Flower Essences: My February Gifts to You and Your Animals

In honor of Valentine's Day, I'm offering the gift of a complimentary flower essence from the Green Hope Farm Animal Wellness Collection to everyone who schedules a consultation with me this month.

I often recommend flower essences to support my clients after a telepathic consultation, and have received lots of positive feedback about their efficacy.  The 22 essences from Green Hope's Animal Wellness collection are gently supportive and alcohol-free, making them ideal for horses, dogs, cats, and other animals.  They are formulated to help ease problems such as separation anxiety, skin irritations, jealousy, emotional outbursts, and inappropriate spraying.  Other blends assist in the recovery from surgery or serious illness and in easing past trauma or abuse.

Through the end of February, I'll send the essence of a client's choice with each standard telepathic consultation.  If you'd like to take advantage of the offer, just request a session through the Animal Translations website.

A special offer for horses in spirit

I realized I wouldn't be able to see War Horse when I could barely watch the trailer without choking up.

While I know that no horses were harmed during the actual shooting of the film, I also know that millions of horses who heroically risked their lives in wartime service to their countries, lost them.  Steven Spielberg has got me thinking about them, not just the horse of the story, who somehow made it back home alive.

It's with that in mind that I'm offering a special rate ($60) for consultations with horses in spirit this month, through the end of January.

As I start my sixth year as a professional animal communicator, I am increasingly awed by the richness of the stories shared by animals with whom I've connected, and especially by those who have left their bodies for life in a new dimension that we don't fully understand.  In virtually every case, the now-departed animals have provided verifiable information derived from their daily experiences with their human companions, and have brought a drop of comfort to the people who desperately miss them on this side of the veil.

If you're interested in a session for your horse in spirit, you can request a session at the Animal Translations website. If you want to pay by PayPal, just use the $60 followup rate.

Through the end of this year, I'm offering a 20% discount on telepathic consultations with all animals whose breed begins with the letter "G."

The reduced rates this month apply to German Shepherds, German Shorthaired Pointers, Giant Schnauzers, Golden Retrievers, Gordon Setters, Great Danes, Great Pyrenees, Greyhounds, Gypsy Vanners, and to all other breeds of dogs, cats, horses, or other animals whose breed begins with the seventh letter of the alphabet.


 Both new and current clients of Animal Translations are invited to take advantage of this program.

I'll continue the "ABCs of Animal Communication" promotion next year, when it will resume with the letter "H."

The standard fee for an animal communication consultation is $75.  Clients whose animals qualify for the reduced rate this month can purchase a session for $60 by visiting the Animal Translations website.

Emilie's Spirit Messages

A large measure of the anguish we inevitably feel when cherished animal companions die is the knowing that we will never see them again.  We can no longer caress them, walk with them, talk to them.  The sense of having a door irrevocably shut stings; there seems to be no way to open it again or to recover a semblance of the relationship that brought so much pleasure for so many years.  Only the pain is left in its wake.

But it does not have to be that way, as I've discovered through many "conversations" with animals in spirit, even years after they've abandoned their physical bodies.  And the vibrancy with which our animals live on was brought home again in a dramatic way, during a recent session with a beautiful springer spaniel, Emilie, the soulmate of a woman named Mollie.

All I knew about Emilie was that she had died.  I didn't know how or when.  Mollie wanted the consultation simply to see if Emilie was okay, and whether there were details of their life together that she would be able to share.

As soon as I tuned into her, Emilie came into focus as sharply as any living dog.  She gave the impression that there had been some congestion in her chest, and also mentioned problems with one of her eyes.  Mollie confirmed that the condition that had led to Emilie's death was a large tumor on her chest; she had also suffered from eye infections throughout her life.

Later in our session, Emilie revealed that her role in Mollie's life was as a surrogate child:  she hinted that Mollie had either miscarried, or that she couldn't have children.  That information seemed so personal that I wasn't sure how to relay it to Mollie, so I simply wrote, "She considered herself to be your baby, and there was a feeling that she was almost a surrogate child."

When she read that, Mollie gasped.  In fact, Mollie had indeed suffered a series of miscarriages, and had never had children.  She very much viewed her relationship with Emilie in precisely the way that Emilie had suggested, and I got chills when Mollie finally told me that Emilie had died nine years ago.  "I'm just flabbergasted," she admitted.  "Your session with Emilie brought back a lot of emotions."

What it taught me, yet again, is that the profound connection we forge with our animals is never broken, only changed.  They are still there for us, and though we do not fully understand how this can happen, it does not alter the fact that the ties between us remain real.

How Horses Mourn

Photo:  Fran Hendershaw

Bay Bey's stall is still untouched, with clean bedding and wisps of hay scattered here and there.  Nothing about it belies the dreadful fact that when he tiptoed out the door yesterday afternoon, it was for the last time.  Like so many fallen horses--both famous and nondescript--Bey lost his life to the ravages of laminitis:  his elderly but still proud presence had withered in its wake.

The only kind thing was to let him go, and that is what Gwen regretfully did, loving her friend of 29 years more than fearing the grief that would engulf her as his spirit left him.

