Animal Communicators...fact or fiction???

I belive there are people with a natural affinity for animals (as in something innate charactoristic they possess is attractive to animals)...but no I don't believe in a woman such as she.  Seems to me she is trying to market herself as a pet fortune teller, and I've never met a fortune teller who has told me anything that wouldn't as easily applied to someone else. 

That said, I see no harm in it (for some people this can be a positive experience, so I see no real harm)....but I don't believe in it.

I don't believe in it. I also don't believe in psychics or palm readers. I do think they are fun to go to occassionally though.

When I first got my foster Marvin and had behavior problems I sent out a plea for help in my email network.  I got two individuals that responded that I should try an animal communicator and they did make the point to distinguish them from a "reader" or fortune teller type.  Their emails were long and their stories were compeling enough to make me interested but I did not follow through.  I consider an animal communicator as an option, albeit a desperate option.

Good post RobDar.  I agree with you in that some rofessions have their share of charlatins as you mildly put it, lol...I prefer to call them "fraudsters".  I haven't dealt with any animal communicators but I am not ruling out the possibility that there may be some people out there that are truly gifted in that department although I can't say that I agree with the other 2 posters that the fraudsters are fun to go to or that "there is no harm in it."    People are paying for the truth not crap that these bullshit artists dribble on about.  The ones that are not gifted are nothing short of LIARS and are simply out there trying to STEAL money from gullible individuals.
 
I wouldn't have been as brave as you RobDar in keeping my mouth shut at the end of the reading....I would have exposed this fake bullshit artist for what she is!  It takes quite a hide to do what individuals like herself are doing and I would have made it clear that everything that she said couldn't have been more WRONG. [:@] 

LOL one funny story...
There was one communicator that was exposed to simply have been a member of a ton of dog forums...under diff names/emails etc. They'd make posts about how great x communicator was after they'd been there a bit...and generate a TON of business...with the poor folks never knowing that the "communicator' was reading about their dogs tummy issue or issue with the mailman every day...[sm=rofl.gif]

For $15. I see it as amusement along the same lines as having your palm read at the Renaissance Fair. I'd pay it at an animal fair, particularly if the money went to charity and it was promoted as entertainment only.
 
Unfortunately, like fortune tellers some of these people tell desperate people they need multiple expensive readings ($100. is common). Many also claim they can communicate with the animal over the telephone lines if you send a picture. The problem with this is that some people are relying on this for severe illnesses such as cancer or severe behavior problems. In those cases, I think they are taking money that is usually greatly needed in other areas and preying upon the emotions of desperate people.

Xerx went to one of those at a fund raiser for a GSD rescue one year.   The lady told me he was a wild dog and was only now getting used to being indoors.  That he thought it was strange how the floor was soft. (carpeting) And also that he was supremely dominant and had the need to pick on dogs larger than himself to prove that to everyone.  (She saw him chewing on his best friend Ozzy a Lab/Dane mix, while we were standing in queue.)
 
So out of everything she told me she got one thing right-he is a dominant dog.  But it was a fun time.

My father has several kind of "out there" friends, one of whom had a dinner party one night with an "animal psychic" she just swore by. Said "weird friend," let's call her J, had consulted the psychic to figure out why her cat would sit for hours and stare at the goldfish in the goldfish pond. Animal psychic (AP) explained that the cat was so very worried about the fish, because he wanted to make sure they were okay and didn't know how to care for them. So J faithfully sat down and had a long discussion with the cat, explaining how she would take care of the fishies and the cat didn't need to worry. When asked why the cat continued to stare at the pond, AP said cat was very relieved now, and he was simply admiring his fishy friends.

At the dinner party, several people proceeded to ask AP about some of the problems plaguing modern day animals. At one point, someone asked why whales will sometimes beach themselves. AP's answer? "Because of all the pollution, there's not enough oxygen in the water for the whales to breathe."

Now take a moment... remember that whales are mammals... who breathe air and not water... lol. Some psychic!

I did read an article about this practise once.... I wish I could remember where I read it.  I'll try to remember the gist of it as best as I can...
 
A woman was having problems with her cat, it suddenly started yowling, soiling indoors and shredding her clothes when she went out.  Well she wanted to stop all this but even more it was obvious there was something wrong with the cat and it was unhappy and she wanted to fix that.  She assumed there was some medical problem but the vet gave the all clear.  After trying a few cat behaviourists (which I didn't even know existed before I read this article) she contacted this lady (a communicator).  Skeptical, but grasping at straws to help the cat I suppose.  When she visited the woman the woman managed to come out with all kinds of things about the cat that she couldn't have known.... and not vague, generic stuff either.... stuff like the colour of the food bowl, that the cat was best friends with next doors dog and one of her favourite foods was chips... didn't like the man the woman had been dating, was jealous and wanted all her attention again, stuff like that.  So this woman started thinking there might be something in it and went to a workshop and spent part of it with pain in her lower jaw.  When she mentioned it in passing to someone at the same workshop they said they had felt the same, how odd, etc.  It transpired the donkey that had been used to "communicate" with had something wrong with it's teeth or something and had to have vet treatment.....  I think there were other anecdotes as well along the same lines.
 
