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LEARNING THEIR LANGUAGE

by Marta Willaims

A New Way of Talking
There are two parts to intuitive communication with animals: talking and listening. I will begin by teaching you how to talk to animals intuitively. This is by far the easier of the two skills to learn, but it may require a shift from the way you talk to animals now. In the approach I’m suggesting, you assume that animals are as intelligent and as emotionally complex as you are. This can be a stretch even for confirmed animal lovers. I talked to animals before I got involved in this field, but I was not aware of how well they could actually understand me. All of us have been taught to think of animals as limited when compared to humans, certainly in terms of their ability to understand us. Because of my experience with intuitive communication, I now believe that animals understand us perfectly when we talk to them; they also comprehend every thought and feeling we have toward them.

My favorite story about how animals actually do understand us comes from a Canadian newspaper article about a cat named Pierre. Pierre had a peculiar habit of going around to all the neighbors and bringing clothing and sheets back home to his person. She, in turn, would wash the articles and put them in a basket on her back porch, informing her neighbors that if they were missing something they were welcome to check the basket. The neighbors took to leaving their dirty laundry outside for Pierre to fetch. Pierre’s person said that she was spending a fortune in laundry soap. The biggest thing Pierre brought home was a set of flannel sheets that he dragged halfway up the driveway.

One day the woman’s daughter came to visit. The two women were sitting in the living room with Pierre when the daughter remarked that she had forgotten to bring her jogging suit, and she was disappointed that she would not be able to go jogging. The mother turned to Pierre and said, “Pierre, did you hear that? Why don’t you go get her a jogging suit?” They both laughed, and the daughter told Pierre that she wanted a maroon jogging suit if he could arrange it. The next morning, a maroon jogging suit was on the floor in the living room, in exactly the daughter’s size.

Talking As If They Understand
The talking experiment I suggest you try — with your own or a friend’s animal — is this: for the next two weeks, hold the belief that the animal perfectly understands everything you say out loud and everything you think or feel toward her. I realize that this requires a leap of faith, but just think of it as an experiment. If it doesn’t feel right or doesn’t work, you can always go back to your old way of relating. I suspect, though, that when you do this experiment you will find that the animal will begin to relate to you in quite a different manner, and you will become fascinated by the changes you see.

It is hard to imagine how it is possible for an animal to understand spoken language or to receive our thoughts and feelings. The translator box image is one way to conceive of this process. It is as if there is a translator box located somewhere between you and the animal you wish to contact. Whatever you say, think, or feel toward the animal goes into that translator box and comes out the other end in a form the animal can understand. It doesn’t really matter what language you speak, whether the animal has ever heard the language you’re using, or whether you simply send a feeling or a thought to the animal instead of saying something out loud. Everything you send will be transmitted to the animal because that is your intention, and it will then be translated into a form that the animal can comprehend. Some animal communicators assert that animals are limited in their intuitive abilities and can only send and receive information via images. In my experience, animals can send information intuitively with the same, if not more finesse as humans — using either words, feelings, ideas, or images. I often suggest to my clients that they try this experiment of talking to animals as if the animals understand, and I’ve received hundreds of responses about how well it worked. Here are a few of them.

Deb Steinberg sent in this story about her mare, Star:

I have six horses and one of them WILL NOT TRAILER. She is an older quarter horse mare who is lame, and she refuses to load into a trailer. We recently bought new property and had to move our horses. I read your Web page about how to talk to animals, and I decided to try it on Star. I started talking to her about the move two weeks before the scheduled date. I told her that she could not stay behind; all her friends would be leaving and she would need to get in the trailer when the time came. I explained that it was too far to walk and that the new people who bought our place would not let her stay. I told her that I knew she was frightened by the trailer, but that I hoped she would decide to join us in the new place. I talked to her every few days after that, reminding her that the time was coming and that I hoped she would be brave and come with us. She actually looked as if she were listening to me.

So when the day finally came to move the horses, I decided to move Star and her best friend first. I loaded her friend, and then as I haltered Star I reminded her of our conversation and told her that this was the day. That old girl practically dragged ME to the trailer and then she hopped right in! After we unloaded her at the new place, she acted like she was proud to be the first one there.
As I brought the other horses, Star was right at the fence to whinny to them that she had checked it all out and it was fine!

