologies.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He would work on the neck, release pain and tension, get the vertebra moving, and the lameness would go away.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Wow.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So I'd never heard anything about this university and I was completely fascinated.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He sat down, told me a whole lot about nerve root compression, neck back pain, and how it can affect the body in lots of bad ways.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So I immediately started thinking about dogs and cats, and necks and backs in dogs and cats, and started then being curious about, okay, am I missing pain and dysfunction in the spine of the companion animals I'm working with?
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And it turned out I was missing a whole lot of things.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Yeah.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Looking for them, I found a whole lot of animals had significant pain and dysfunction.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: That's when I started working hands on, because I wanted to help these animals.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: There were no modalities, no trainings in those days.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So I just started playing around with touch and movement and pressure, and pretty quickly started seeing animals show nice changes and improvements.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So that's where I started with the physical hands on work.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And then a few years after that, I came down with chronic fatigue syndrome.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And Western medicine could help me a little bit in the beginning, but very quickly run out of any kind of useful answers or ideas.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And that's when I started a really long, deep journey of exploring alternative, complimentary holistic things to get myself well.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And everything that worked for me, I tried out on animals and turns out it worked pretty well for animals too.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah.
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Genie Joseph: Well, that's wonderful.
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Genie Joseph: I know.
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Genie Joseph: Well, I think pain is really something that we need to understand better in animals, because obviously they can't tell us in words that they're feeling pain.
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Genie Joseph: And it may not be even obvious in behavior.
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Genie Joseph: But I think sometimes we see odd behavioral things that may be pain, that we don't realize as well as physical problems.
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Genie Joseph: So I think it's wonderful that you're really trying to unwrap this mystery of pain in animals.
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Genie Joseph: And so you have a method also that you teach.
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Genie Joseph: What's the name of your method?
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It's called the Whole Energy Body Balance Method.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It's a combination of neurofacial bodywork, working with the nervous and fascial connective tissues, and also more intuitive and energy healing type approaches.
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Genie Joseph: Great, great.
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Genie Joseph: So you've got some hands-on approach, but you're also feeling intuitively to how to move your hands.
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Genie Joseph: And so it's not like one method that works for all dogs all the time.
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Genie Joseph: You're really wanting to see.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It's a big toolkit of different types of hands-on skills that you then flexibly adapt in an intuitive way to the needs of the animal.
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Genie Joseph: That's great.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: That's under the hands when you're working with them.
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Genie Joseph: Great.
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Genie Joseph: And does this tend to be something that you're going to do once or do over weeks or forever or on and off?
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Genie Joseph: How does it work?
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Well, you get the best results if you do this work consistently.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Okay.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Certainly, my little fluffy guy, Mitzi, is getting pretty old these days, and I'm doing probably nearly daily, at least some kind of bodywork to help his tired old body feel more comfortable because he's quite painful.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And that's one of the reasons why I created online training programs so that people at home can learn how to wake up the natural healing abilities and gifts in their hands and find and relieve their own pets, pain, anxiety, trauma, and make a big difference for them.
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Genie Joseph: Great.
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Genie Joseph: So whole energy, body balance.
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Genie Joseph: Just give us an idea how long that course is so people have some idea.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: When we run through the live stream series, it's four half days over four weekends spread out.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Then we also have all the content available on demand, so that people can go back and watch and review and work through it as many times as they like.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: But if you're doing maybe two hours a week, you probably get through it all in about three months.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: You put in more time, you get through it more quickly.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: But even at that pace, nearly all of our students see visible improvements in their animals within a matter of a couple of weeks of starting the program.
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Genie Joseph: That's great.
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Genie Joseph: And does the same methods work for cats, dogs, horses, pigs, rabbits or?
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Yeah.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: We have Web Bodywork for Pets, which is a companion animal focused training.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: We have Web Energy Work for Animals, which is more the intuitive approach for working with any and all kinds of animals.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: We have a Web for Horses program.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: We have a Web for Humans because it works just as well on human bodies as it does animal bodies.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah.
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Genie Joseph: I think there are probably more similarities in human bodies and non-human animals and non-human.
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Genie Joseph: What is that?
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Genie Joseph: I forgot.
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Genie Joseph: I'm all confused about those words.
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Genie Joseph: But you know what I mean?
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Genie Joseph: Like we have more similarities and we have differences.
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Genie Joseph: But what are some of the differences in terms of this work and in terms of pain and energy?
