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Animal Communicators: How Do They Do That?

B

Breakfastologist

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Does anyone here know how animal communicators converse with animals?

My girlfriend had one talk to her horse the other day, just asking over the email, no meeting involved, and I have to say the results were surprisingly accurate. Not anything that you couldn't find out one way or another, but surprising to see all together in one place.
 
I've read that horses communicate with their ears!

Ears turned forward=paying close attention
Ears splayed outward=listening for danger
Ears slightly forward=relaxed

and so on- just like dogs really I suppose.
 
My dog has a frighteningly complete range of facial expressions...
 
Your horse uses email?!?!?!?
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Yes, but he has to have a very big keyboard for his hooves. Luckily, he only needs two keys, whinney and huff.

Actually, it was my girlfriend who emailed the communicatior who then had a conversation with the horse through the aether and emailed her back with pony's comments.

I am reasonably aware of the body language that is horses use in normal conversation, but this person didn't see the horse at all, they just created a psychic link of some sort and chatted away. Does anyone know how this kind of human-animal telepathy works/might work/couldn't possibly work?
 
My friend is an animal communicator. Oddly enough, so is my daughter, but as she gets older she'slowly losing it. However, just the other day one of the neighborhood cats started following us in from the parking lot, wanting some of our take out chicken dinner. I asked her to tell the cat she could not have our dinner, but to come to our door later and she sould have some cheese. She miaowed at the cat, the cat miaowed back and that was that. The cat wandered off and did show up on our doorstep about 45 minutes later. We gave her some cheese.
 
just don't teach

your border collie to open the fridge!! cause its twice as hard to show them how to close it!!:hmph:
 
I hear ya, Ruff, our old collie used to open doors and windows, but would she close them behind her?! Bad girl.

Breakfast, feel free to tell me it's not of my business, but what exactly did your girlfriend's horse have to say? Not that I don't believe people can communicate with animals on some level, but strikes me a horse wouldn't find much to comment on, beyond "grass, apple, other horse."

Escargot, horses communicate with their whole bodies; read "The Man Who Listens to Horses" by Monty Roberts if you want to learn how to talk to them... but strangely, Roberts never tried email. Silly, I bet he could tame his broncs in half the time if he did.

My dogs heads (I have three) (dogs, not three dog's heads) are absolutely transparent, I can always tell exactly what they're about to do. My staffie-cross gets such a bemused look on his face when I tell him "No!" before he even starts to steal/bark/run away. His ears have a particular naughty position which gives him right away. I talk to them all the time, and they talk back in their way, but again not terribly complex sentences or concepts from any of them. Except our current collie, who is certainly brighter than me and pure evil to boot.
 
Sorry to rain on your parade, but here's my take on the whole thing:

Anthropomorphism \An`thro*po*mor"phism\, n. Gr. ? of human form; ? man + ? form.
The ascription of human characteristics to things not human.
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Sometimes my little long-haired Jack Russel terrier Scruffy seems almost human.

But he isn't.

I'm just interpreting his doggy behaviour in terms I can understand best.

As for email consultations with horses - as Phineas Taylor Barnum once said..."there's a sucker born every minute".

It seems to me that most people who would even consider contacting someone offering this unlikely service, NEED it to work, ipso facto, they are more susceptible to the con.

I can believe that some people are very good at interpreting the body language of some animals, but conversation?

Really!
 
I saw someone on TV wearing a set imitation horse's ears which were supposed to help them communicate with a horse in a field. They could adjust them say 'I am friendly' when they really meant 'I am about to give you a painful jab!'
 
I'd wear a set of imitation horses ears if it'd get me on the tele.

I haven't had my "fifteen minutes of fame" yet. :D
 
Sometimes my little long-haired Jack Russel terrier Scruffy seems almost human. But he isn't.
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Just because we can't call them human doesn't mean that these animals can't carry out proper thought processes. Pigs are one of the most intelligent creatures there are, but they're still not human. Doesn't stop them feeling emotions or needs. They just don't have vocal cords.
 
The horse had some very strong instructions about how he should and shouldn't be groomed, which treats were tasty and so on. Most of these things seem quite consistent with his behaviour. There were also some colours that came through which we could see immediate relevance to, but then I guess most people can find a quick association for a colour.

The communicator did say that quite often horses don't actually have anything to say.

What was interesting was that they came back with my name and an accurate (if brief) description of me. Not the sort of thing that you couldn't find out if you have time and inclination to look, but spooky to see coming from someone you've never met.