Gina Richards tried the talking technique one hot summer day with her cat Missy. She went into the bathroom where she found Missy resting in the tub and said to her, “Missy, it is such a hot day, I really think it would be more comfortable for you in the closet where it’s cooler. Why don’t you try it?” Gina was shocked when Missy pointedly got up, walked through the studio to the edge of the closet, stuck her nose in the closet as if to sniff and test the temperature, and then looked up at Gina as if to say, “No, I don’t think so, Mom.” Missy then turned right around and went back to her preferred bathtub retreat.

Suzanne Martin sent me this story about her horse named Paco:

The first couple of times I fed apple cider vinegar and garlic to Paco, I noticed that he did not eat all of his grain and that he didn’t seem fond of the taste. The next day, after I had given him his grain, I noticed that he hadn’t finished it and had walked away to go eat his hay. I was standing outside his stall looking down into his feed bucket, and then I looked at him. He turned to look at me and walked over to see what I was doing. (He was now standing over his feed bucket facing me.) I said, “Paco, you need to finish your grain. I know it may taste funny, but it has stuff in it that is really going to help you feel better. It’s also going to help heal the sores on your ankles.” Paco then looked down into his feed bucket, looked back at me, and proceeded to eat the remaining grain. At first I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. After a couple of seconds of not knowing what to say, I told Paco that he was a good boy, and that this stuff really was going to help him feel better. I am happy to report that, from that day forward, he has eaten all of his funny-tasting grain and no longer leaves any in his feed bucket.

Petra Gout tried the technique with her enormous orange cat named Tom. Tom was acting very cheeky to the other cat in the house and generally being disagreeable. Petra got stern with him and explained that if he did not shape up she was going to adopt three additional cats and then he would have his hands full. After she made this pronouncement, Tom began to howl and moan in a most uncharacteristic way. He would not stop until Petra told him she was just kidding.

Communicating with your animal as if you are talking to an equal can be especially effective when you are dealing with a behavior problem. To do this, speak from your heart and explain everything you are feeling about the situation and the animal’s behavior. You can talk out loud if that feels more comfortable, or you can close your eyes and just think or feel the messages you want to convey. Your animal will understand either way. Explain why you want the animal to change and describe your hopes and dreams for the future. Try to maintain a feeling of equality in the discussion; negotiate rather than giving an ultimatum. Offer some incentive — either a reward or some action on your part — that would encourage the animal to behave as you wish. When you learn in later chapters how to hear what your animal is saying, this process of negotiation can become a two-way conversation, but for now it will be one-way.
Once you have discussed all the issues, finish up with a segment in which you say to your animal, “This is what I would like to have happen.” Then close your eyes and imagine scenes, as if in a movie, of the outcome you most desire. If visualizing is not your strong suit, just imagine the feeling of things working out the way you would like them to. Your animal will receive this template for the future, and will understand precisely what it is you want.

This talking technique, of course, is no substitute for a good, positive training program, and it won’t magically turn your animals into well-behaved angels. But it can help shift things, sometimes quite dramatically. That’s what Myrna Krohn found when she tried this new way of talking with her warmblood gelding, Bear. He was not doing very well in his training practice sessions, and at the dressage shows he got so nervous that he always performed poorly and came in last. When I do intuitive consultations, I often give people advice about how to resolve unwanted behaviors and where to go to get professional help with their animals. For behavior problems, I take what I call the “kitchen sink” approach: I relay every potential course of action that comes to me intuitively during the conversation with the animal, as well as everything I can think of from similar cases that might prove helpful. When I talked with Bear, he complained of how boring dressage practice was. It also became clear as I talked with Bear that both he and Myrna had anxiety about competing. I suggested that Myrna talk to Bear during her practice sessions and tell him that if he did very well at something during practice, rather than make him do it over and over she would take him to see the donkeys, which he loved, or take him out on the trail for a bit. Myrna did this, and Bear’s behavior in practice turned stellar almost overnight.

For the shows, I advised Myrna to dose Bear and herself with Rescue Remedy (a flower essence formulation that has a calming effect), work to slow and deepen her breathing when riding, and continually remind Bear that if he tried his best and they had fun, that was all she cared about. At their next show, she implemented this program. While saddling, she kept talking to Bear saying, “Don’t be nervous, it’s just a warm-up.” She said that Bear walked out of the barn supple in his back, with his head low and his ears relaxed; he led the way for the other horses who were nervous. The warm-up went smoothly. She reassured Bear mentally and sent him the thought that if he did his best that would be good enough for her. None of his old bad habits from previous shows surfaced. By the end of the show, she and Bear had won two first places, one second place, and the high-point ribbon. As they exited the arena with their awards, they received a standing ovation from all their friends who knew of Bear’s previous difficulty in showing. She said that Bear was beaming.