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I think the biggest difference is that humans can say, it hurts here and animals can't.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Another thing about animals that have this silent pain, silent pain is nearly always chronic pain that builds up slowly in the body over time, though it can be a legacy of surgeries or accidents or injuries.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: You can have an animal that might have an injury.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: The acute phase of the injury where they got obvious symptoms, but when they recover, they have a legacy of a pain and tension that gets left behind in the body.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And the thing about animals is that it's really surprising how little signs they'll show of even severe soft tissue neck and back pain a lot of the time.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: There's often little or no symptoms that human will be able to see and understand as a call for help.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And really the only way that I've found that I can be 100% certain of knowing when there's pain is to feel in the body and when you bring gentle pressure into the body, the animal go, oh yeah, that's the sore spot.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: That's where it hurts, much hurts.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And Mitzi is who taught me this, because quite some years ago, I missed really terrible neck pain in Mitzi's body for about three weeks.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He seemed to be fine at home, was running around, jumping off the couch, keen to eat his dip, playful.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Then I took him out to a training weekend and he was just a little bit more reactive than usual when other dogs came close to him.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I went home, got my hands on the top of his neck, and he went, oh yeah, I got a lot of pain there.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And it turns out that he had fallen on the steps three weeks before that time.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And my wife had actually seen it happen.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He got up, shook himself off and seemed okay, so she didn't think to tell me about it.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And that was kind of my wake up call that no matter how experienced you are, no matter how much you love your pets, if you don't know how to feel into their body, you're going to lose pain.
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Genie Joseph: Wow, wow, that's really, really, I think, yeah, it's the new thing that we need to learn is how to recognize pain and how to help alleviate it.
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Genie Joseph: So when you're doing, let's say you find a spot and you add just slight pressure and you feel that sensation.
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Genie Joseph: How do you feel that is pain?
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Genie Joseph: You feel it as a resistance or a little jerk, but how do you identify it as pain?
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: There's kind of two things that will happen.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: One is that you might get the body kind of have a physical twitching spasmi type thing with engaging with the pain and tissue.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: But mostly what will happen is that the animal will look around.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: They'll tell you in their body language and in their behavior that, oh yeah, you've hit a sore spot.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Like someone came up and poked you in the ribs.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Yeah.
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Genie Joseph: Okay.
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Genie Joseph: And then what do you do once you find, okay, you found that spot, it's a sore spot.
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Genie Joseph: What's your next move?
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Well, my next move is to do bodywork, to get hands-on and to use.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I've got a whole range of different kinds of skills ranging from very gentle things like craniosacral type connections, through to really deep mobilization and release work through the core of the tissues and structures surrounding the spine.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And I just keep going with different types of connections and hands-on skills over different parts of the body until the animal starts telling me that, oh, this spot isn't as painful as it was before.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And I have one dog that I've been working with for over three years.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: When she came into me, she had really severe reactive aggression with the other dog in the household.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And she'd been to behavior specialists and vets, other vets, and they'd all missed really severe neck pain.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: We worked on that neck pain, and when we got the neck pain right, the aggression pretty much went away.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: But even after three years, we're still seeing steady improvements in that dog's behavior and in her body from having consistent body work.
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Genie Joseph: Right.
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Genie Joseph: Wow.
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Genie Joseph: Now, you mentioned an interesting word, connection.
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Genie Joseph: So is it when pain is in place that the body gets disconnected, like it's not firing the way it's supposed to, and when we alleviate, then I guess energy can flow or the connection can be resumed?
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Genie Joseph: Is that accurate or how do you see it?
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Yeah, I think that's one way to talk about it.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Wherever you've got pain restriction, stiffness, tightness, wherever the neurofascial network, that kind of three-dimensional spiderweb of tissue that provides structure and form and allows movement throughout the body, wherever there's pain, there's restriction.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And if there's restriction and the body can't move, then there's a lack of life force energy being able to move through that spot and perhaps downstream of that spot.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Certainly, if you look at it from a nervous system perspective, if you have nerve root compression, if you get the vertebrae get a little bit misaligned somewhere and they start squeezing that big nerve where it comes out of the spinal cord and distributes to tissues and organs and structures in the body, then that can have a profoundly unhelpful effect on all those parts of the body that are innovated.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It changes the tone, can cause pain, can cause changes in blood flow and all sorts of things.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah.
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Genie Joseph: Wow.
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Genie Joseph: Fascinating.
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Genie Joseph: Now, I know that you've really pioneered some work with CBD.
