I have it on good authority that a Marfa animal communicator is peddling her wares in the Big Bend area. I am not impressed. Anyone can be an animal communicator if they quiet their minds. I happen to be a household appliance communicator and my rates are quite reasonable. My specialty is kitchen appliances, but I can do most room varietals, including garage and woodshed appliances.
Concerned Appliance Owner: “Can you tell me why my toaster is depressed?”
Seriously, a lot of people think their pet can communicate with psychic abilities but when those abilities are put to the test, what's going on is normal not paranormal.
Animal behavior is no secret. Each species has an “ethogram”, a collection of observable behaviors. Ethograms have been published by ethologists (scientists who study animal behavior) for many species. These behaviors are generally organized into categories such as agonistic, appeasement, appetitive, and sexual. When it comes to our pet dogs, cats, horses and birds, there is quite a lot of literature about behaviors and what the behaviors communicate.
Pet psychics (I understand the politically correct term among their industry is “animal communicator” but some are even calling themselves animal “psychologists” which is even farther from the truth) are simply employing a new version of an elaborate psychological ploy that's been around for ages.
Psychics use a skill called "cold reading" to convince clients they have some sort of supernatural ability to know things or predict the future. Cold reading relies on the fact that most people generally want to believe, on some level, that the psychic actually has telepathic powers. Through a complex routine, the psychic subtly coaxes information and cues out of the customer, and offers the material back in the form of insights. The customer, who doesn't recall offering the details, is amazed that the psychic seems to know so much about them.
Researchers who study psychics generally divide them into two categories: those who know that what they do is nothing more than a psychological routine, and those who are intuitive types who genuinely believe they have telepathic powers. The second group is still using cold reading technique although they have learned to do it without consciously trying.
During a psychic reading (aka “consultation”), most people remember the hits but forget more of the misses or ambiguities. For instance, the psychic might say something like, 'I see water.' That could be anything – a puddle, a river, a lake, an ocean, a bottle of Perrier or a sewer pipe. But the customer thinks, “My cousin Julie drowned last year.' And they leave the consultation thinking, 'How did the psychic know about my cousin Julie?'" Of course "animal communicators" have an advantage over regular psychics. The animal can't talk
The proliferation of these people disturbs me on a number of levels, but what concerns me the most is that the animal is not getting the help it needs unless the psychic is saying, 'Your pet says he wants to go to a behaviorist to help with his aggression toward other dogs,' or 'Fluffy says she wants the veterinarian to see why her back hurts.'