Myrna tries to listen to Bear now when things go wrong, and she tries to read the signals he is giving her so that she can change what he doesn’t like. In her words, “I’m trying to make him feel like a partner instead of a slave. Now I can bring out the horse I always knew was in there.”

Are They Listening?
When I talk with animals intuitively, I almost always do it with my eyes closed, and the animal is usually not nearby. Therefore I have little awareness of how the animal is physically reacting to being spoken to in this way. But that is one of the first things people want to know when they call for a consultation. They ask, “Do I have to put my animal up to the phone? Should she be awake and alert? Did you talk to her at 8:00 this morning? Because at exactly 8:00 she stopped what she was doing and sat with her head cocked for twenty minutes.” In truth, I never worry about getting the animal’s attention. The animal doesn’t have to be right by the phone or sitting politely in front of me when we talk. Intuitive communication can even occur when the animal is asleep; it really is quite different from spoken language. However, I can offer a few observations of how animals react when you engage them in intuitive communication. In my classes, most of the animals attending are dogs. Sometimes we will have a whole room full of dogs, and before I got smart and started screening dog participants a bit better, there could be a whole roomful of rowdy, barking, brawling dogs. But invariably, no matter how hyper the dogs, when the people in the room closed their eyes to begin an intuitive communication session, each dog in the room would almost immediately get calm and lie down, often closing his or her eyes as well.

I have done in-home consultations with groups of cats in which all the cats scattered when I arrived, but emerged again to sit in a row staring at me after I closed my eyes and began the session. I’ve found that horses tend to approach me, drop their heads, and close their eyes while we talk intuitively. In one case, I was sitting in a chair in a horse’s pasture. As I spoke with her, she continued to graze. I had my eyes closed, and I opened them now and then to check on her when writing notes. At one point in our conversation, she brought up an issue that she said was “the most important thing she had to say.” At that moment, I felt her mouth on my hand. I opened my eyes to find her staring intently into my face, as if to say, “Did you get that? It’s the most important thing!”

Talking from a Distance
Intuitive communication can be done just as easily from a distance as in person. I work with people all over the world without ever meeting their animals. Most of the time, I work by telephone, receiving only a description of the animal, not even a photograph. For foreign clients, I work almost entirely by e-mail. Whether in person, by phone, or by e-mail, the results seem to be equally accurate. For instance, Elaine Ho e-mailed me from Hong Kong with some questions for her dog, Coffee. One thing she wanted to know was what Coffee liked and didn’t like. He told me that he liked his herbs (medicines), sleeping in bed with his people, the bathtub, people’s feet, going visiting, and his fruit treats. He didn’t like getting old, painful teeth, cats, and rain. Elaine e-mailed back to say, “That’s him! That’s my Coffee!” Being able to talk from a distance is useful for connecting with your animals if you have to be away from them, either when at work or when traveling. Some of my clients have found it to be an effective aid in combating separation anxiety, a common problem in dogs. In these cases, I advise that you talk to your animal before leaving the house. Tell her where you are going, why, how long you will be gone, and when you will return. Just speak normally, as if you were talking to a person. I believe that animals can understand the concept of time as we do. So saying something like, “I will be gone for about six hours and back at about 5:00 tonight,” works just fine. There is no need to explain where the sun is or how many moons will pass before your return! Then, while you’re away, tune in mentally and emotionally to your animal as often as you like, sending her your love and an account of what you’re doing. Also remind her when you will be back.

I always recommend that my clients investigate holistic veterinary care. In my experience, the combination of a natural diet and holistic care regime produces much happier, healthier, calmer animals. In severe cases of separation anxiety, I urge clients to get massages for their animals to help calm them, and to try flower essences and herbs, too. These techniques have proven successful in many cases. The resources section of the book gives information on how to locate a holistic veterinarian. When you plan to be away for a business trip or a vacation, explain the particulars of your trip to your animal well before your anticipated departure. Tell your animal why you are going and why she can’t come along. Tell her your departure and return dates, and describe how she will be cared for in your absence. Then promise her that you will talk with her from a distance while you are away, and make sure to keep that promise.