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Genie Joseph: Tell us about your work with CBD and why it's important for animals.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Look, I honestly believe that a CBD-rich whole plant hemp extract, I really prefer a whole plant extract because you don't just have CBD in that.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: You have a whole host of other cannabinoids up to over 100 different active ingredients coming from the whole plant.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Of course, it needs to be low or no THC.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: We don't want to get our dog stoned.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It's not helpful, except in some rare cases of palliation of cancer and stuff, maybe we might consider THC.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: But CBD is probably, it would be definitely the medicine that I prescribe far more than anything else because it's safe.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: There's hardly ever any side effects.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And if there are side effects, they're usually very mild and not dangerous.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It's an incredibly powerful anti-inflammatory pain relief.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It's an immune modulator.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It helps with gut issues and IBD.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It helps with epilepsy.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It can help with palliation of cancer.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And in some cases may even slow down growth of tumors or cause them to regress.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: That's pretty rare.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It's just because it works with the endocannabinoid system, which is a deep homeostatic regulatory system that is found in the physiology and bodies of all vertebrates.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Every kind of being that has a spine has this endocannabinoid system, which creates cannabinoid that are made by the body.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So I think it's kind of miraculous that this plant makes substances that just harmonize into the system of all of us who are vertebrates in such a beautiful way.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And yeah, it's something that I give to all sorts of animals with all sorts of problems and nearly always see really good benefits from it.
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Genie Joseph: Wow.
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Genie Joseph: Now, do you make your own or do you have a product that you recommend or how to work?
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I do not make my own.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It's the regulatory environment here in Australia.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: To grow commercially, it's a lot of big hoops that jump through to be able to do that.
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Genie Joseph: Right.
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Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So I find or direct people to anyone who's growing a high quality organic whole plant extract that is very low, no THC and rich in CBD.
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Genie Joseph: Okay, great.
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Genie Joseph: So we're going to take a short little break when we come back up.
00:14:43.620 --> 00:14:52.480
Genie Joseph: Maybe you could go back in time a little bit and talk about you growing up on a big cattle farm and how that impacted your future path in life.
00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:53.700
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Sure, I'd love to do that.
00:14:53.700 --> 00:14:55.920
Genie Joseph: All right, we'll be back in just a moment.
00:14:58.280 --> 00:15:02.680
Announcer: Hey friends, if you like what you're hearing and want to learn more, check out Dr.
00:15:02.680 --> 00:15:09.500
Announcer: Joseph's book, The Human-Animal Connection, Deepening Relationships with Animals and Ourselves.
00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:17.440
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00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:19.800
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00:15:19.800 --> 00:15:21.540
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00:16:03.660 --> 00:16:06.080
Announcer: Let's Talk Pets on petliferadio.com.
00:16:12.260 --> 00:16:16.740
Genie Joseph: Welcome back to the Human-Animal Connection where we're speaking with veterinarian, Dr.
00:16:16.740 --> 00:16:18.240
Genie Joseph: Edward Bassingwaighte.
00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:22.840
Genie Joseph: And he's both a traditionally trained veterinarian as well as a holistic veterinarian.
00:16:22.840 --> 00:16:24.740
Genie Joseph: Now, I know you grew up on a cattle farm.
00:16:24.740 --> 00:16:28.740
Genie Joseph: I think your family had a big cattle farm or I don't know if farm is the right word.
00:16:28.740 --> 00:16:30.420
Genie Joseph: I don't know what you call it.
00:16:30.460 --> 00:16:35.780
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It would be a cattle property here in Australia, whereas in the US, you call it a ranch.
00:16:35.780 --> 00:16:36.440
Genie Joseph: Ranch, right.
00:16:36.440 --> 00:16:36.820
Genie Joseph: Okay.
00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:47.540
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: About 120 square miles and we had anything from maybe five to 7,000 head of cattle and up to 120-odd horses because we did all that cattle work on horseback.
00:16:48.960 --> 00:16:51.360
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Yeah, it was a beautiful, beautiful place to grow up on.
00:16:52.740 --> 00:16:53.520
Genie Joseph: Okay.
00:16:53.520 --> 00:16:58.840
Genie Joseph: And did you know right away that you wanted to be a veterinarian or did that emerge later?
00:16:58.840 --> 00:17:01.980
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I have very early memories.
00:17:01.980 --> 00:17:08.120
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: There used to be tuberculosis in the feral pigs and in cattle in Australia.
00:17:08.120 --> 00:17:09.700
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So there was a testing program.
