A viewer asks: “Why did our prayers for divine protection for myself and my puppy not keep her from being struck by a car and killed? Her leash got away from me, allowing this to happen. Was it purely my own inattention and lack of rigorous leash control of a puppy not fully in control of her impulses and discipline yet, and the traffic dangers around here, or was it perhaps destiny and beyond my control?” What can we tell him?

We endeavor to honor requests for safety quite highly because that is a necessity of existence when in the physical plane, particularly due to your limited power and vulnerable nature while in the physical. But we must also honor free will and free agency to allow you to make your own choices of what, and where, and when, you do things and how you go about it. Even when you might do something that unwittingly creates a hazard, there are opportunities to send warnings, via the higher self usually, but those must be noticed and paid attention to in the moment in order to prevent a tragedy like this that took place within seconds of the creation of the dangerous juxtaposition of circumstances. So there is room for error, in other words, because to override a moment of inattention would be leading. We must stay within the rules of engagement and our voice is always a subtle one. We cannot shout a message in your ear to get your attention. So what we are saying is the system is imperfect, and that is not your doing or your failing in any way. All human beings, and their companion animals as well, are at risk while residing in the physical plane. Things can go wrong in leading to pain and suffering, and even early death. The other factor largely beyond your control, especially in the moment, is what the Law of Karma might bring to you, or a situation involving you in some way, and apply energies that shift things in one direction or another sometimes, in quite complicated ways, to bring about an eventuality that, in effect, closes the loop that had a gap from past circumstance where something was thrown out of alignment and needed healing attention but it was never done. The Law of Karma will bring back around the energy of discord that represents and present you once again with an opportunity to create a better outcome, and that might require intensive healing, particularly if there are many similar things converging to create a quite powerful negative stimulus that can bring about severe illness or an accidental death. The tragic loss of your beloved pet was a karmic confluence of energies from both parties. This was a dog who was killed accidentally in a prior life. Dogs have karma just like people, and if there is a karmic trauma in their experience, whether due to mistreatment at the hands of humans or perhaps a wild predator, or even their own carelessness, as in not looking before they leap and undergoing a great fall, that will create a karmic potential to be revisiting them in a future incarnation and will be capable of setting up a similar circumstance to challenge them. The purpose of this system, as with all karma, is for learning and growth, so in this example, to react differently, perhaps see the danger in time, and take steps to back away. That will allow a healing of the old energy, through overcoming it, and that will allow the negativity to drain away and free them from any further karmic liability. In this instance, you as well, have had times when a pet had a painful struggle while under your watch and you felt badly after the fact that you failed to act in a timely way to prevent an unpleasant event that harmed the animal. This combination was seen by the Law of Karma as a perfect opportunity to deliver a lesson and provide a better way forward for the both of you. Unfortunately, as often happens, the dog was young, inexperienced, and not paying attention, and you were distracted at just the worst time when there was nearby traffic and the dog pulled free, making the accident possible. So we see the take-home lesson here is that this is not something to blame yourself for, but to simply gain an understanding and chalk it up to life experience that such things can and will happen at times because of prior history. You can endeavor to be as vigilant and responsible as you like, but perfection is not attainable when dealing with so many unseen influences and variables. The journey of the soul is an endless search for attainment through learning and growth about all things encountered. Some will be easier to surmount than others. The best way to proceed is adopting a healthy perspective, that if you truly see and understand the true nature of things that happen, good or bad, that hard-won learning will serve you, always, and is not meant to be a source of guilt or shame but only perhaps a sobering recognition that personal responsibility cannot always be met with perfection. It is those painful times that are some of the greatest teachers, and going through such events greatly help your future in spite of how things might look at the moment.