Alfi and the Balloons
By Deborah Sampson
On moving to our land in 2003, our dog Alfie developed the habit of barking frantically at all white lines in the sky from airplanes, as well as hot-air balloons. He would not stop and we could not calm him. He was then 3 years old.
Our previous house was in a hamlet, surrounded by other houses and the sky was less exposed than it is here. We moved into a caravan on the land at first with a magnificent view and lots and lots of sky! Alf would run off down the field barking non stop, and no amount of reassurance would comfort him. This became more and more of a problem.
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[Viewers of Channel 4’s GRAND DESIGNS will know Deborah and Mark Sampson as the builders of the ‘Straw Bale House in France’. Filming of the episode was regularly interrupted by Alfi barking much to the despair of the film crew]
Last November 2011 I attended Gwyneth’s animal day. Gwyneth and I tapped for Alf. His story as far as I knew, was that he was abandoned by his mother as were all her pups and they were going to be drowned by the farmer. A friend of mine, his neighbour rescued the surviving puppies (Alf and a brother). He was 2 months old.
We started tapping about Alfi’s behaviour and then about his puppyhood. I spoke as if I was a confused, lonely and scared little puppy. What was very vivid for me was the farmer’s hand coming down from the sky to pick me up with a bad intention. As we tapped this surrogate memory lost its intensity and I began to feel like a grown up dog with a loving family.
When I returned home I couldn’t test the work. Grey skies, so no planes visible and certainly no hot air balloons! In April I came home to my first hot air balloon of the season. Due to the view we get a lot of them in spring. Alf was quiet. My husband assured me he had been silent all afternoon. I took him out to look at the balloon. A pathetic start to a bark and then nothing! Today as I write this, the sky is blue, its scratched with white lines in all directions and balloons are sailing by. Still not a murmur from Alfi!
EFT is an amazing tool, all of us practitioners are in agreement about that.
But surrogate tapping for my barking dog, Who’s barking now?
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Hi I want to know how to create a tapping for pet cats which poo in the neighborhood. I cannot stop my cat from getting out. Most of my cats poo in the neighbor’s house that caused us problems. All of our neighbors are angry at all and we are always in trouble. We don’t want stress from that so I am thinking I need to surrogate tap on my cats to not poo in the neighborhood to avoid this kind of problem. I hope you help me to create one.
Surrogate tapping is a process of communication and an invitation to change. It is not something done to or imposed on another. Also tapping scripts do not work with animals. If you would like to make an appointment with me http://staging.efthelps.com/eft-appointments we can tap together for your cats.