Talking with Animals Who Have Died
I believe that you can communicate intuitively with the spirit of an animal after she has died, and I do this for clients all the time. However, in those cases I’m working with people who are convinced that animals have spirits, so they believe that what I am doing is real. If you don’t believe it’s possible to do this, you can just skip to the next section. There is no way I can prove to you that this is possible and you don’t have to believe in it to be able to communicate with animals intuitively. If you believe in this concept, you can try it for yourself in the exercises that follow. It is possible to talk to the spirit of an animal regardless of how much time has passed since the animal died. As we’ve already discussed, anything you say will be heard by the animal. Once you have some practice at hearing what animals are saying to you, your conversation with the spirit of an animal can become a two-way exchange.

Exercises: Talking As If They Understand
Here are the exercises I described in this chapter. Try them out at your own pace. Be sure to record your results in your notebook.

Exercise 1: Talking As Equals: For two weeks, try this experiment: talk to your animals as if they hear and understand everything you say out loud to them and everything you think or feel about them. Also, hold the belief that they are just as evolved and intelligent as you are, and that you are dealing with beings who are equal, although quite different from you. For this exercise, all you will do is record any changes you note in their behavior as a result of this experiment.

Exercise 2: Problem Solving: If you have a particular behavior problem with your animal, try approaching her using the talking and negotiating method. Find a time to sit quietly with your animal. Send love from your heart, even if the situation is making you angry. Try to leave your anger at the door, so to speak, so that you can start anew with your animal. Explain exactly how you feel about the situation, from your heart, as if you were talking to an equal human being. Tell the animal why you feel the way you do about the situation. Discuss what you are thinking of doing if the situation can’t be resolved. Request the behavior that you would like to see, and offer some incentive to the animal for complying. Now close your eyes and imagine (in feelings and pictures) exactly what you would like to have happen. Tell your animal, “This is my dream for how things could be.” End by sending love again. Do this at least once each week. If there is any improvement whatsoever in the animal’s behavior, make a huge fuss — praise, treats, the works — and continue the experiment. Record your results in your notebook.

Exercise 3: Talking from a Distance: When you are away from your animal at work or on vacation, you can tune in to her intuitively at any time by sending her love and a quick mental greeting. You can also send her a reassuring thought about how you are doing and tell her your estimated time of return. If you are on extended travel, you may want to have a longer session in which you sit in a quiet area, close your eyes, and imagine or feel your animal right there in front of you. Say the animal’s name and send love. Then you can either talk out loud or send thoughts about how you are doing and how long it will be until you get back. You can also tell her anything you want her to do while you are away and send her an image of everything going well at home. These sessions can be done daily if you wish, but should be done at least weekly.

Exercise 4: Talking with an Animal Who Has Died: You can do this exercise with any animal from your past who has died, even the cat you had when you were three years old. Sit in a quiet place by yourself, close your eyes, and imagine the animal; either feel or see her right there in front of you. Say the animal’s name and send love to her. Now say whatever is in your heart and mind. If you felt guilty about something related to the animal, talk about that in detail. Ask her if she can forgive you and give you a sign of her forgiveness. If you are still grieving and can’t get beyond the tears, tell her that and ask her to help you learn to be happy again. Say whatever it is that went unsaid, and ask her to let you know in some way that you have been heard.

Exercise 5: Ask for Some Help: If you are having problems with something in your life — a mean boss, a difficult project, a puny bank account — try asking your animal to help you resolve the problem or achieve your goals and desires. You may be surprised at the results. Do this in the spirit of experimentation and see what happens. When Petra Gout heard this idea she immediately went to her cat Tom and told him she was sick of apartment living and wanted a nice house in the country. Within a month, she and her husband fell in love with a house they happened upon while touring the countryside one weekend. They found themselves unable to resist buying the house, which wasn’t something they had been planning for at all. We’re not sure whether Tom had a hand in this coincidence. Perhaps he helped manifest Petra’s dream the same way we would do it, by visualizing her in a cottage in the country and asking the universe to help make that happen.

Excerpted from Learning Their Language by Marta Williams. Copyright © 2003 by Marta Williams. Excerpted by arrangement with New World Library. All rights reserved. $14.95. Available in local bookstores or call 800.972.6657 ext. 52 or click here.