00:17:09.700 --> 00:17:22.320
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I have very early memories when I must have been quite smaller vets coming and doing the TB testing of the whole herd, injecting the tuberculin into the tail fold, coming back the next day to palpate.
00:17:22.320 --> 00:17:34.720
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And if there was a swelling, then they'd have to slaughter the cow and go and carve it up and take samples and send it off to the lab to see if there was actually any tuberculosis in the animal.
00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:36.400
Genie Joseph: Oh, you mean they had to kill the animal first?
00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:37.980
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Yeah, they had to kill the animal.
00:17:37.980 --> 00:17:38.560
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Yeah.
00:17:38.560 --> 00:17:40.840
Genie Joseph: And then discover if it was tuberculosis.
00:17:40.840 --> 00:17:42.000
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Yeah.
00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:55.700
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So I remember very early on being a bit in awe of these veterinarians in their overalls doing these things with animals and even at that age and reading James Harriot's books.
00:17:55.700 --> 00:17:56.020
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Yes.
00:17:57.660 --> 00:17:58.500
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:17:58.500 --> 00:17:59.900
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He has a lot to answer for.
00:17:59.900 --> 00:18:02.240
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I think he's got a lot of people into veterinary medicine, that fella.
00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:02.840
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:18:02.840 --> 00:18:03.780
Genie Joseph: Yeah, exactly.
00:18:03.780 --> 00:18:05.580
Genie Joseph: That's one of the old days.
00:18:05.580 --> 00:18:08.060
Genie Joseph: Not quite like that anymore.
00:18:08.060 --> 00:18:08.980
Genie Joseph: Well, it isn't.
00:18:08.980 --> 00:18:09.620
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It isn't.
00:18:09.620 --> 00:18:09.940
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It isn't.
00:18:09.980 --> 00:18:10.340
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It isn't.
00:18:10.760 --> 00:18:11.360
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:18:11.360 --> 00:18:11.660
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:18:11.860 --> 00:18:13.760
Genie Joseph: Is he kind of your hero still?
00:18:13.760 --> 00:18:23.960
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Well, look, I think he's someone that he always had a real compassion for animals that came through in writing and the stories that he told about being a vet.
00:18:23.960 --> 00:18:24.100
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:18:24.100 --> 00:18:25.520
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And it was very honest.
00:18:25.520 --> 00:18:26.420
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:18:26.420 --> 00:18:28.880
Genie Joseph: All creatures great and small we're talking about, right?
00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:29.800
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: That's the one.
00:18:29.800 --> 00:18:31.460
Genie Joseph: Yeah, that's great.
00:18:31.460 --> 00:18:38.480
Genie Joseph: Well, let's talk for a little bit about, I know you help people in the process of preparing for animals that are going to be transitioning.
00:18:39.040 --> 00:18:44.000
Genie Joseph: What are some of the wisdom that you might impart to our listeners about that?
00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:50.200
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Challenging period, I think, getting ready to say goodbye to your animal.
00:18:50.200 --> 00:19:03.260
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Mitzi, my little dog, is about 14 years old, and over the last three months or so, he's suddenly slowed down a lot and gone quite deaf, and his vision has got a lot worse.
00:19:03.260 --> 00:19:06.500
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So we know that we're starting to close it in on the end times with him.
00:19:09.440 --> 00:19:10.560
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Preparing for transition.
00:19:10.560 --> 00:19:18.440
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I think the first thing that's really important for people to do is to be willing and prepared to let their animal go.
00:19:18.440 --> 00:19:27.880
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And to be able to kind of say internally or even outwardly to their animal, okay, we know that your time is coming.
00:19:27.900 --> 00:19:31.060
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And when it's your time, we'll help you go.
00:19:31.060 --> 00:19:32.860
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: We're not gonna cling, we're not gonna hang on.
00:19:33.300 --> 00:19:42.040
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Well, if as soon as it's time, we'll be right there helping you have the best death that we can help you have.
00:19:42.040 --> 00:19:51.380
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And a lot of humans struggle with that because they love their animals so much that they get entangled energetically and emotionally with their animals.
00:19:51.380 --> 00:19:57.120
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And there may be a kind of emotional codependence from with the human and the animal that can be difficult.
00:19:57.120 --> 00:20:06.980
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And I really believe that animals will stay here for their humans, no matter how uncomfortable they are, because they love their humans so much.
00:20:06.980 --> 00:20:15.280
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: But if the humans consciously can say, right, I'll release you, I'll let you go and accept the emotional grief that comes with that.
