Could a Pet Constellation Help You Understand Your Animal Differently?

Sometimes something is going on with an animal that you just can’t quite make sense of.

Perhaps your rescue dog is anxious despite everything you’ve done to help them feel safe.

Maybe two animals in your household suddenly aren’t getting along.

Perhaps your pet’s behaviour changed after a house move, relationship change, bereavement or another animal joining or leaving the family.

Or perhaps there’s nothing obviously “wrong” at all. You simply have a particularly deep relationship with an animal and feel curious about what might emerge if you looked at that relationship from a different perspective.

This is where a Pet Constellation can offer an interesting new lens.

What is a Pet Constellation?

Pet Constellations are an application of Family Constellations and systemic work that includes our animals within the wider systems they belong to.

Because while we often look at an animal’s behaviour in isolation, our pets don’t live in isolation.

They live in relationships.

They share homes with us. They form bonds with particular people and animals. They experience arrivals and departures, changes in routine, house moves, separation, grief and loss.

Many rescue animals also arrive carrying a history of their own; sometimes one we know very little about.

A Pet Constellation allows us to widen the lens and explore what is happening within that bigger picture.

Rather than starting with an assumption about what your animal’s behaviour means, we get curious.

What might we see when we look at the whole system?

What can you bring to a Pet Constellation?

There doesn’t have to be a dramatic problem.

You might bring something specific, such as:

• anxiety, fear or an unexplained change in behaviour
• difficulties between animals living in the same household
• challenges following the arrival of a new pet, baby or family member
• changes following a house move, divorce, bereavement or other disruption
• a rescue animal whose history or behaviour you’re struggling to understand
• a particularly intense bond between you and your animal
• difficulty adjusting after the death of another animal
• your own grief following the loss of a beloved pet
• questions around an animal’s place within your family
• a situation where you feel you’ve tried everything and would simply like to look at it differently.

You can also bring curiosity.

Sometimes there is no problem to fix. There is simply a relationship you’d like to understand more deeply.

But does that mean my pet’s problem is actually about me?

No.

And this distinction is really important to me.

You may come across the idea in Pet Constellation work that animals “carry” emotions, trauma or unresolved issues on behalf of their humans.

I prefer not to decide that before we start.

Your dog is also a dog.

They have their own temperament, nervous system, experiences, history and needs.

A behavioural or health problem should always be appropriately investigated with a qualified veterinary or animal behaviour professional. Pet Constellations are not a replacement for either.

What systemic work gives us is an additional lens.

Instead of deciding that the animal is the problem — or that you are the problem — we can ask:

What is happening in the system around this animal?

Then we see what emerges.

What actually happens in a Pet Constellation session?

I offer Pet Constellations privately online.

Before we meet, I’ll ask you to complete a questionnaire so I have some background about your animal, their history, the other humans and animals in your household, significant events and the particular issue or question you’d like to explore.

We’ll talk briefly about what you’ve brought to the session and decide where to begin.

Then we set up the constellation.

In my regular one-to-one Family Constellations work I often use objects, figurines and floor markers to represent different members or elements of a system.

With Pet Constellations, I’ve found myself working much more with floor markers and movement.

It feels particularly appropriate when working with animals.

Animals communicate and relate through their bodies. They move towards and away. They orient themselves in space. They seek proximity, create distance, watch, wait, approach, retreat and settle.

So rather than creating a static picture, we allow the constellation room to move.

I work directly with the floor markers, stepping into the different representative positions and noticing what emerges; where attention goes, what feels significant, where there’s an impulse to move, and how the constellation changes as it unfolds.

You remain an observer throughout, but the process is interactive. I’ll share what I’m noticing and check in with you as we go, asking questions and bringing in your observations and context where they’re useful.

Rather than creating a static picture of the situation, we allow the constellation room to move and develop, following what emerges without deciding in advance where it should lead.

We might begin by representing you and your animal.

Other animals or family members might become relevant.

Something from the animal’s history might need to be included.

A loss or change in the household might emerge as significant.

Or the constellation might take us somewhere neither of us expected.

That’s part of the work.

We don’t decide what we’re going to find before we start.

Does my pet need to be there?

No.

Your animal doesn’t need to sit obediently beside you on Zoom, which will come as excellent news to anyone who has ever met a dog, cat or parrot.

This is your session, exploring the system and relationship through constellation work.

If your animal happens to be wandering around in the background, that’s absolutely fine too.

Pet Constellations and grief

Pet Constellations can also be used to explore our relationships with animals who have died.

The death of an animal can be an enormous loss.

They may have shared ten, fifteen or even twenty years of your life. They might have been beside you through relationship changes, moves, illness, bereavement, children growing up or some of the most difficult chapters of your life.

And yet pet grief isn’t always recognised by the people around us as the significant bereavement it can be.

A constellation can create space to acknowledge that relationship, the animal’s place in your life and what their loss means to you.

There doesn’t need to be a behavioural problem, and your animal doesn’t need to still be alive, for their place in your system to be explored.

Why book a Pet Constellation?

Because sometimes we need another perspective.

When we’re very close to a problem, we naturally see it from inside our own experience.

We’ve tried the training.

We’ve changed the routine.

We’ve read everything Google has to offer.

We’ve worried.

And sometimes we’ve started blaming ourselves.

A constellation allows us to step outside the situation for a moment and see the relationship rather than simply think about it.

It might offer a completely unexpected insight.

It might help you see your animal differently.

It might illuminate something about the wider household.

It might give you a new question to take to your vet or behaviourist.

It might help you acknowledge a loss or transition that hasn’t been fully recognised.

Or it might simply deepen your appreciation for the extraordinary animal who has shared a chapter of your life.

There is no predetermined answer we’re trying to reach.

There is simply an opportunity to look.

Book a Pet Constellation with me

I’ve spent many years working closely with animals and the humans who love them, particularly through my work as an award-winning dog photographer and my involvement with rescue dogs.

Pet Constellations bring that part of my world together with my work as a Family Constellations facilitator.

Sessions take place online via Zoom, which means you can work with me from anywhere in the world.

If there’s something happening with your animal, your relationship with them, your wider animal family or your grief around a pet you’ve lost, you’re welcome to bring it.

Book a Pet Constellation session HERE.

South African residents please book HERE.

Or, if you’re not sure whether what you’re experiencing is suitable for constellation work, book a free Discovery Call HERE and we can talk about it first.

Sometimes the question isn’t:

What’s wrong with my animal?

Sometimes a more useful question is:

What haven’t we seen yet?

Sidney’s Story & Pet Constellation

“We had no idea what to expect from a pet constellation, but we’d exhausted every other avenue with Sidney refusing to come up the steps in our house, so we figured we had nothing to lose.

The strange thing was that she could come up them, but sometimes she’d just get stuck at the bottom of our two steps and it was almost as if something was stopping her. Because of the layout of our house, it meant she couldn’t move around freely and we couldn’t figure out why she was doing it.

We spent 90 minutes online with Emma, “jumping” in and out of Sidney and trying to work out what was going on. It was fascinating watching Emma almost absorb Sidney’s traits and become her.  The session was fun and interactive too, with us talking to Emma AKA Sidney and helping her understand she was allowed to come up the steps.

When the session finished, we carried on with our day and didn’t really think much more about it. Then, when we went to bed that night, Sidney came up the steps.

And she’s come up them every single night for over a week now.

We’re super impressed,  so much so that we’ve already booked another session with Emma for our other dog, who has his own set of issues.”

Davina, Clare & Sidney