Odin

This week, Odin opened another little door. He is allowing us to touch him with our hands—not just once, but repeatedly—and over the course of several days, it has become easier for him to receive. At first, we lingered with our hands to help him become familiar with the idea of being touched. We stayed in contact long enough for him to discover that a hand could simply be there without anything alarming happening. Over time, though, we began to notice that the hardest part was often not the touch itself, but the moment before it, when he wonders: What is coming?

Toward the end of today’s session, I stopped and started several times, reintroducing my hand each time. The pauses gave Odin a chance to process what had happened, and the repeated approaches helped him move through the anxiety of anticipation. Each return of the hand became another opportunity to discover that what was coming could be gentle, predictable, and kind. Being able to touch and linger around his neck will also make practical tasks, such as having a veterinarian perform a Coggins test, possible.

Sometimes, as my hand passes over an area, I feel or see a little twitch, followed by a softening or release of tension. His body answers my hand, and my hand, in turn, needs to listen. Touch becomes less something we do to Odin and more something that passes between us—a question, an answer, another question. And so perhaps what Odin is learning isn’t simply how to be touched. He is learning what a human hand can be.

Susan discovered today just how precise that language can be. A friendly pat on the side and rump, perfectly ordinary in the human vocabulary of affection, got an immediate response. Apparently, Odin would like us to know that a pat and a gentle touch are not synonyms. Message received.

For now, we want every approach of the hand to carry the same intention: love, kindness, gentleness, and patience. Not merely as something we feel toward him, but as something he can actually experience in the hand itself—in its softness, its patience, its willingness to pause, leave, and return, and its readiness to listen when his body speaks back. Perhaps that is what we are practicing together now: the language of a listening hand.