When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [76]
The trainer had come to the house as well, and I asked her if it was common practice to put a newer dog with an older one for training. She said that she had done it with Seeing Eye dogs, but not as much with service dogs, which need to know how to perform multiple tasks. I suggested that maybe Gilda’s ghost was confusing Buddy. I asked Carrie to give Buddy one of the commands he had become lax about performing.
“He’s the worst at fetch,” she told me. She told Buddy to go get the television remote. Gilda’s ghost left the room first, with Buddy and me following closely behind her. Both dogs reached the remote, and then Gilda put her paw over it while poor Buddy simply sat and stared, as if trying to figure out how he was expected to retrieve the very item Gilda had claimed.
Once I explained to everyone what was happening, they all agreed that it would be best for Gilda to cross over. Because of her specialized training, I wasn’t sure how I was going to get Gilda to go into the Light. It was going to be a matter of trial and error. At first I made the Light and pointed toward it. “Go see!” I told Gilda. But she just sat and stared at me impassively.
Realizing that Gilda was trained to take commands only from her owner and trainer, and that neither of them could see where I was making the Light, I knew I had to get creative. I told the trainer to get something that Gilda knew she was supposed to fetch, but to make sure it was something that wouldn’t break. The trainer came back from her van with a disabled cell phone that she explained she often used for practice with the dogs. I pointed to where I planned to make the Light. Then I told the trainer to put the cell phone there and—when I gave her the signal—to send Gilda to retrieve it. I hoped that since Gilda’s ghost hadn’t been able to pick up the TV remote earlier, she’d be unable to do anything with the phone and would simply stay with it as I closed the Light behind her.
The plan worked better than I could have hoped, and I was able to cross Gilda over. According to the family and the trainer, Buddy remained confused for a few days. Once he realized that he was again in charge, though, he resumed his duties and became a faithful and dependable service dog.
Of course, understanding that animal ghosts usually behave just as the living animal would didn’t always offer me much peace of mind. Because of my history with dogs, I was pretty sure I would be able to deal with the earthbound spirits of most dogs, but as a cat owner, I dreaded the first time I’d have to get a cat into the Light.
When I finally did encounter the ghost of a cat—at a home where a kitten had begun to pick up some extremely submissive behaviors, even though she was the only animal in the house—I was fortunate that there was also a human ghost present. And although the lady hadn’t been much of a cat person while she was alive, she grudgingly agreed to take the ghost cat into the Light with her—much to the relief of the terrorized kitten, who didn’t seem sad at all to see her nemesis leave.
From that visit on, I’ve used this technique whenever I can; it’s just the simplest way to get an animal to cross over. Fortunately, there are certain places where I’m pretty sure I’ll encounter both animal and human spirits. For instance, fire stations are often inhabited by both the earthbound spirits of old firefighters and the ghosts of the dalmatians who were the stations’ mascots. More than once, the ghost of a helpful firefighter has been pleased to take a loyal dog’s spirit into the Light. And at racetracks, I’ve been able to find the ghosts of grooms who are willing to lead the earthbound spirits of fiery racehorses into the Light.
Why Animals Stay
I believe that many animals stay earthbound out of a sense of loyalty. Most of the animal spirits I have encountered have been with a human whom they loved, or in a home that