I Found My Dream Camp!
"They That Mourn Shall be Comforted" Matt. 5:4
Today, I am one step closer to living my final life purpose. I found the perfect location where we plan to hold Companion Animal World spiritual pet memorial and compassion restoration (also known as “compassion fatigue”) retreats.
Last week, I toured a retreat center located in northwestern Washington state. It has literally everything that we’ve been looking for in a West Coast retreat center: a camp-like setting, comfortable accommodations, a functional meeting space, and an absolutely beautiful environment with a palpable sense of peace. Just look at these pictures and tell me what you think.
See what I mean? Gorgeous, right?
The purpose of these retreats is to provide emotional and spiritual healing for those working in the animal industry and for any animal lover having a difficult time working through their grief. In particular, these will be geared toward those working or volunteering in lost pet recovery (my peeps), the rescue of neglected or unwanted animals (dogs, cats, horses, wildlife, etc.), TNR (trap-neuter-return), all veterinary staff, animal control officers, and animal sheltering staff. While every animal lover will be welcome, these particular industries experience unrelenting drama, trauma, anger, depression, burnout, and soaring suicide rates.
Last week, well-known YouTube “star” (she had millions of followers) and rescuer, Mikayla Raines, died by suicide. She was the founder of the Minnesota-based Save A Fox Rescue and worked tirelessly to rescue foxes from the fur trade.
Mikayla’s husband said that she committed suicide after “online harassment” (bullying) by people she had “considered friends.” She was only 29. Her death has literally rocked the already fragile rescue community. How can this happen? Why would this happen? Our world is changing, not in a good way, and people are crying out for peace, for purpose, for relief from anxiety, panic attacks, and freedom from thoughts of suicide.
At Companion Animal World (CAW), our retreats will be open to any animal lover who is seeking help. While it’s true that our retreats are “faith-based,” we are not about religion. We are about building a relationship with God and finding inner peace amid our world’s growing storm. If you sincerely love companion animals, you are family to us! No matter what your belief system, your religion, your political slant, your ethnicity, your sexual orientation, or your thoughts and reactions (often based on previous judgements and rejections) toward anything associated with “the church” or anything “Christian,” you are loved and you are welcome in the CAW family!
Our plans to build a large pet memorial site, with our own amazing retreat center, will take time. That is a long-term goal. Our initial plan is to launch our retreats in the spring of 2026 with a five-day offering. Here’s what that will look like:
We will spend a Monday through Thursday at the amazing retreat center pictured above. There, we will rest, meditate through breath prayers, dance, sing, and paint. We will experience spiritual healing from emotional (and physical) pain. We will find freedom from emotional chains, and we will have both group and private reflections and celebrations of our departed companion animals—beloved dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, horses, and other species we deeply cherish that either died or were lost and never found. We will learn about God’s love for man, His love and purpose for animals, and Biblical evidence that we will see our pets in Heaven.
Then, on Friday morning, we will pack up and drive (45 minutes) to a hotel in Bellingham, WA, (close to the airport) for our final day of activities.
Guests will have most of the day as free time. There will be an optional “add-on” for anyone interested in either a massage or a saltwater float experience at Still Water Massage & Float, located near our hotel. These float “pods” are filled with 1,200 pounds of Epsom salt, and you can either float with blue lights on or in total darkness. Floating is an amazing way to relax, but there are some restrictions, and availability for this activity may be limited.
On Friday evening, we will enjoy a sunset dinner and whale-watching cruise together, departing from Bellingham Bay, where we will take in stunning views of the Cascade Mountains and the San Juan Islands. During this cruise, guests will be welcome to scatter the ashes of their beloved companion animals into the Puget Sound.
There are so many grieving, depressed, broken-hearted, burned-out, exhausted, suicidal, emotionally wounded companion animal lovers who need spiritual healing. I’ve seen this pain, and even experienced much of it myself, over the past 29 years in my career as a pet detective helping families who lost a companion animal.
As this crazy, confusing, angering, frightening, whirlwind world that we live in today gets darker and darker, we need inner healing. The mainstream answer to depression, anxiety, panic attacks, fibromyalgia, addictions, and suicidal thoughts is to treat only two parts of our tri-part being: the body (we treat it with medication) and the mind/soul (we treat it with counseling, yoga, meditation, etc.).
But what about our third part, our spirit, which is our eternal being? That is what our retreats will minister to, and that is what makes them unique. At this retreat, we won’t offer “pet grief counseling.” Instead, we’ll teach all about the importance of renewing your mind, awakening your spirit, and finding inner healing through a personal relationship with God.
You might think, “What the heck does all of that churchy stuff have to do with me grieving over the death of my cat?” Everything! The Bible tells us that Jesus came to Earth to “bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Isaiah 61:1). If you’ve tried everything else—online pet grief discussion groups, medication, pet grief counseling, hypnosis, yoga, doulas, or any other treatment to help find relief from your daily pain, but nothing has helped, why not give spiritual restoration a try?
What you may have thought would be the last thing in the world that would help you might just be the key to your freedom!
Feel free to comment (if you’re using the Substack app) or hit REPLY if this came to you as an email. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have. I’d also be interested in hearing what you would want to see/experience at one of these retreats. One recent suggestion was to light memorial lanterns and release them in the pond (we are researching whether that will be allowed). What suggestions do you have for us?
WOW!