An unusual childhood…
I truly do not remember a time when I could not communicate with animals. It was always there and seemed completely normal to me. Whatever animals feel, I feel also. When they hurt I literally feel their physically pain. When they are frightened, I feel their fear. They communicate their thoughts in mental pictures that I perceive and interpret. I don’t know why I have this ability; perhaps it’s a compensatory sense arising from the hearing loss and dyslexia I’ve had all my life.

Memories of my childhood are filled with the incredible sympathy I felt for animals with whom I came into contact. It seemed perfectly natural to describe to others what animals were thinking and feeling. Of course, in those days, I didn’t always “edit” what animals were saying about their people. I learned the hard way that telling an adult “your dog says you’re a bad person” wasn’t necessarily something that was well-received. However, for the most part, people treated me like they would a child with an imaginary friend. When I was seven or eight, I realized people started reacting strangely to my sharing animal thoughts with them, and I stopped talking about it with everyone except my Mother.   Fortunately she did not discourage me when I told her what the animals were telling me.

I realize, I’m not unique…
Throughout my young adult life, I questioned why I was receiving messages from animals when other people apparently were not .  It wasn’t until my mid-thirties that I came to realize there were other people like me who could communicate with animals. It was during one of my dog’s Veterinarian visits with the wonderful , Marvin Cain, DVM, of Cincinnati’s Mount Healthy Animal Hospital, that I learned my ability was not unique. During that appointment, Dr. Cain speculated about something concerning my dog’s health, and I knew that wasn’t what my dog was thinking. When I told him what my dog was thinking, he didn’t act surprised at all. In fact, he said he knew someone else that could communicate with animals in the same way. He was speaking of Beatrice Lydeker who is internationally known for her animal communication work.

The next time Beatrice was in town, Dr. Cain introduced us. I had an opportunity to work with Bea for a short period of time and volunteered to set up her seminars and readings. Through her I met Lydia Hiby and Judy Fuson who are also animal communicators. It was then that I realized I wasn’t unusual…there were others who could do what I do. Through meeting the hundreds of people who attended Bea’s seminars and lectures, I was happily overwhelmed at the interest other people shared in animal communication and the widespread acceptance of it.

I share my gift…
The time I spent with Bea was the beginning of a new phase of animal communication for me. Some time later, a Cincinnati police officer named Linda Fields phoned me. She had heard that I had worked with Bea. Linda had a horse that was lame and had been examined by several vets, none of whom could solve the horses problem. She asked me to look at her horse. When I saw him I immediately knew what was wrong. I remember telling Linda, "it feels like a stone in his foot, here where the fur covers it (pointing to the are where he felt pain). She must have thought “Some communicator she is! It’s not foot, it’s a hoof and it’s not fur, it’s hair!” In spite of my lack of correct horse terminology, about six weeks later the piece of gravel that had been the source of the horse’s pain worked its way to the surface of his hoof. Linda saw it and pulled it out. We became very good friends after that.

Over the past 30 years, I have volunteered thousands of hours in service to countless animals and their guardians. Some people think I humanize animals, but animals truly think and feel much the same as we do. Some are actually smarter in reasoning ability than many humans are. They are very content to deal with their lives in a simple but extraordinary way.