The one time I wished my intuition was wrong……..

Mac 10/06/2018-13/07/2026

It was only only a few moments ago I was writing and sharing Mac’s message of relaxing and taking it easy with all my newsletter followers. And now I find myself writing to share the sad news that Mac gained his wings and left his physical body on 13th July.  

Before Mac left the earth plane he had been communicating about physical challenges in his body for quite some time. I had wanted to give him every chance possible to live his days in the field with his friends if this was what he wanted to do, but increasingly he was making it very clear that in fact he didn’t want to be in his body at all. A message that in hindsight he had been giving me for a while, but that I had been hoping I was ‘getting wrong’.

Listening to behaviour as communication -

Mac had become increasingly more difficult to pick out his front feet. Snatching and stomping them away. He also became more and more ‘bitey’. Often he didn’t want to be in the field, but also he didn’t want to be in the stable.

He was consistently sore through his sacroiliac joint, no matter what treatment or stretching he had. He showed little trips every now and then, and sometimes some quite big stumbles when I was riding him. He found it incredibly difficult to move his body in a fluid way, ‘letting go over his back’ was really hard for him. There were days when I felt he had headaches, and days when he literally didn’t want to ‘be anywhere’.

Calling on others for help -

Having uncovered several ‘issues’ I decided it was time to call in the help of an equine osteopath and a specialist lameness vet to work out a specific diagnosis and to help plan Macs rehabilitation journey.

To cut a very long story short, with the ongoing help and support of wonderful equine podiatrist Emily Davies and 4 vets later we finally uncovered what I had hoped was not going to be, which was that of Mac having enlarged boney facets joints in his neck. The x rays showed his neck to look like that of a 16 year old, and he was only 8. Euthanasia was suggested, but I wanted to take the time to find out from Mac what he wanted.

Primary veterinary investigations had uncovered that Mac had kissing spine and arthritis in his hocks, along with a bone chip in one of his hocks.

Mac had also given me the sense that he experienced headaches on some days, likely caused by the fact that he was blind in one of his eyes. Maybe the light penetrated into this eye differently than the other. I’m not totally sure, but there were definetely days he seemed to have a headache.

I began to understand his messages of not wanting to be in the field, not wanting to be in the stable. Not wanting to live in Devon, not wanting to live in Wales. Finally I started to get it- he didn’t want to live anywhere.

He didn’t want to get in the trailer to come home after the final vets investigations, where they had suggested euthanasia. This was very unlike him. In that moment the truth landed and my heart broke. I asked Mac to get in the trailer one more time to come home and give me some days to be sure of this decision and come to terms with what had just happend. He walked straight in.

Being sure and making the hardest decision-

Over the next 24 hours I sat with all that had just happened. I checked in with Mac about what he wanted to happen. He was very clear. I double checked, checked back on myself, asked life and the universe for signs that I was understanding him correctly, and all came back with confirmation that Mac wanted to leave his body.

I mostly wanted to share this story with you in the hope that it may help you gain insight into further ways that animals communicate with us, and to reinforce this message to everyone-

trust yourself and trust your inner knowings

even when you may be surrounded by people in positions of professional power telling you otherwise. If your animal and/or your body is telling you something, keep going until you get to the bottom of it all.

I’m sure Mac’s teachings will continue on in many ways to come and I will share some of the words he shared with me and the Adventures in Animal Communication Group in a new blog in the coming months.

 If you’d like to get started with learning animal communication, or gain insight into ways of navigating anything I have described in this blog you can begin this journey inside the Adventures in Animal Communication Course. A series of 18 modules to work through in your own time, packed with tools and practices to help guide you into deeper connections with your animals and all of Life. Alongside the self paced modules is the online gatherings where we come together to practice, ask and answer questions and learn from and with each other too. You can pop me a message if you’d like to find out more or follow the link above.