00:20:16.080 --> 00:20:25.920
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I found that with older animals that are leaving us more slowly, my experience has been that there's a lot of grief leading up to the death.
00:20:26.200 --> 00:20:30.680
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Because you're saying goodbye over a long period, you know, it's that kind of long goodbye.
00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:36.060
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: But if you have a sudden death, there's a tremendous amount of grief after the death, because it's unexpected.
00:20:36.060 --> 00:20:36.480
Genie Joseph: Right.
00:20:36.580 --> 00:20:42.820
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It's just to say that there's not grief after the death of the ones that might take a little longer as well.
00:20:43.880 --> 00:21:04.940
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: But I think the other thing is a willingness to grief, because I really do see grief as a direct measure of your love for your animal, you know, and willing to not to shut down on it, not to run away from it, but to really open up to being present with feeling the sadness of the loss of your animal.
00:21:05.280 --> 00:21:11.620
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And if it's an old animal that's on the way out, well, you know, and you start feeling sad about them getting ready to go, well, let yourself really feel that.
00:21:12.100 --> 00:21:16.160
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Don't avoid it, don't suppress it, don't deny it.
00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:32.620
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And then the other thing with a good transition, of course, is really good supportive care, giving your animals all the pain relief and supplements and everything, that they need to be as comfortable as they can be, palliative care, and knowing when the time is right.
00:21:33.380 --> 00:21:48.180
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: My experience with working with a lot of people over a lot of years is that nearly everyone that I work with, probably 80, 90% of the people that I work with, are holding some kind of guilt around transition of a pet in the past.
00:21:48.180 --> 00:21:55.340
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: About half of those people are beating themselves up, because they feel like they help their animal die too soon.
00:21:55.340 --> 00:21:56.360
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:21:56.360 --> 00:22:00.540
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Half of them are beating themselves up, because they feel like they waited too long.
00:22:00.540 --> 00:22:00.800
Genie Joseph: Right.
00:22:01.300 --> 00:22:19.080
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: If there's one thing I could say to everyone out there is that, I truly believe that there is a moment of the inevitable when it comes to helping pets transition, and when whatever that timing has been for you and your animal in the past has been just perfect.
00:22:19.080 --> 00:22:19.320
Genie Joseph: Yes.
00:22:19.320 --> 00:22:26.820
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Because it's just the only time it could have happened for you and the animal in the time and place that you're in, with what you knew, with who you were at that time.
00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:40.760
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And forgiving yourself and letting go of anything around past transitions is incredibly helpful for helping you have the healthiest possible transition with present and future animals that share your life.
00:22:41.200 --> 00:22:42.000
Genie Joseph: Yes.
00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:43.720
Genie Joseph: And you mentioned your intuitive work.
00:22:43.720 --> 00:22:54.000
Genie Joseph: Do you often get an intuitive feeling that it's time versus like maybe it isn't, or do you have that knowingness for other people's animals?
00:22:55.740 --> 00:23:06.420
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I do perceive in the animals have a physical body and they have an energy body, which is like an egg of energy that surrounds the physical body.
00:23:06.420 --> 00:23:24.200
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: You see some changes in the energy systems when animals are coming close to the time of transition, where they start drawing all of their life force back right into the central core of their being so that they can then use that energy to project their being out of the body at the point of transition.
00:23:24.200 --> 00:23:26.240
Genie Joseph: So it takes energy to leave.
00:23:26.240 --> 00:23:26.820
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It does.
00:23:26.820 --> 00:23:27.400
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Absolutely.
00:23:27.840 --> 00:23:30.680
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It takes energy to get birthed, right?
00:23:31.700 --> 00:23:35.360
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And that can take a variable amount of time.
00:23:35.360 --> 00:23:39.620
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I don't ever actually tell people how long I think it's going to be.
00:23:40.040 --> 00:23:55.760
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I think it's healthier for me to help people understand potential decision points, like maybe the animal can't get up anymore, maybe they stop eating, maybe they're having more bad days than good days on average over a week or a couple of weeks period.
00:23:55.760 --> 00:23:58.180
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Maybe they just look at you and say, I'm done.
00:23:58.180 --> 00:23:59.200
Genie Joseph: Right.
00:23:59.540 --> 00:24:04.880
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: There's all these kind of, it's good to have awareness of, okay, how am I going to know when I get there?
00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:06.480
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: What are my decision points going to be?
00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:10.320
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And how am I going to respond to those kinds of things?
00:24:10.320 --> 00:24:11.740
Genie Joseph: Right.
