Can I really learn how to read my dog’s mind?
Fed up with her pooch chewing everything in sight, enlisted the help of an animal communicator to help her understand what her pet is thinking
FROM the way my dog Honey is looking up at me from her bed I can tell she’s chewing on something that she shouldn’t be. I’m right. With her usual cockapoo ingenuity she has managed to sniff out a rubber from my daughter Clio’s pencil case and is happily chomping away.
And this isn’t the fi rst time. In the three years since we welcomed Honey into our home, underwear, shoes and soft toys have all made their way into her jaws.
I’m so frustrated with the situation that I’ve called in animal expert Pea Horsley to help.
Pea is much more than an animal trainer. She believes that with the right techniques we can learn to read our pets’ minds and even speak to them.
I watch Pea as she sits beside Honey, chatting away while giving her the occasional pat.
“That’s not good for you, it will make your tummy hurt. What about this instead?” she suggests, offering Honey a rope toy. There is a few minutes silence. “She says it’s boring. She would rather have an orange toy,” says Pea to my astonishment.
It turns out I’m not alone in wanting to be able to chat to my pet. According to a new survey four out of 10 owners say they have more conversations with their four- legged friends than their spouses. Yet few owners expect to get much back beyond a wag of the tail.
This is where Pea comes in. She believes it doesn’t take a special gift to communicate with your pet, only practice.
She’s now so good at it she can hold conversations with creatures ranging from dolphins and camels to meerkats. Garden birds, she says, are also very chatty.
Pea has been talking to animals since attending a workshop 10 years ago where she hoped to fi nd out about her rescue dog Morgan’s life before she took him in.
She discovered the reason he seemed sad was because he felt guilty about not being able to look after his former elderly owner who had been taken into a care home.
Soon Pea found she had an uncanny knack for reading the minds of animals she’d never even met. Looking at a photograph was enough for her to accurately describe where animals lived and how they saw their lives.
Pea explains that it’s not a case of “speaking” cat or dog. Instead she believes that humans and animals are all part of the same energy. If we tap into the right frequencies and open our minds we can hear their thoughts.
I’m delighted. Since we got Honey I’ve always wanted to know more about what’s going on in her head. Could a quiet chat persuade her to stop raiding the laundry basket? It’s not an easy fi x, says Pea. I would still need to use behaviour techniques but by communicating with Honey I could fi nd out more about the reasons she’s scavenging so much when she has plenty of toys to chew on.
First I have to be ready to hear what she has to say. To do this, Pea guides me through some breathing exercises to help me relax. With practice, she says, images should pop into my head in the same way as they do in a dream. Next Pea asks me to imagine myself shrinking down to a miniature version of myself, giving myself some fairy wings and fl ying out through a trap door in my head and into Honey’s. From there I will get her dog’s- eye view of the world. With my mind in tune with Honey’s, Pea reads out some questions so I can write down the fi rst thing that comes into my head.
“Honey, what makes you happy?” is Pea’s opener. With a bit of concentration I get a view down Honey’s snout and the exhilarating feeling of the wind through her fur as she darts through the grass on her daily walk.
“What would it take to stop you barking when your humans go out?” Pea asks next. The word music pops into my head, a hint perhaps to leave the radio on to keep her company.
Of course, it’s hard to judge whether these answers pop up because I know my dog too well or because I’m genuinely communicating with her. But it’s reassuring that when Pea and I compare notes we come up with similar responses.
BOTH of us feel that Honey’s enquiring mind means she wants to be told where we are going and how long we’ll be when she’s left at home. Pea says that in order to really trust my answers I need to practise on Honey when she’s not with me.
“Try it when your husband takes Honey for a walk somewhere different. While she’s out, ask Honey what she sees and who she meets. If your impressions are right it will give you confi dence you’re really communicating with her,” says Pea.
This is how Pea helps owners at the workshops she has held for thousands of animal lovers. She trains them to read the minds of pets they’ve never met so the messages they get can be independently verifi ed.
Pea says communicating with pets can help with everything from fi nding them when they are lost to the agonising decision of when to put an animal to sleep.
“It helps to ask animals if they are ready. One owner asked me what kind of death her cat wanted after he developed a serious illness. The cat told me, ‘ Now isn’t the time’ and he lasted another year. Others will say that they are ready,” says Pea.
“You can also ask pets questions such as, ‘ How do you feel about another animal coming to live with us?’ They can be very specifi c. Some will say absolutely not while others want to breed.”
In one case an owner who had lost her Jack Russell contacted Pea after heat- seeking equipment she hired to scour the countryside around her home failed to track him down.
Pea says she was able to ask the pet to describe what he could see and he said he was in a man- made hole with water over his paws. It was then that he was fi nally tracked down to a disused shaft next to an old canal. “You have to practise in the same way as you learn a musical instrument, a sport or a language. But it can be done. It’s not a gift. We can all do it.”
Determined to put my new- found information about Honey’s likes and dislikes to good use, I go out and buy her a squeaky orange ball.
When I get home I ask her if she likes it and wait for a response. She wags her tail approvingly.
Until I sharpen up my animal communication skills I will just have to take that as my answer.
Pea’s next UK workshop is on May 21 at Conway Hall in London. To contact Pea or for further details visit animalthoughts. com
‘ She can hold conversations with creatures ranging from dolphins and camels to meerkats. Garden birds, she says, are very chatty’