Welcome to The Mindful Pet Owner

Who would have thought starting a blog could be so difficult? Having a lot to say but just not sure where to start or how to articulate it. I am not a professional writer so lets just get that out of the way right now. This isn’t going to be perfect, and I am going to fumble along the way, but I can promise it will be authentically me (love me or hate me) and my purpose behind starting this blog is so important to me that I feel it in my core. I can’t contain my energy. I’m trying to type whilst my legs are bopping, and my fingers are trembling – and that’s without an ounce of caffeine! I don’t do caffeine and for those around me I think I can speak on their behalves that they are all really happy about that.

So where do I start…

I grew up surrounded by animals, was a vet nurse for 5 years while I was at vet school and have been a small animal vet for 11 years now. I remember when I was 11 years old my teacher asked me that classic question of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I kid you not I told him I wanted to be a supermodel (all snide comments can be kept to your persons please). In his wisdom he pushed me a bit further and asked if there was anything else I might want to do, and my second answer was to be a vet. From that day on, that was my dream. Let’s keep it real, being a vet is gruelling and personally taxing, but I can honestly say I am just as in love with my profession as I was at the beginning. Working with animals to make their lives better makes my heart glow. The only difference now is that I can’t ignore the feeling deep inside me that I can do more, and now is the time for me to see what I can do to make a real difference.

How did I get to this point? I’m not going to lie; the last 12 months have been rough. All culminating in me taking some leave from ‘my calling’ to allow my body, mind and soul to heal and recover from a brutal onslaught brought on by myself and others. While what got me to that point was a nasty turn of events, what I have gained from having this time to myself is priceless. It’s given me time to re-evaluate my choices and think long and hard about what I want and what I want to achieve. It’s brought me to my ‘why’. For some of you, you might be thinking - jeebus she has really been drinking the coolade, and that’s ok. But where I find myself now is in a completely different head space to where I was 12 months ago, a healthier space, a more mindful space.

I’m content with the fact that I have a strong feeling in my core that I was put here to make a difference to animals’ lives, which I have been doing on a small scale as a vet. But now, it’s time to look at how I can start to influence owners at a deeper level, get them to be more mindful about their choices and actions and how they affect their pet. It’s kind of like saying that internal vet monologue out aloud for all the owners to hear in hope that I can help to train the humans to be the owner their pets deserve.

So, what is being a mindful pet owner all about? For me, it’s about understanding how our decisions and actions affect our furry members of the family, not just the human ones. It’s about rethinking those decisions or actions if they have or have had a negative effect on them. It’s about being mindful enough to go through this process before they are affected negatively or being responsible enough to own up to your part in the negative effects on them and be willing to make a change. Having things out of balance in our lives can be detrimental to our quality of life, but we have the power to make a difference. Our pets’ lives being out of balance is also detrimental for them (and can also affect us) – it’s just that most people don’t think about animals in this way, and the hard pill to swallow for most owners is the fact that the imbalance is almost 100% our fault (whether you are willing to acknowledge that or not).

Where to from here? Well I have a loose plan. The next blog will come at some point soon and the journey will have begun. I don’t want to put any timelines on it. Not just yet. The first hurdle was starting, acting, putting my written word where my mouth has been rambling for ages.

Hopefully this has been a good start. But to be honest, I am not sure anymore as I have been surrounded by a cloud of bulldog farts for the past hour and you can only expect your brain to function on full power for so long in that kind of hostile environment – even if I have had a few years to build up an immunity.

Until next time, enjoy the journey of mindful pet ownership.

Anita x

Gas Machine 1

Gas Machine 2

The Innocent Bystander