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Author Probes Animal-Human Relationships

Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST NEWS

Caroline Westerhof has written "The Petology Series: Letters to Charlye" about her relationship with her dog Charlye. Westerhof hopes the book will be the first in a series about the emotional-spiritual connection of people and animals.

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: October 10, 2007

Logic might suggest Caroline S. Westerhof's doctorate in public administration and long career in the academic world would lead her to write a scholarly tome.

But forget logic when Charlye is concerned. Charlye was Westerhof's dog, a mutt from a slapdash mixture of beagle and wire-haired terrier whom Caroline and her husband, the late Gilbert "Bert" Westerhof, adopted from an animal shelter in 1974.

She spelled his name differently because "I'm an Aquarian. I'm different. I wanted him to be different."

Charlye romped through Westerhof's nicely ordered intellectual life during his 14 years with the Westerhofs until his death in 1988.

Her book about their relationship was recently published by PublishAmerica. "The Petology Series: Letters to Charlye" are letters Westerhof wrote to her dog after he died to help her deal with her grief.

Descriptive preface

The book also includes a preface describing petology, a word Westerhof created describing animal/human relationships.

Those include pet-assisted therapy and animal/human intuitive and emotional experiences.

She wants petology to become a part of accepted vocabulary in recognition of what she says are the spiritual/emotional bonds animals and humans share.

This is the first book in a series Westerhof plans to write on the connection between animals and humans.

In future books, she intends to write about animals outside of the home, such as wild animals that have some association with humans.

Charlye's death provided the impetus for Westerhof's first foray into psychic/spiritual realms, she explains sitting in her book-lined living room in Trinity with music from a classical music radio station playing in the background.

She was raised Jewish. Although she now uses her religion to connect more deeply with the spirit, before she got Charlye she was not a spiritual seeker. "I was sensitive. I didn't know I was spiritual," she recalls.

Not an animal lover

She was also not an animal lover. She had never been around animals and had no particular feeling for them.

With a Ph.D. in public administration from New York University, her life had been on a comfortable academic track.

She was a tenured professor at City University of New York, where she taught political science.

Later in her career, she became director of the University of South Florida's Florida Care College, a program providing training to staff working in assisted living facilities.

Additionally, she served as director of the Living Learning Institute for the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Tampa.

She also has become a frequent guest speaker, giving a talk in 2006, at a conference at Oxford University's Exeter College on gender issues and most recently during the Jewish High Holy days at Congregation B'nai Emmunah in Tarpon Springs.

Charlye's death caused the academic to probe deeper.

"When Charlye died, I wanted to connect with him," she remembers.

Strong sensation

One hint this was possible had been the strong sensation of Charlye cuddling in her arms shortly after his death.

Westerhof had been unable to dismiss the feeling that the now nonphysical Charlye had come back to comfort her.

To learn about the unfamiliar nonphysical world, she studied meditation and visualization with New Age teacher and author Sanaya Roman.

That experience and subsequent investigations have taught her to listen to her intuition and even to connect with friends and relatives who have died.

She also now meditates regularly and has investigated Hinduism and Buddhism.

Charlye was her first teacher about the nonphysical world, she says. He boiled down spiritual teachings to their basics. Tail wagging and slobbery kisses embodied unconditional love in all its sweetness.

"He didn't have an agenda," as do humans, Westerhof notes.

Lived in joy

He also lived in joy. She describes Charlye's glee when the two got into her car and Westerhof pretended she was driving. Charlye loved to ride. He didn't care a whit the car wasn't actually moving. He got as much happiness from the pretend game as from the real thing.

"He was my best friend," she says.

In his simplicity, Charlye cut through the academic chatter and taught her a lesson with which she still works.

"We are spiritual beings," she says.

Westerhof writes of stages in coming to terms with Charlye's death ranging from looking for Charlye's hairs in his favorite places to planting a rosebush in his memory.

She hopes dealing with her grief in the form of letters to the loved one who has passed on can serve as a model for others who are in grief. "I expressed all the things I didn't verbalize when he was alive. I hope he hears it now."

Changed her feeling

Westerhof's experience with her dog has changed her feeling about all animals. She talks about seeing an ant on her porch recently and letting him be, with a kind of silent acknowledgment of their mutual creaturehood. Before Charlye, she says, she would have either ignored or killed the insect.

"I'm more aware of God's creatures," she observes. "That means human beings, too."

Westerhof's book is available at Amazon.com.

To share your experiences about your own emotional and spiritual connection with pets, go to The Suncoast News Web site. At the top of the page, click on keyword search. In the blank space on the same line, type in pets and owners. Then click on Go.

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