I want to share 5 ways to choose your animal companion. This is a bit different than the excellent advice given by animal rescues and shelters. In this blog, we focus on bringing a new soul into your family, not just a species or breed.

So I want you to tune into your intuitive side. Especially if you’ve recently lost a non-human family member! This can help you focus beyond your grief to finding whoever is waiting to join you.

1 – Give yourself permission to wait until you’re ready

When you tell some people about your loss, you are told with the utmost love, to fix your grief by choosing a new animal now. But grief is not fixed by this act. Grief has its own agenda and timing. You can certainly nudge it towards a place where it doesn’t hurt as much, where there’s a scar instead of an open wound.

But shutting down grief by choosing another companion isn’t ideal. It’s like trying to get a moody teenager who’s bigger than you to go somewhere they don’t want to. It takes a ton of energy, and it makes everything worse. (I take this from a personal example with my son who is now an incredibly functional adult. Hah!)

There are always repercussions with shutting down grief before it’s ready. Grief comes back with a double whammy when you’re not looking, almost as payback for moving forward too quickly.

And by waiting, you’re doing your new family member a service, believe me. It’s going to be hard not to compare this new soul – who has their own personality, peculiarities and preferences – to the one you lost. And it’s doubly hard if you weren’t ready to choose another animal. That’s not fair to your new family member.

So thank that person for their concern, and give yourself permission to hold off until you’re ready to take on a new live animal project.

2 – Get consensus with other humans in the family

Remember, they’re also grieving. Or at least, I hope so! They must be ready, too. When you’re ready to choose a new companion, don’t be the person I’m talking about in #1. Don’t push other family members to move forward faster than they want.

Be kind and let them feel their grief. Maybe you can create a memorial for the animal who passed to help them (and you) understand you’re not trying to replace anyone. People do that all the time. Read my blog, Grieving for your animal? A memorial might help.

3 – Talk to the non-human animals

When the humans in the family are ready to choose another animal companion, pretend you’re an animal communicator. Because truthfully, your animals understand more than you think. They’re already tuned into your energy.

Begin here – connect to them through your heart. Consciously remember the love you have for them before you try to talk to them. Your feeling of love turns up the volume of your communication.

Now talk to them out loud. Explain that it’s time to bring a new soul into the house. If you have an idea of the kind of animal and their age or size, create a picture in your mind. Is it a puppy or kitten? Is it a young animal or older?

Warn them it’s going to be crazy energy for a while. That’s because everyone will be figuring out how to get along and learn each other’s ways.

4 – Send out the call “I’m ready for you!”

Pretend you’re filling out a form for the energetic animal companion version of match.com. This will help you find the right animal companion.

How?

In my world, animals are part of our soul family. That’s the group of souls who choose to move through life together. If you believe in reincarnation, they’re the ones that were with you before you arrived on the planet and plan on being with you in the afterlife or next life.

So have fun. Imaging you’re a radio station broadcasting that it’s time for just the right soul to come into your life now. Imagine non-human animals who are part of your soul family are already tuned in and get the message. Do it playfully, because the energy of playfulness is so attractive.

5 – Look for them

Turn up the volume on your intuitive receiver. In other words, use your imagination.

Remember imagination? Did you ever read a story or watch a movie, and imagine being one of the characters in that story? Or dreamed what it would be like to be a superhero or detective?

Remember when you created a masterpiece with clay or crayons? How about when you talked to your cat, fish, dog, sheep, bird or horse and knew they understood you?

Can you find that little boy or girl and ask them to help you out here? Send out the message, we’re ready for you! We’re going to be looking!”

As you start your search, imagine that you will just know they’re the one. You’ll get that they choose you, too.

For instance, you look at picture after picture of dogs your husband sends you for adoption. All of a sudden, you see “the one.” That’s how we adopted my dog, Tibor in 2012.

Or you wanted to adopt them, but someone got there first. Umm, until the shelter or rescue called a few days later.  Something went haywire with the adopter and your favorite animal is back up for adoption. And they’re yours!

Or you have doubts, so you leave to think about it. Then you return days or weeks later and there they are, waiting for you. You know it was meant to be.

Folks have shared with me how they spent time with a roomful of puppies playing with each other. But this little girl puppy wouldn’t leave them alone. They got the message. She’s now part of their family.

So don’t be Mr. or Mrs. Logical when you’re ready to choose your animal companion. Look for the serendipitous connection and do it!

P.S. This does NOT mean the relationship will be a bed of dog or cat treats! Have you ever had a perfect human  relationship? There will be bumps in the road, maybe big ones. But however long they’re with you, you were meant to be together in this time and place.

Did you have this experience when choosing an animal? I’d love to hear your story!