I am also skeptical but at the same time fascinated and kind of hopeful.  Wouldn't it be great if we really could communicate with our pets like this?  As an expecting mother I would be interested to find out if anyone has a latent ability like this that only needs to be "tapped" into and could it be used on newborn babies too....  How interesting and useful could that be??  But the overriding thing is cynicism.... I can't help thinking that it 's just a lovely idea and some people let themselves be convinced because of that.... because wouldn't it be brilliant if it was true.....

I don't believe in people who make inter-species communication sound like some amazing psychic ability that only they and a few others have been given a "gift" of. Those people are out to make a buck. They're fake. Unfortunately, they are also the most vociferous and "out there" about it, and so give real communicators a bad name. Great example was the "pet psychic" show on animal planet. That woman made me sick to my stomach.
 
 
It's important to understand the belief system surrounding inter-species communication. It is based on the belief that non-human animals are, like us, spiritual beings and equals. That there is a basic, telepathic form of communication that we are born knowing how to do. That when we are born, we communicate freely with animals and spirits in a wordless, telepathic language. That most humans lose this ability early on because of human culture- encouraging them to talk only with words, and instilling the belief that humans are "different" or "above" animals and any type of wordless communicating you do with them is purely imaginary....if the subject even comes up at all. Usually it doesn't, and children simply unconciously stop once exposed to human culture.
 
Often, people are communicating with their pets without knowing it- the words, images, pictures, and intuitive leaps that they are actually picking up from their animals are disguised as their own thoughts. They don't realize that THEY are not the ones thinking these things...that acctually, they are picking up on these things from their animals. Inter-species communication works by being able to seperate your thoughts from theirs, realizing when you are communicating with an animal, and accepting that you aren't "crazy," or that it's just your imagination. That makes all the difference in the world.
 
Some people simply talk to animals all the time, as if you were having a conversation with another person. Others need to go into a meditative trance to do it. Everyone does things differently, and I personally find both of those methods helpful. I personally have communicated with animals since I was born. Maybe it's because of my autism, but I never received the social signals from other people telling me to stop. For a long while in my childhood, I assumed everyone else did it too....it took me years to realize that they were just indulging the "imaginings" of a child. I stopped talking to animals for a short time as a teenager, and like a muscle, my ability atrophied and I am now in the process of relearning what I used to do all the time as a child. [&o]
 
I talk to my pets. I talk to wild animals. I know many other people that do. I hate the idea of something that is inborn, that we are ALL able to do at birth, being portrayed as some special, mystical, psychic ability. It isn't. It is a basic, primal, guttural form of communication that is the default in all of us. It isn't some special aquired skill bestowed only on the occaisonal new-agey nut somewhere in California. Many Native American, South American, and Eastern religions mention and use animal communication- it isn't a new idea. It is unfortunate that people have taken something that we all can do, that many cultures have done for thousands of years, thrown a shroud of mysticism over it and then charge 60 bucks to tell you your cat doesn't like the location of its litterbox.
 
I personally do not believe in charging money to communicate with people's pets. It just seems wrong to me to ask people to pay for something that they could so easily do themselves....to me, it's perpetuating the idea that it's some kind of "special" ability, and it just seems completely exploitive to me. I talk to my pets, and if someone asks me to, I will talk to their animals as well. I do not, nor can I ever see myself, charging for it. It just seems wrong to me.
 
Just know that because there are bad people out there who exploit something real, and good, doesn't mean that it's all compeltely false and something to be dismissed. People CAN actually do this. YOU can do this. There are many, MANY helpful books out there on the subject....if people are interested in reading about it and learning more, please PM me and I'll send you int he right direction. PLEASE do not go looking for sources on your own....it is amazing how many idiots there are out there trying to make a buck, and I would hate to see a genuinely interested person turned off of this because of those people. Good sources are hard to find, but they're out there.
 
And of course, there's nothing wrong with being sceptical...that's a GOOD thing. It's great NOT to believe anything you see and hear and read blindly...but please don't automatically dismiss it entirely because you personally have not yet seen anything that convinces you. For many people who now communicate with other animals, there was a time when none of the ideas I just mentioned fit into their world views, either. Fortunately, world views can change...and that's a good thing. []

After reading both of Marta Williams books, I paid her to "talk" with Dodger... He didn't have any major behavioural problems and wasn't sick - I just wanted to "test" it out - my test cost me $100!![]
 
I played dumb and told her that Dodger was a stray that I found on the side of the road.  He was actually found with littermates by a friend of a friend who I've never met. Anyway, she told me that all Dodger "remembered" from his past was it was cold and dark and there was 1 woman who "cared" for him and his litter but didn't stay close.  After speaking with my friend, she explained that the pups were in fact kept in her Aunts barn, away from the family (no electricity in the barn so it was in fact cold and dark)...
 