My girlfriend is a keen student of Monty Roberts' techniques, which is why I'm reasonably up on the way horses use body-language. Also why the description of someone using fake ears to give misleading communications is slightly horrifying. Horses can't lie- they aren't wired up that way, and trying to introduce them to that very human concept could really undermine an animal's understanding of communication and generally do it a lot of damage.
 
Yeah, you'll get one very screwed up horse. Like those poor hamsters in labs who get shocks everytime they eat, right up until they have a nervous breakdown.

Arthur, while I don't believe (sorry, Breakfast) that an "animal communictor" can actually have a chat with your horse through the ether, and I agree that a large amount of human interaction with animals is anthropomorphism (like ascribing to your dog a favourite TV show or set of political beliefs, as I occasionally do), there's more to people who can communicate face to face with animals than meets the eye - and they aren't necessarily just interpreting doggy behaviour in terms they can understand best. Gregarious animals like dogs and horses certainly communicate with each other; not on a terribly complex level, but they communicate moods and establish hierarchy and demonstrate stress and distress with great subtlety, and if you don't know what you're looking at, you'd think they were just wandering around. Also, we humans miss out on an entire medium for communicating moods because we have a nose about as useful as a mole's eyes.

For example, I live with three dogs, and as they percieve me as part of their pack, they include me in their normal pack interactions, and while I don't claim to understand everything they do, I can tell when they're nervous, upset, defiant, playful etc without much trouble, and respond accordingly. I can talk to them in "dog" to get my message across if necessary, which is mostly a matter of eye-contact and body position, with the odd vocalisation thrown in. Dogs "speak" to their owners all the time, and expect their owner to "speak" back - My old collie and I used to flush out rabbits together, and I could direct her just by turning my eyes in a particular direction; I didn’t learn till afterwards this is how wolves coordinate a hunt in the wild. If you trot along to any dog obedience class, you'll see a whole host of examples of people with dog-problems because they're accidentally giving out signals to their pets and not even knowing it; the dog's interpreting what they do, even when they don't know they're doing it.

I'm rambling on, and probably saying nothing you don't already know, but this is a subject that interests me greatly. I don't believe animals have the capacity to converse about abstract things, but you certainly can "talk" to them on their level, and they'll "talk" back, if you know how to do it - not psychic power, but not always anthropomorphism either.
 
No need to apologise at all - I am profoundly sceptical about the whole thing- that is why the accuracy of the results was at once intriguing and slightly disturbing, because I can't discount the possibility that something was going on - if I did I would be a pretty lame fortean...

Anthropomorphism is a real problem where horses are concerned because you get people projecting their concerns to their animals and, for example, putting them in stables, putting rugs on them, nailing chunks of metal to their feet because they think it will make their horse more comfortable. Of course, a wild horse will have none of these things - being in a confined space is typically very stressful for them, if left without rugs they just grow winter fur and unshod the circulation to their feet is improved and they cause a lot less damage to paths, fields and one another.

Oh, I've just noticed Arthur effectively accusing me and my girlfriend of being absolute morons a couple of posts back, which seems a little unfair. I have always seen it as an element of the fortean approach not to discount an idea out of hand without knowing anything about it. I'm not angry or offended or anything, it just seems a little out of order, if you see what I mean.
 
The website of Hilary Renaissance - Animal Communicator!

http://www.calmpet.com/
Want to learn what your pet is thinking?
Thank you for visiting my web site. Please read the case histories below to learn how communicating with your pet in a way they can understand can help change unwanted behavior, locate lost pets, and create cooperation and a more fully enjoyable relationship for both of you.

Would you like to solve your animal friend's behavioral problems?

Imagine Knowing What Your Pet Is Thinking
Have you seen Sonya Fitzpatrick on Animal Planet's "The Pet Psychic" television show and wondered what’s on your cat’s mind? Discover how animal communication can help you create a more loving and rewarding relationship with your dog, cat, horse, bird and other small animal friends.

Animal Communicator Hilary Renaissance uses pet psychology to help your lost or misbehaving pets learn skills to lead a happier life. Behavior problems or running away can be eliminated or reduced.

Would you like to know what your pet is thinking but unsure of what to ask? Listen to these commonly asked questions for ideas...
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Generally I am a skeptic and think these "communicators" are just helping fools part their money.

Being an "animal shrink" must be the perfect fraud.
Remember seeing the Osbournes having an animal shrink on visit to find out why one of their dogs was peeing on the floor all the time.
It was good entertainment, but come on...
 