00:24:11.740 --> 00:24:16.840
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So I don't, it's rare that I will say to people, yeah, it's time.
00:24:17.900 --> 00:24:26.620
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I prefer to help people come to their own decision, but absolutely, if people, sometimes people will come to me and say, look, I don't know, I can't.
00:24:26.620 --> 00:24:34.260
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It's like, and another thing that can happen close to the point of transition with older animals is that they can be up and down and they might have three or four awful days.
00:24:34.260 --> 00:24:37.420
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And suddenly you've planned and you book bed in and you get up in the morning.
00:24:37.420 --> 00:24:38.580
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: They're like, oh, I'm feeling good today.
00:24:39.020 --> 00:24:40.740
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Yeah, right, right.
00:24:40.740 --> 00:24:44.280
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It can be a real rollercoaster and quite challenging to work out exactly.
00:24:44.280 --> 00:24:53.200
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And that's what I think whenever you come to that point of inevitability and it happens, is the perfect timing for you and that animal.
00:24:53.200 --> 00:24:58.340
Genie Joseph: And when you're doing euthanasia, do you feel that there's a moment?
00:24:58.340 --> 00:25:04.380
Genie Joseph: I mean, I know physiologically there are things that are happening, but do you feel the moment where the spirit leaves?
00:25:04.700 --> 00:25:05.660
Genie Joseph: Is that like a moment?
00:25:06.940 --> 00:25:08.220
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Yeah, absolutely.
00:25:08.860 --> 00:25:20.580
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I mean, I've been doing intuitive energy healing type work for decades, so I've got a very refined sensitivity to what's going on energetically, spiritually at that time.
00:25:20.600 --> 00:25:24.160
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And I'm supporting the animal in their transition out of the body.
00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:37.080
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And often I'm untangling the animal from the human so that they can, their spirit, their soul, their whatever you want to call it, can have freedom to go wherever they next need to go and do whatever they next need to do.
00:25:37.080 --> 00:25:39.620
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Not that I totally understand exactly what that is.
00:25:39.620 --> 00:25:44.320
Genie Joseph: I can't understand it all, but do you have a sense that animals...
00:25:44.320 --> 00:25:46.080
Genie Joseph: Well, you know how humans fear death?
00:25:46.080 --> 00:25:51.120
Genie Joseph: Do you feel that animals have a fear of death or just fear of suffering?
00:25:52.100 --> 00:25:54.820
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I think it's rare that animals have a fear of death.
00:25:54.820 --> 00:25:58.340
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Most animals know exactly what's happening and they're totally okay with it.
00:25:58.340 --> 00:26:02.900
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And even animals, I don't think, have a huge fear of suffering, most of them.
00:26:03.080 --> 00:26:17.180
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I think if you have an animal that has a really low pain tolerance, some of them don't cope well with pain, but the majority of animals can teach us a lot about how to embrace and accept unavoidable pain and suffering.
00:26:17.180 --> 00:26:19.160
Genie Joseph: Wow.
00:26:19.160 --> 00:26:20.880
Genie Joseph: Yeah, that's beautiful.
00:26:22.120 --> 00:26:23.320
Genie Joseph: That's really beautiful.
00:26:23.320 --> 00:26:29.860
Genie Joseph: So are you someone who believes in telepathic animal communication or what are your thoughts on that?
00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:35.020
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Telepathic, intuitive, empathic connection.
00:26:35.340 --> 00:26:44.620
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I absolutely believe that humans can receive and interpret information energetically when they're interacting with animals.
00:26:44.620 --> 00:26:48.560
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And sometimes that can be an overt kind of message.
00:26:48.560 --> 00:26:56.340
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I mean, other times, I remember other times I was working with an animal, a dog and got to a certain point on their back and it was really stressful.
00:26:56.340 --> 00:26:58.360
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I said, this dog ever had a fall or an injury?
00:26:58.440 --> 00:27:01.860
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And I said, yeah, right at the top of the A-frame and land on its back.
00:27:01.860 --> 00:27:18.400
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So there can be all sorts of glimpses of information in the body, in the energy systems that when you learn how to open up our natural human intuitive empathic capacity, which most of us shut down at a very early age because our society is not open to it.
00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:30.760
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And because it's so uncomfortable to be present with a lot of the trauma and violence in our human society that I think a lot of little ones just go, oh, that's too much, we'll shut the gates.
00:27:30.760 --> 00:27:31.820
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:27:31.820 --> 00:27:34.160
Genie Joseph: Now you had a story about a dog named Benny.
