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Healing animal magic

Simon Donohue
21/ 8/2008

THE corporate world sunk its claws so deep into Jean Davies's psyche that her health and happiness had seriously started to deteriorate.

"I was never medically diagnosed," she says, "but I'm convinced that I was suffering from the symptoms some people describe as ME - or yuppie flu."

Fortunately for Jean, 51, being made redundant from her human resources role with Esso served as the signpost towards spiritual enlightenment.

And today she is scratching out an altogether more rewarding existence - performing the mysterious healing powers of reiki... on family pets.

"I've always had a close association with animals, but the reiki thing happened completely out of the blue," says Jean.

For the uninitiated, reiki is a spiritual practice similar to the laying on of hands, in which practitioners claim to channel `healing energy' from the atmosphere, through their palms, and into the subject.

It was developed in the 1920s and is taught at alternative healing centres across the country, including the Reiki School in Hale where Jean is a pupil.

Animals are calmer

It isn't scientifically proven, but there are thousands who believe in its powers.

"It was while I was thinking about my future that my cat Bella became a bit poorly," recalls Jean.

"I knew for some reason that if I just put my hands on her, it could make her better. I did it, and half an hour later, she leapt away. It had worked.

"I kept getting cold sores and I found that I could also cure myself. I thought to myself: `What have I got here in my hands?'

"I'd heard the word reiki before, but I didn't know what it meant. I Googled it and before I knew it, I'd enrolled at the Reiki School in Hale."

Reiki is now just one the services that Jean offers through the animal sitting service she launched after leaving Esso.

She provides her reiki powers free to pet-sitting clients, taking a few extra minutes to lay her hands on the animals in her charge.

"People often return from holiday and tell me that their pets are calmer than before they went away," she adds.

Clients who opt only for reiki treatment for their pets are charged around £25 per half hour and £40 per hour.

Happier

Jean has laid hands on a cat struggling to settle in to a new home after a house move and an anxious and nervous dog.

Jean also volunteers at the Animals In Distress Sanctuary in Irlam and is particularly proud of the work she did with Frank, a three-week-old kitten removed from his mother and siblings because he was suffering with an infection.

"I've had some lovely successes with other animals at the sanctuary, and with my own private clients too," she says.

Single Jean supplements her pet care income by continuing to provide some of the management training skills of her old career.

Working part time in telephone marketing also helps her to `feed a hungry mortgage'.

But she already has 40 regular animal clients and says that she is far happier now than she has been for years.

"I'm not a religious person but I am a spiritual person and I also like yoga. I genuinely feel that something very positive has happened to me," she says.

"I might feel a fuzzy feeling in the palm of my hand when I'm treating an animal and the area which is being treated will begin to get warmer. It feels lovely."

For more information visit www.whiskerspetcare.co.uk .

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