If your parrot is not parroting, your Springer Spaniel is not springing or your French Trotter is not trotting, they could be candidates for emotional therapy from an earnest young Guadalajara professional.
“All living creatures can receive therapy,” explained Cristina Lopez Cabello, “even plants.”
Animals may feel depression, fear, sadness, anxiety and other negative emotions, Lopez says, and they have unique personalities too. Besides observing the animal, Lopez talks to the owners a lot, especially asking how the animal came to them—via rescue, adoption, etcetera—and at what age. She noted that many puppies are taken from their mother before the age of 3 months—at the moment they start eating solid food—and that this is always negative for the dogs, as they do not gain sufficient attachment to, and instruction from, the mother.
Lopez said she wanted to be a veterinarian from the time she was a child, but couldn’t tolerate euthanizing animals or seeing evidence of cruelty. So she gravitated toward working with animals’ emotions. But, since animals cannot talk, Lopez studied two classic forms of emotional therapy that do not utilize speech—Bach flower remedies, developed by the English doctor Edward Bach, and Reiki, a hands-on Japanese energy-healing technique. (Reiki is not at all painful but relaxing, Lopez emphasized, and Bach flower remedies have more recently been augmented by another floral system, Mediterranean flower remedies, which she also practices.)
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