Being an "animal shrink" must be the perfect fraud.
Remember seeing the Osbournes having an animal shrink on visit to find out why one of their dogs was peeing on the floor all the time.
It was good entertainment, but come on...
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Your assumption that there is no value to animal psychologists derives from the belief that animals have no minds? Or that they have minds that work in exactly the same way ours do and so there is no value in trying to specialise in understanding their thought processes?

Either would suggest you've never spent any time around animals.

What I find interesting here is that everyone is saying "can't happen" and "pure anthropomorphism" and that is absolutely fine, but it doesn't explain the detailed and accurate responses that some people seem to be getting. As I suggested a few posts back, I am sceptical but I am prepared to accept that the communicator was doing something. I'm not suggesting they were communicating with the animal- they could have been using cold reading techniques, maybe some degree inter-human telepathy picking information up from the human that contacted them, I don't know. That's why I asked. I kind of figured (well, when I first posted this a few years ago I figured) that the whole point of the fortean attitude was that you don't discount evidence out of hand just because it didn't fit, so when I experienced something I found perplexing this seemed like a good place to ask.

But no. Can't happen. Ridiculous. Anthropomorphism. Wish fulfillment. You're imagining it. Presumably the same response someone would get if they posted that they had visited Fort's grave had heard a rumbling sound as though something were turning beneath that hallowed earth.
 
I saw an animal communicator live once! Apparently she was also an Indigo Child and one of Jesus' disciples. :roll:


Not to say that I don't think anyone can communicate with animals. I actually do. But seriously....WTF?
 
UK Horse Whisperer

You can always tell when I've been for a haircut - I find stories in the Daily Mail!
'Horse whisperer' tames unruly animal into posing for Christmas card
By LUKE SALKELD
Last updated at 22:41pm on 6th December 2006

Curled up beneath a Christmas tree, Tom the horse looks the picture of peace and goodwill to all men.

Yet the eight-year-old chestnut gelding used to be so dangerous that he almost killed his young owner.

He repeatedly threw Rhiannon Walker to the ground, leaving her needing hospital treatment and scarred for life.

Thanks to 18 months of treatment by equine psychologist Emma Massingale, however, he is now so placid that he posed for two hours for this Christmas card picture in her sitting room in Bradworthy, Devon.

Miss Massingale, 24, managed to guide Tom into the house and position him under the tree merely by laying her hands on different parts of his body.

"When he came to me Tom was a very dangerous horse," she said.

"He used to plant Rhiannon into the floor when she rode him, and basically tried to kill her. Her back is scarred where he has thrown her down on to jumps.

"Now Tom is eager to learn, he is an exceptionally clever horse and very well behaved - a complete transformation."

Rhiannon, 13, is now able to ride her beloved horse and has even been winning competitions with him.

"I am 100 per cent sure this is the first time anyone has got a horse to pose indoors for a Christmas card," added Miss Massingale.

"But it was easy to get Tom into the house - he did it first time. It was no different than going into a stable for him.

"My fiance Jeremy was horrified when he heard I'd had a horse in the lounge - we have only just moved into the house and he was terrified Tom would mess it up.

"But I had a helper standing behind him with a bucket all the time, so fortunately there were no accidents.

"I decided to do this Christmas card to show that even the wildest of horses can be controlled and tamed just by building up a trusting relationship. The only problem we had was when he tried to eat the branches of the tree and pull off the baubles."

Miss Massingale works with problem horses throughout the world and trains owners, vets and equine science colleges.

She learned her techniques at the age of 18 after attending an equine training camp in the Australian Outback where she was taught to understand the psyche of each individual horse.

She is printing 1,000 cards of Tom to sell in packs of five for £5.99 on her website www.naturalequine.co.uk.

A donation of 20p from each card sold will be given to Brooke, a horse charity.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1770
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(Couldn't find an existing suitable thread, but Leafy may have come across one.)
 
well one thing I have found, and long term pet owners may vouch for this, is that you come to know you pets so very well that you automatically know when there is something wrong, I have done it before with my fish, something out of character alerts you, and your not sure what, and if you watch enough animals going about their day to day business, you will soon learn a commonality for each problem in a group of animals, say a horse is walking, and you notice, however slight, that the horse is leaning to one side, it could mean a problem with the ears affecting balance or a problem with a hoof or leg on the opposite side, it is quite easy to do, you just have to watch :D That's why many animal psychologists probably specialise with one animal, dogs, horses, cats, cos it is easier to reference the way a dog moves with other dogs, than trying to reference with a horse :lol: and then their are those people that seem to have a commonality with all animals, and can effectively communicate, and get on well with them
 
"My fiance Jeremy was horrified when he heard I'd had a horse in the lounge - we have only just moved into the house and he was terrified Tom would mess it up.