Hayley watched behind locked doors as Bey was led away, but she protested and paced and called to him, without understanding the awful truth of what was to come.  She would never again be able to run her lips lovingly over his withers, or play-race him uphill for supper at the end of a late summer's day.  For more than five years now, they've been constant, faithful companions, rarely leaving each other's side and luxuriating in their peaceful friendship as one by one, the seasons passed.

By the time Hayley was released from her prison, Bey had been laid to rest in a deep grave in the corner of a grassy paddock, gently placed next to Gwen's old Arab mare, Gracie, who had died only a few months after Hayley's arrival at the tranquil Harvard farmstead.  All Hayley knew now was that Bey was missing, and she galloped wildly through every inch of the three fenced pastures, tossing her head and shrieking with fear and disbelief that she could not find him.

An observer saw Hayley persist in her desperate search for quite a while before she abruptly stopped at the spot where several feet of fresh dark dirt covered Bey's body.  Hayley smelled the air and she sniffed the ground, and she even stood right on top of the neatly smoothed-over patch, as if Bey were but hiding behind an earthen door and could reappear at her beckoning.  

I arrived as darkness encompassed the barn and sensed that Hayley seemed distracted, but not yet fully resigned to the finality of having been left behind, and alone.  She still seemed to have hope.

By today, something had shifted.  Hayley's thick winter coat was drenched with sweat even as dusk's coolness came, and though she seemed more composed, I knew that she must have spent the day running her heart out.  There was something about her tonight that brought all of the sadness of losing Bey back again, with full force.  Her whole self seemed deflated of the joy of anticipation, and for many long minutes she did nothing but yawn and yawn and yawn, as if a terrible tiredness had settled in.

I wanted so much to protect Hayley, but not by pretending that her search would be fulfilled.  With that thought in mind, I slowly opened the door to Bey's stall, and watched as Hayley strolled in, repeating a pattern I'd witnessed hundreds or thousands of times.  We had so often found them huddled together in a place meant for one, preferring crowded camaraderie to the relative spaciousness of an unshared stall.

This time, Hayley strode in carefully, and silently snorted through every inch of the now vacant stall, poking under leftover hay strands with perked ears.  But suddenly and in slow motion, she seemed to understand what I was trying to show her, and she ambled out of Bey's space with her head hanging down just as low as it would go. 

Alone now in her own stall, Hayley signed deeply, then nickered for dinner.  She seems to know that her life will go on, but it will never be the same, for any of us. 

Discounts for Fjords, Friesians, Field Spaniels and French Bulldogs

Through the end of November, I'm offering a 20% discount on telepathic consultations with all animals whose breed begins with the letter "F."

The reduced rates this month apply to Fjords, Friesians, Field Spaniels, Flat Coated Retrievers, French Bulldogs, and to all other breeds of dogs, cats, horses, or other animals whose breed begins with the sixth letter of the alphabet.  Both new and current clients of Animal Translations are invited to take advantage of this program.

I'll continue the "ABCs of Animal Communication" promotion in December, when it will be offered to breeds that begin with the letter "G."

The standard fee for an animal communication consultation is $75.  Clients whose animals qualify for the reduced rate this month can purchase a session for $60 by visiting the Animal Translations website.

Welcome home, Tennessee

When I saw Tennessee's picture on PetFinder, it called to me.  There was something about the soulful expression of this sweet-looking dog that made me want to meet him, even though I couldn't imagine that he hadn't already found the perfect home.

As it turned out, he hadn't, and his kind foster Mom, Marie, graciously invited me to drive down to her home in Connecticut to see if we might be a match.  When I arrived there this morning, Tennessee greeted me a bit tentatively before I could even get out of my car, letting out a few half-hearted woofs, as if he considered it his duty to announce my arrival.  But he soon approached me with polite curiosity, and seemed to welcome the gentle touch of my hands and fingers as they caressed his soft body.  Marie said this was the first time Tennessee had shown such interest in a prospective adopter, and I cautiously held my breath, hoping that the spell wouldn't be broken.

It wasn't.  With each passing moment in the company of this doe-eyed dog, I could feel my heart melting more.  I can't say it was love at first sight, because I could see how much Tennessee loved Marie, and I knew that if it were up to him, he'd happily have stayed with her forever.  But at the same time, I sensed that this cinnamon-coated boy might let me into his special world, too.  He willingly jumped into the back seat of my car, though he started to fret a bit when he realized that we were literally leaving his comfort zone.  Once on the highway, he settled right in, and even relaxed enough to take a nap.

It was what happened when we got here that seemed so remarkable.  Within seconds after we walked in the door, my feisty cat, Django, marched right up to "Tenny" to welcome him, immediately sensing that the big dog meant him no harm.  His older brother, the orange tiger, Neil, soon followed, never even blinking as he ventured close enough to sniff.  So far, so good.

If I had any concerns about how my dear Springer Spaniel, Tish, would react to the newcomer, they vanished when she simply looked at Tenny as if he had always lived here.  And honestly, that's how it feels.

Welcome home, Tennessee.  Welcome home.