And That Was Enough
Quietly True — Stories from a shelter volunteer and animal communicator
The shelter had a different quality today. Not subdued exactly — more like everyone had turned inward. Bella, Cusco, the others. Even the air between the kennels felt held. Not much wanted to be said. And I've learned to trust that.
Sometimes presence is my job. And the whole conversation.
A new arrival was trembling when I found him — that full-body trembling that small dogs carry like a weather system. A Chihuahua named Pinto with eyes that filled the entire space of the kennel. He looked like a painted horse the size of a hand. He didn't resist when I lifted him. He just folded into the hold, and I let my hands do what they seem to know how to do. The energy settled through him. I set a pink bubble around him — a soft field of safety he could rest inside. His heart was strong underneath all that uncertainty. He was going to his new home the next day. He had been neutered earlier in the day and couldn't go for a full walk.
We sat on a bench outside. He looked back at me. Steady. Still. A long, clear look that said everything.
Thank you.
He had stopped trembling.
Hugo was a different story. I'll admit I had walked past his kennel earlier, feeling guilty for avoiding his demands. And like Pinto, I had uncertainty too. For someone who lived with Stanley — twenty pounds of schnauzer and pure opinion — the bigger dogs can sometimes be intimidating. When I step into a kennel and an eighty-pound excited dog jumps on me, I trust it comes from love and eagerness to get outside. But Hugo was reactive today, and I would let one of the technicians work with him.
I couldn't walk him that day, but I stood at his kennel and let him know I was there. I put a pink bubble around him. Whether it was me or him, he settled down for a few minutes.
The other shelter dogs were looking for the same thing. Their time outside, nothing more. Each one asking for presence more than anything else. That was my job. To be here with them.
And that was enough.
The next morning I took my coffee to the backyard patio.
The lilac was overpowering — stronger than the pine, stronger than anything. And then I started noticing the small things asserting themselves into the foreground. The sound of squirrel feet on bark, louder than the distant cars. A bunny moving through the woodland edge with that particular joyful hop, unhurried, exploring. The hummingbird arriving at the feeder, hovering, departing. Chickadees, finches, robins layering their songs.
I wasn't trying to be present. I just was.
And into that stillness, a voice arrived:
Is this all there is?
I sat with it. The lilac. The squirrel. The bunny in the woods. Pinto's steady gaze. Hugo's wild wanting. The hummingbird, already gone.
Yes.
And in that yes, something shifted. Bella, Cusco, Pinto — all of them — had been showing me the same thing the morning was showing me now. Not a message. Be here now.
The shelter had been saying it all day.
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The names of the animals in this series have been changed to honor their privacy while they wait for their people.
Lesley Ames is a psychic medium and animal communicator based in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. She volunteers with her local Humane Society and works with living animals, animals who have passed, and the people who love them. You can find her at lesleyames.com.