I could have kept calling it animal healing, or energy healing for pets - the names most people in this field expect to see. I chose not to, and landed on tending. Healing, to me, leans too far toward fixing. It promises a repair, and it needs something to be wrong first. A sickness, a wrongness, some problem you have to have before you qualify.
Tending isn't something you reach for only when something breaks.
You heal the ones who are sick. You tend to the ones you cherish. You tend a fire, a garden, a flock, a wound.
Tend is short for attend, from the Latin attendere, to stretch toward. That's the work, precisely - attention stretched toward an animal, far enough to close the distance. To attend someone also means keeping them company, as a helper or a protector.
So none of this is treatment. It's care and company, the everyday work of a steward.
Why tending?
Cezary wrote about why the old word wore out for us. [If Not Healing, Then What? →]
Animal Tending puts welfare first. I begin every session by holding space and witnessing another being - nothing asked of it, nothing corrected. The nearest comparison I can give is the way presence of a steady companion eases another animal’s distress, phenomena known as social buffering. Every animal arrives with its own story, but whatever the particulars, what tending provides is the same: an energy that soothes and steadies. And the aim is that the animal settles, and what usually prevents settling it is the other thing the session shows.
Step by step
1.
You book and choose what to pay. For a free place, write to me instead.
2.
You send one photo and a few lines. Their name, what kind of animal, how old, what's going on, and what your vet has said if they're unwell.
3.
4.
You get a note, usually within two days.
I work from where I am, for about half an hour. Your animal can be anywhere and doing anything - asleep, eating, out in the field. Please don't hold them still for it. They're free to ignore the whole thing.
He was very quiet throughout - oddly quiet at first. I gave him plenty of space and gently offered healing energy without pushing anything. He received it in his own way, which felt right.
A few clear visuals came through. Quick reminder that it's all about symbolic meaning. I saw waves, like a slow walk along a beach - a rhythm of coming and going, not a crisis. That felt reassuring. More of a "this will pass in its own time" than anything alarming. I also sensed deep purple light, which often shows up around cleansing and recovery processes in the body.
There was also an image of a person moving fast, busy, paying attention to everything outside rather than what's close or what's happening inside - and then being stopped by something. With that came a specific kind of loneliness. Not the kind from being alone, but the kind you can feel even when people are around. What’s missing is feeling connected. I'm not sure how much of that belongs to Kuru and how much reflects the energy of his environment, or yours - but it felt worth sharing.
The message underneath all of it: safe space, safe presence, stable environment, consistency in daily routine - a recipe for support.
Kuru struck me as a sensitive little soul. He's just asking for some slowdown and gentleness. With love around him, I know he'll be okay.
Sending you both warm energy.
Love,
Anna
What the note says
What I noticed on my side. Where my attention kept going, what shifted during the half hour and what didn't, anything that came up twice. It's written as mine, because it is. It's what I received, not a report on your animal's insides.
Then a few plain suggestions for the next days. Rest, routine, water, fewer visitors, what to watch for, what might be worth mentioning to your vet.
Sometimes there's a line for you as well. Animals live inside the weather of a household. Researchers in Sweden measured a stress hormone in the hair of dogs and their owners over several months, and the dogs' levels followed their owners'. So a line for you isn't blame. You're the other half of this.
When people write to me
Something changed.
A move, a new animal, a new baby, a stay at the vet or in kennels.
Someone is missing.
It's a long stretch.
Something is off.
Nothing is wrong.
A companion who died, a person who moved out.
Recovery alongside treatment, old age, the last weeks.
The one who startles at every door, the one who's gone quiet, the one who guards the bowl.
Since when does attention need a reason? People tend gardens that aren't dying.
Cases build on what the situation is about, not on diagnosis.
A move. A rehoming. A new baby or a new animal in the house.
The weeks after another animal in the household died. A rescue whose first years are unknown. The last stretch of a long life. An owner going through something and a creature soaking up the whole household's weather.
Two ways, three prices
A single tending
A stretch
One session, one note. For a moment. A move, a bad week, the day before the vet, or no reason at all.
Three sessions across about three weeks, a note after each, and a last one that reads all three together with whatever you noticed. For the things that take their time. Settling in, recovery, grief, getting old.
you choose
you choose
Same work at every price. The lowest is there so money isn't the reason you don't ask. The middle is what it's worth. The highest pays for a place for an animal with no one.
Animals with no one
For an animal in a shelter, a foster home or a sanctuary, or living on the street where you feed it, there's no fee. I keep a few of these places every month. Write to me with the photo and tell me where they live.
Where it stops
The vet comes first. If your animal is in pain, stops eating or drinking, struggles to breathe or changes suddenly, call your vet today, not me. Tending runs alongside veterinary care and never replaces it. When what you tell me sounds like a vet's job, I'll say so before anything else.
And sometimes you'll see nothing at all. I'd rather say that now than explain it away later.
Small questions
Which animals?
Any. Dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, guinea pigs, birds, reptiles, the goat nobody else would take.
Wasn't this free before?
It was free for everyone. Now it's free for the animals with no one to pay for them, and pay what you can for everyone else.
Can I book for an animal that isn't mine?
If you look after it, yes - a foster, a shelter volunteer, the neighbour who feeds the stray. If it belongs to someone else, ask them first.
What kind of photo?
Recent, just the one animal, face visible if you can manage it. A phone photo is fine. It doesn't have to be a good one.
It stays with me. I don't post it or pass it on.
How soon can you do it?
Usually within a week of your message. I work Monday to Friday.
Is it a problem that my animal is on medication?
No. Keep to whatever your vet prescribed, and tell me about it in your message.
Can I change my mind?
Until the session happens, yes, and you get everything back.
This work is rooted in stewardship: looking after the creatures placed in our care, and providing for them. I'm grateful to be trusted with it. We become better stewards one act of care at a time, each in the hope of a gentler future for the animals we love. I believe it's a responsibility we all share - for them, and to Gaia.
Questions before booking are welcome - anna@effexora.com
