Celebrate Safely this Independence Day!

Wishing you a happy and safe Independence Day, celebrating with people you care for. While you're at it, send up some thanks that we do still  have Independence. Our freedom is something to be cherished.

Meanwhile, if you live where you can buy and use your own fireworks, please be careful! Summer is no time to have fire dropping to the ground.

Keep your garden hoses out, and be alert - just in case a neighbor gets silly.

Oh, and please remember to keep your pets indoors. Animal rescues get more lost pet calls on the 5th of July than any other time of year. Some dogs and cats are so terrified of fireworks, gunfire, and thunderstorms that they just start to run, and don't stop. Sometimes they run so hard and so far that they can't find their way home again.

Even when you're keeping them inside, there's no sense in allowing them to suffer from their fear. Especially not when Feel Bach! can help.

If you have our "Thunder Storms" formula, begin giving it in the morning, or even the previous day. If you don't have any, use Feel5ive to help ease the stress your pets may experience this 4th of July.

Best wishes for joy and safety - from the whole Feel Bach! team.

Pets Tune in to Your Feelings

Last week we were talking about how the economy can make you sick - because according to a Stanford University study, 95% of all illness is caused by stress.

Have you thought about how your stress affects your pets? When you're ill or upset what do they do? A friend told me this evening that when she's sick, one of her dogs hovers - stays right by her side and "fusses" over her. The other one hides.

Both of these animals are reacting to her feelings, each in his or her own way.
And both are feeling stress because the person they love is under the stress of illness.

Pay attention to your pets. Are they behaving differently these days? It could be because they're picking up on your feelings about the economy - or about your illness or your worries about the illness of a loved one.

Keep an eye on them, and if you see behavior changes, consider treating them with Bach Flower Essences before their stress causes a physical ailment as well.

Feel Bach! has a questionnaire designed just for pets - and it will help you choose just the right combination of Bach flower essences to help them through this difficult time.

In addition to the fact that you love your pets and want them to be healthy and happy, having them become ill is a stress you just don't need!

Choosing the correct Bach flower remedy

Before I tell you about a letter we got this week, I have to do a little "Yippee" dance here regarding the weather.

Finally, today, it appears that maybe I'm NOT living in a land of perma-snow. Today I could actually see the piles melting - with puddles on the ground around them. AND I found a lily poking it's nose up in one of the flower beds that's finally melted off.

An even better sign of spring - I pulled my first weed of the season! (Leave it to me to be excited about weeds.)

There's still a good foot of snow out in the meadows, but around the house it's going away, and I'm celebrating!

Now... back to the pets.

We had a letter from a lady who was very concerned about her dog's fearfulness. She's afraid of everything outside, and alert to every little sound in the house - nervous all the time.

I recommended Feel5ive as a general remedy to calm her and lessen her anxiety, but then I thought more about it. Unfortunately she hadn't told us if this was a new problem, or something the dog had suffered with since puppy-hood.

If it was a new problem, it could have stemmed from some event in her life - or some event in the life of one or more of the humans around her. Dogs are so sensitive to our feelings, that this dog's problem could be along the lines of a sympathetic reaction.

I recommended using the questionaire to really examine all her dog's behavior traits in detail, so the correct blend could be prepared just for her. And then I suggested that she might want to do the same for herself.

As a dog lover, my heart went out to this lady, and my thanks. Some people would just send the dog off to the pound, but she's working to help her be happy. I'm so glad our world has people who care for their pets that way - and so glad that I get to "meet" them, if only through letters.