00:27:34.160 --> 00:27:36.240
Genie Joseph: Would you like to tell us that story?
00:27:36.240 --> 00:27:40.660
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So Benny was a retired racing greyhound who I saw some years ago.
00:27:40.660 --> 00:27:45.380
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: His mom called me in because Benny had a thunder phobia.
00:27:45.380 --> 00:27:49.940
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: But when I got my hands on Benny, he was about 12.
00:27:49.980 --> 00:27:56.040
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He'd had a long racing career, won a lot of money and he was just a grumpy old man who spent most of his time on his bed.
00:27:56.040 --> 00:28:02.320
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: When I got my hands on Benny, he was just a screaming bundle of extreme silent pain.
00:28:02.320 --> 00:28:06.240
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He was shocked and horrified and had no idea that he had so much pain in his body.
00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:10.080
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So we did a series of whole energy body balance, bodywork treatments.
00:28:10.080 --> 00:28:17.660
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: We did one a week apart for four weeks, came back for the second week, been a little improvement, came back for the third week, been a little improvement.
00:28:17.660 --> 00:28:22.460
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: When I came back for the fourth week, Lisa was just going, I can't believe this.
00:28:22.460 --> 00:28:25.220
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Benny is literally a completely different dog.
00:28:25.220 --> 00:28:28.660
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He has started doing zoomies for the first time in years.
00:28:29.260 --> 00:28:33.440
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He started stealing teddy bears from our daughter's bed, which he's never done before.
00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:40.000
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He has started playing with toys, which he's never shown any interest in in all the years we've had him.
00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:42.440
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He's seeking touch and connection.
00:28:43.480 --> 00:28:49.720
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He also became the world's naughtiest puppy after that too, starting things up and all sorts of stuff.
00:28:49.720 --> 00:28:51.060
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Hilarious.
00:28:51.060 --> 00:28:56.680
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He's like my poster child of the dog that shows you no sign that they've got incredible levels of pain.
00:28:56.680 --> 00:29:04.680
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: When you remove the pain and the trauma, suddenly you get a whole lot more dog that's a whole lot more have a lot more playful and a whole lot more active.
00:29:04.680 --> 00:29:06.120
Genie Joseph: That's a beautiful story.
00:29:06.120 --> 00:29:07.640
Genie Joseph: Yeah, beautiful story.
00:29:07.640 --> 00:29:08.340
Genie Joseph: What about Clyde?
00:29:08.340 --> 00:29:09.840
Genie Joseph: Tell us about Clyde.
00:29:09.840 --> 00:29:15.080
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Well, I started off working on necks and backs and finding pain in necks and backs of animals.
00:29:15.160 --> 00:29:19.480
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And then I thought, well, you know, the neck in the back is the spine is only part of the body.
00:29:19.480 --> 00:29:20.920
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And there's all this other soft tissue.
00:29:20.920 --> 00:29:26.040
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So I started exploring, working with the whole body and the neurofascial network.
00:29:26.040 --> 00:29:30.580
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And I noticed that some of the qualities of touch I was using would cause animals to relax.
00:29:31.700 --> 00:29:36.340
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: So I started really using touch as a medicine for anxious animals.
00:29:36.340 --> 00:29:41.980
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Now Clyde came in to see me because he was eating the house when he was left alone.
00:29:41.980 --> 00:29:44.780
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And he was the biggest, most muscly staff I've ever seen.
00:29:44.780 --> 00:29:50.720
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He was just a monster, but lovely, friendly and very anxious little guy.
00:29:50.720 --> 00:30:01.040
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I had one appointment with him where I taught his owner how to do the whole energy body balance, one of the touch skills that's particularly strongly relaxing.
00:30:01.040 --> 00:30:06.480
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Now they went home and they probably did about 50 times more relaxing touch than any other client I've ever told.
00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:10.340
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: And both the daughters gave him lots of relaxing touch.
00:30:10.340 --> 00:30:12.660
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Within two weeks, his separation anxiety was gone.
00:30:14.120 --> 00:30:14.980
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Wow.
00:30:14.980 --> 00:30:15.120
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Wow.
00:30:15.120 --> 00:30:17.140
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: They moved house two months later.
00:30:17.140 --> 00:30:21.000
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: He ate one lot of curtains with the stress of moving house and then nothing.
00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:26.660
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Now that just given my standard veterinary training, is a miracle and couldn't happen.
00:30:26.660 --> 00:30:34.880
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: But I use relaxing touch with anxious traumatized animals a lot, and it can lead to incredible improvements.
