Animal troubles? Call TV’s pet psychic
WHEN pet psychic Beth LeeCrowther reads an animal’s mind, it’s normally because the owner has a burning question: Why does their dog refuse to turn right? Does one of my chickens have post-traumatic stress disorder? Might my cat object to being cloned? In my house, the question is posed by my teenage sons: ‘Which one of us does our dog like best?’
Welcome to Beth’s world. Her TV show starts this week and, although its main stars are animals, viewers will learn far more about the people who own them. (My lesson is that there are zero limits to children’s sibling rivalry!)
Beth was just 11 when she realised a pony was telling her about its bad back. Forty years later, she’s a full-time pet medium with regular appearances on radio and TV, and a best-selling book.
‘Imagine you are reading a novel, and the author paints a picture in your mind. I get an image like that,’ she says.
‘Sometimes it’s moving, like a video, and there will be words, phrases, dates, a voice in my head. The animal has put it in there.’
Dogs are the most communicative, cats less so.
Beth has worked with countless creatures: llamas, camels, parrots, snakes, geckos. ‘I thought “What’s a camel going to say?” ’ she says. ‘But I was blown away by their emotion. It was magical. I think animals are talking to us humans all the time, it’s just we’re not processing it.’
Perhaps a pet psychic getting her own TV show was entirely foreseeable. Even for those of us without second sight.
Beth begins with a ‘chicken reading’ in her hometown of Malvern, England.
Petal, a white leghorn, ought to be laying 280 eggs a year but her nesting box is empty. Beth says the bird tells her that she lost her best hen friend in a fox attack and she’s too anxious to start laying.
Her owner reassures the hen, via Beth, that their electric fence has been upgraded. We can only hope Petal blossoms – though viewers don’t immediately find out.
They do, however, see the outcome of Beth’s visit to Yogi, a huge dog that doesn’t much like leaving the house and then, when he does, will only turn left.
Beth says Yogi confides in her that he’s been frightened by loud noises. His owner remembers how her last home was surrounded by fields occasionally used for shooting.
When Beth revisits weeks later, Yogi exits his house without being forced … and turns right.
With her specs perched on her head, smart jackets and modest make-up, Beth is a far cry from a stereotypical fairground psychic with a headscarf, hoops and bejewelled fingers. She has even done a counselling course to help the animals’ owners, too.
Beth meets a couple with a rag doll cat Arya. They want Beth to ask Arya’s permission to clone her so she can live on after death. Via Beth, Arya suggests a cloned cat might look the same but would have a different soul – which may not have been the couple’s preferred answer.
Later, in Swansea, Wales, Beth meets – and is bitten by – a ferret called Misty. The animal eats warm pureed chicken thighs and is cradled like a baby and sung lullabies. It has its own bedroom, decorated in lilac, and a cushion with its face on it. Misty’s owner is bothered that her pet might be lonely and want a ferrety companion. Beth passes on the message that Misty would like more friends. The same advice could be directed at the ferret’s devoted owner.