I used to really believe in all this stuff but testing it out left me more skeptical than before. Even though I was able to "sorta" confirm what she told me, it was still very vague. It's so hard to know what to believe when we are such logical creatures (and that is the problem - unless you embrace intuitive communication, I don't think you get "results")!

I don't believe in the majority of these people, but I believe there are a few who can communicate with animals.  I ahd a reading done on Rose by a guy I know.  He had met Rose, but I never told him her entire story.  He just knew that she is nervous around strangers.  Here is what he wrote:

So when I sit here and I look at the picture you sent of the puppy I reach out to connect with her enegy.  On one level she is scared even of communicating through energy, but I understand that it is a new experience to you.  One of the things that she talks about when it comes to new people has to do with the sound.  Its not the actually people that scare her, it has something to do with the sound of new people.  She mentions this also about other animals when you bring them into your home or move them around.  So I am not sure if she has alittle bit of an inner ear problem, that could be throughing off her sense of sound....or if she just has an over hightened sense of sound and it over whelms her.  She talks like it doesn't even have to be that the person says anything, it can be just the sound/vibration of the way they walk that can over whelm her.  She likes her comfort zone and she mentions that she can adjust it just takes her a while.    Now alot of times when I connect with an animals energy they communicate in images.  So its up to me to try and put those images together.  One of the things that comes through is her as a puppy and being passed from one set of hands to the next.  I do not know if that means she has gone through different owners before you, or if she was just moved around as a puppy.  but she also shows me an image of there being a separation of her from her litter mates.  Again I do not know if these are litteral things or if they are symbolic, you would know better probably because you know her history.  However what she does come across to me with these images is that she has alittle bit of a fear that people may want to take her away from you and that makes her nervous.  Again it is just her having to take time to get use to the fact that anyone new will not take her away.  She has sweet energy but very timid and soft.  That energy you just want to hold tight to let her know that nothing is going to go wrong.

Rose was not meant to be mine.  I was supposed to give her to another handler at a show after I had trained her for my class.  But, we made a very quick decision at that show that she would stay here and that I would keep her.  She also is very sensitive to noise.  Even a noise that isn't that loud freaks her out.  I had thought before I had this reading done that she had more sensitive hearing than most and he picked up on that.  When I thought about the people she is most nervous around, it is usually people who walk heavily and have deep voices.  It doesn't matter if it is a man or a woman, I really do believe it is the sounds that they make.  Now, if there is a lot of noise all at once, like there are tons of dogs around at a show, she is completely fine with everyone.  No problems at all.  As far as bringing new animals into my home, or just moving them around...she hates that.  She will not go near new animals for a while, especially if they move fast or make noise.  If they make noise, she will rarely go near them.  I have to be very careful where I put the bunnies while cleaning.  I cannot put them in her crate.  If I do, she runs in there after they are out and pees in it, or pees somewhere in the house.  She got my couch a few times before I realized what was going on.  If I put them in a different crate, thats fine, but not hers!  It took her quite a while to get used to the bunnies and gliders...at first, she would look away from them when I put her near them and would stay away, now, she loves them.  She used to hate if I even gave them a tiny bit of attention.  I really think she thinks I'm going to forget about her and tries to make sure she is known!
Now, everyone probably thinks I'm crazy, but I really believe that this guy somehow connected with Rose.  Everything he said was dead on.  I had him do a reading for my mom's rescue Jindo who came from Korea and he hit on a lot of stuff there too.  And, he knew absolutely nothing about him other than his name is Chase.  The majority of people I don't believe, but I do believe some.

I am one of those people who CAN communicate with animals.  I seem to have a knack for diagnosing where an animal is hurt or ill - bad tummy, bad joints, etc.  I do not charge for this as I feel it is a gift and if I can help, I will. I do not get involved in "parlor games" of with people who ask what I think are silly questions.  This is a "gift" I have been given and will only use it to help with serious issues.  There are people out there who will go into great depth on what dogs are saying and that they have had different lives, etc.  I personally think those belong in "parlor games" and it frustrates me that these communicators take money from people for this nonsense.
 
dianeg

gilbyd, ditto...I agree with you completely. But I DON'T agree that you have been given a special gift....as I explained in my post above. You're simply doing what everyone is born able to do, but forget. You're one of the lucky few who never stopped using your ability. It IS something that we all can relearn to do if we're willing to put forth the effort. []