00:30:34.880 --> 00:30:36.320
Genie Joseph: Wow.
00:30:36.320 --> 00:30:41.500
Genie Joseph: Can you just give us a little taste of that touch, what kind of touch that was for the separation anxiety?
00:30:42.560 --> 00:30:48.740
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Well, I can't teach, I don't have time to teach you the kind of more advanced relaxation touch.
00:30:48.740 --> 00:30:52.400
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: But the first thing you want to do is just slow down your hand speed.
00:30:52.400 --> 00:30:53.040
Genie Joseph: Okay.
00:30:53.140 --> 00:30:56.260
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Use your normal pats, but make it like a glacier.
00:30:56.260 --> 00:30:56.900
Genie Joseph: Right.
00:30:56.900 --> 00:30:57.280
Genie Joseph: Right.
00:30:57.280 --> 00:30:59.820
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: As slow as you can go without stopping.
00:30:59.820 --> 00:31:02.580
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Now a lot of dogs are going to look at you and go, what are you doing?
00:31:02.580 --> 00:31:05.140
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: That's not how you're supposed to pat me.
00:31:05.220 --> 00:31:10.120
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: If you got an anxious or traumatized dog, when they first relax, it can feel really strange and uncomfortable.
00:31:10.120 --> 00:31:11.120
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: They might say, well, I'm out of here.
00:31:11.200 --> 00:31:12.020
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: I don't want that touch.
00:31:12.020 --> 00:31:12.860
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It's weird.
00:31:12.860 --> 00:31:13.700
Genie Joseph: Right.
00:31:13.700 --> 00:31:18.020
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: You persist and insist and keep doing it over time.
00:31:18.020 --> 00:31:28.600
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: You retrain their nervous system from this kind of stuck in aroused anxiety back into healthy relaxation and help them learn how to self-regulate as well.
00:31:28.600 --> 00:31:29.640
Genie Joseph: Yes, that's wonderful.
00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:30.320
Genie Joseph: That's wonderful.
00:31:30.320 --> 00:31:38.960
Genie Joseph: Well, and I think a lot of people, it'd be great if all shelter volunteers could learn this because the shelter dogs need so much help.
00:31:39.500 --> 00:31:40.540
Genie Joseph: Right.
00:31:40.540 --> 00:31:42.340
Genie Joseph: Well, this has been a wonderful conversation.
00:31:42.340 --> 00:31:43.500
Genie Joseph: I've been speaking with Dr.
00:31:43.500 --> 00:31:48.020
Genie Joseph: Edward Bassingwaighte, and give us your website, how people can get a hold of you.
00:31:48.020 --> 00:31:48.280
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Yeah.
00:31:48.280 --> 00:31:54.800
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: If you want to work with me, I work with people on Zoom all over the world, in person, if you're close to me here in Australia.
00:31:54.800 --> 00:31:58.200
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: You can go to thehealingvet.com, contact me there.
00:31:58.980 --> 00:32:16.380
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: If you want to learn a bit more about Whole Energy Body Balance and maybe get enrolled in the Alman Training Programs as a home, or a certified professional practitioner, you can go to wholeenergybodybalance.com, and you can also search for the Healing Vet on Facebook and find us on socials there, on Instagram, all that if you want.
00:32:16.380 --> 00:32:17.120
Genie Joseph: Well, that's wonderful.
00:32:17.120 --> 00:32:19.200
Genie Joseph: I'm so glad you're doing the work that you're doing.
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:26.180
Genie Joseph: Thank you for relieving pain and for teaching other people to relieve pain because the world could do with less pain.
00:32:26.180 --> 00:32:26.780
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Absolutely.
00:32:28.180 --> 00:32:29.020
Genie Joseph: Well, thank you so much.
00:32:29.020 --> 00:32:31.660
Genie Joseph: And we'll hope to talk to you again soon.
00:32:31.660 --> 00:32:32.700
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: Thanks for having me on the show.
00:32:32.700 --> 00:32:33.720
Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte: It's been a pleasure.
00:32:33.720 --> 00:32:34.440
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:32:34.440 --> 00:32:37.000
Genie Joseph: You've been listening to The Human-Animal Connection.
00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:39.140
Genie Joseph: We'll see you again real soon, I hope.
00:32:39.140 --> 00:32:40.720
Genie Joseph: Aloha for now.
00:32:44.840 --> 00:32:48.120
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00:32:48.120 --> 00:32:50.880
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