The Nuances of Communication

Often times, people think that when I say I can communicate with animals that it is an actual "conversation" like it would be with another human. When a guardian says, "Can you find out why my dog does X?" they might assume that I can say, "Hey pup, why do you do X"" and the pup will reply, "Oh I do that because of Y and Z"  LOL  I wish it were that straight-forward.

The truth is "communication" isn't like that with animals and there is a lot of interpretation required. Sure, sometimes I get words or phrases but usually it is a mixture of their physical sensations and emotions that I sense in my body and pictures/images that come into my mind. Then the detective work begins. I sit with what I have picked up and try to piece it all together to make sense of what the animal is telling me. Given that my interpretation may not be accurate, often the assistance of the guardian is required to verify what I picked up from their animal.

One humorous example of this was the time a client wanted me to do a distance healing session on their cat who had been sick. The guardians were two sisters that lived together and while the information on the tummy issues they were concerned about came through pretty clearly, there was something else their cat was trying to tell me that I couldn't quite make sense of.

I could feel the cat was a bit irritated, I could also feel a bit of jealousy. It seemed like it had to do with a male. I sensed there had been changes to the routines she had grown accustomed to and that she also felt she was not getting as much attention. Based on the emotions I felt in their cat and the images I was getting, my best guess was that maybe one of the sisters had started dating someone new and their cat was showing me the ways she was having trouble adjusting to it.

After the session, I shared all I had learned from their cat in an email. I said that while I didn't want them to feel obligated to divulge information about their personal lives, and I certainly wasn't trying to pry, I wasn't sure if I was on track with how I had interpreted the irritation/jealousy and wondered if they could let me know.

Once they stopped laughing, they wrote me back and told me that neither of them were in a new romantic relationship, yet my email still made perfect sense to them. They had recently adopted a new kitten, a male kitten. Given that the new kitten WAS pulling their attention away and that his presence in the house had changed some of their usual routines, they were certain that was what she was trying to tell me.

Sometimes I wish communicating with animals could be more "conversational" yet I am still happy to be able to receive the information that I DO receive.

Occasionally I get a full sentence from an animal and even then it's necessary to "fill in the blanks."  Just last week, I was sitting in the yard writing while Kino was inside the house. The neighbors dogs started barking, which they do a LOT. When they play with each other, they bark the entire time and many days they get "play time" multiple times a day. It's something I struggle with because loud barking is very jarring to my nervous system.

On this particular day, I heard "It's not fair" in my head. I looked around the yard to see if there were any birds or squirrels around who might have said it but I didn't see any. Who thought something was unfair? Could it be my neighbor's dogs? and then it clicked . . . it was Kino.

I ask him all the time to please not bark. He knows it drives me crazy and yet there are days when he can't stop himself from "notifying me" that a UPS truck is driving by or that someone is walking by our house or that a leaf just fell. On those days, where he is barking his notifications non-stop, he often gets scolded by me and I have even gone so far as to tell him that I only want to hear him bark if someone is attempting to break into the house. (smile)  What I was sensing in that moment was that he felt it was unfair that they get to bark all the time, when he is repeatedly asked not to.

I had to fight back a giggle as I went inside to talk to him. Telling him that I understood why he felt it was unfair, I explained that different people have different "house rules" and reminded him that he happened to live with someone who was very sensitive to noise. I said that maybe they had different "house rules" over there and I was sorry if he felt he was being stifled. I suggested that maybe he could do some barking when I was away from the house.

The next day, as I pulled the car out of the garage, I could hear him barking inside the house. I couldn't help but laugh.  I drove a couple houses down and stopped to see if he was still barking. Much to my delight, the barking had ceased. I guess he just needed to get some of it out of his system.

Maybe someday our communication with animals will be as straight-forward as it is between humans, where you ask a question and you hear a clear answer. I think that would be very cool. In the meantime, my "interpretation muscle" will continue to get a good work-out.