It’s a Dr Dolittle thing, and it works. So if your pooch is suddenly shying away from the chicken you are serving up in her bowl, or your tom cat is hissing constantly following his usual grooming session, take heart. Animal communicators are here to cue in with their honed telepathic, intuitive connection and simplify lives. “People thought I was cuckoo, associating my ability to connect with pets with black magic,” shares Janita Porecha, a 21-year-old animal communicator in Mumbai. She picked up animal communication skills during a two-day workshop conducted by expert Manjiri Latey from Pune. “I thought it would be fun to chat with my dog. But that workshop changed my life forever,” she says.
FEEL THE CHANGE
Geetanjali Gupta was stunned when Porecha told her that her poodle, Hazel, was irritated by the new shampoo that she had begun using for her. “There were dietary changes that she suggested too in keeping with Hazel’s likes and needs, and I emulated them. Hazel has become her loving self again,” says the grateful entrepreneur. Revelations Porecha has brought in have strengthened the relationship between many pets and their parents. “Animals protect us in so many ways, this is my way of reaching out and making a big, better difference to their lives,” says Porecha. Being a Bach Flower therapist and a homeopath, she suggests specific solutions to niggling, underlying ailments too, if needed.
“My cat Sylvester’s kidneys had given way,” says Sucharita Bose, a makeup artist with a family of 15 pets. “Within 45 days, he was walking around, with the biomedication, once his exact condition was addressed,” she adds. Sometimes we sense discomfort, but need to know exactly what is wrong with the pet. Animal communicators play a vital role, with cues to tackle the problems. Says psychotherapist and healer Shaan Khatau, “I feel communication works beautifully like a bridge between us and our pets. My cat began hissing and scratching when I got a tom cat. Concerned if there were feelings of mutual hatred, I was put at ease when the animal communicator I reached out to comforted me by stating that both were peaceful, and there was no animosity. It was only playful banter.”
THE METHOD
The modus operandi involves the pet parent reaching out to the expert and sharing a picture of the pet, name, age and breed, and questions that he or she needs answered. There is no interaction with the pet in real life, or through a video call. Says animal communicator Akshaya Kawale, 35, who lives with her husband, and cats and dogs in the coastal village of Bordi in Maharashtra, “Different people have different techniques. An Australian communicator I did a workshop with taught me to sit down, meditate, and visualise the animal. I find it tough to do. Rather, I can hear the animal instinctively. The language of telepathy is the language of nature. Communicating with animals happens through a transfer of thoughts through energies and feelings.” Kawale has connected with rabbits, turtles, iguanas, snakes, horses and rescued animals, including donkeys. “You do have to keep on practicing or the skill dims,” agrees Porecha. She finds it tough to sit still in one place and prefers to connect with the animal while moving around with pen and paper in her hand. “There is no water-tight process,” she says.
Animal communicator Annukta Ganjoo believes how you receive the communication can be different, too. “Once I experienced a pain in the tiny finger of my right hand while communicating with a cat, and shared this with her human who confirmed that she had got her tiny claw painfully stuck in fabric that very morning,” she says.
THE WAY FORWARD
It is important to conclude the session when the communication ends. “I feel it is unethical to communicate with a pet without the permission of its parent, as pets do divulge detailed information about their family members,” says Ganjoo, adding, “Yet instances do happen. Like I was scrolling through the pictures on my phone and caught the picture of a pet dog I had connected with, and sensed he had developed an underlying condition of acidity. I informed the parent who took the pet to the vet for treatment. Also, I might go to someone’s house, and immediately sense that the pet has, for instance, a weak liver. It is instinctive grasping.”
Porecha, however, desists from working with families who are suspicious, and keep trying to ask annoying questions to “test” you. “That makes it a complete waste of energy for me,” she says. There are also times when people have high expectations of animal communicators. “We are not magicians. In a state of desperation and anxiety when pet parents approach us to find a lost animal, they feel cheated,” says Ganjoo, who is keen to work with predators in a wildlife reserve soon.
Pets are our stress busters, our loving companions. If knitting ourselves to their unsaid thoughts deepens our relationship with them, cheers to the furry love and to the communication that nourishes it.