"But I had a helper standing behind him with a bucket all the time, so fortunately there were no accidents.
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I bet they had to clean up after the horse though. :lol:
 
Each time my eye passes quickly over the title of this thread - it reads:

ANAL COMMUNICATORS

And then I do a double-take and the world is all normal again :p
There must be something being totally wrong with my psyche - but wouldn't that be a great Fortean subject?
 
Re: UK Horse Whisperer

rynner said:
You can always tell when I've been for a haircut - I find stories in the Daily Mail!
'Horse whisperer' tames unruly animal into posing for Christmas card
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Is that part of their "Don't let the foreigners steal Christmas" coverage?
 
Breakfastologist said:
Being an "animal shrink" must be the perfect fraud.
Remember seeing the Osbournes having an animal shrink on visit to find out why one of their dogs was peeing on the floor all the time.
It was good entertainment, but come on...
Click to expand...
Your assumption that there is no value to animal psychologists derives from the belief that animals have no minds? Or that they have minds that work in exactly the same way ours do and so there is no value in trying to specialise in understanding their thought processes?

Either would suggest you've never spent any time around animals.

What I find interesting here is that everyone is saying "can't happen" and "pure anthropomorphism" and that is absolutely fine, but it doesn't explain the detailed and accurate responses that some people seem to be getting. As I suggested a few posts back, I am sceptical but I am prepared to accept that the communicator was doing something. I'm not suggesting they were communicating with the animal- they could have been using cold reading techniques, maybe some degree inter-human telepathy picking information up from the human that contacted them, I don't know. That's why I asked. I kind of figured (well, when I first posted this a few years ago I figured) that the whole point of the fortean attitude was that you don't discount evidence out of hand just because it didn't fit, so when I experienced something I found perplexing this seemed like a good place to ask.

But no. Can't happen. Ridiculous. Anthropomorphism. Wish fulfillment. You're imagining it. Presumably the same response someone would get if they posted that they had visited Fort's grave had heard a rumbling sound as though something were turning beneath that hallowed earth.
Click to expand...

In my family we have had cats for a total of 30 years.

I am pretty open minded, but of course there's still something I just won't believe for good reasons. Being open minded is one thing, accepting everything fortean without some skepticism is just being foolish.
 
Rabbit whisperer can put bunny in a trance, even if it’s hopping mad

The motionless rabbit lying flat on its back with its legs pointed stiffly in the air does not appear to be in the best of health. It is not dead, though. It is merely sleeping.

Cliff Penrose, a moustachioed Cornishman from St Austell, has perfected a curious ritual that appears to make rabbits relax and fall into a trance. He is the first rabbit whisperer — or at least the first person to lay claim to the title.

His feats first reached a wide audience on BBC Radio Cornwall on April 1, although the station was at pains to point out that the story was not a joke. Listeners could hear Mr Penrose describing his techniques before — in a radio first — silently putting a rabbit into a trance live on air. “The first thing I do is lift her on to my chest,” he said, holding on to Tammy, a pet rabbit of his own. “You have to make sure you’re relaxed. What you have to do next . . . I’m going to have to bow to the rabbit.”

Mr Penrose’s rabbit-pacifying skills are in much demand in Cornwall, where he has helped to relax them before they are treated by a vet.

etc...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 097862.ece


I was a gerbil whisperer… then I grew up
By Pete Wedderburn
Health and lifestyle Last updated: April 14th, 2010

I’ve had enough of the “animal whisperer” fad. It started back in 1998 with Robert Redford’s movie “The Horse Whisperer“, moving on to the “Dog Whisperer” in recent years, and then the final straw today: a “rabbit whisperer“ :shock: . The concept of animal whispering – that some sensitive human beings can somehow communicate on a different, gentle, level with animals, and then persuade them to behave in a more compliant way – is nonsense. It appeals to us all: we love to view animals like little humans who are only separated from us by a language barrier, and the idea that some people have the ability to talk to them one-to-one in their own tongue enthralls us.

In my early life, I believed that I had this type of talent. I kept gerbils, and I often used to sit beside their cage. I discovered that if I pursed my lips and made a barely audible hissing sound, they would come out of their nesting box and look at me, their heads cocked to one side. I was communicating with them! For a while, I told people that I could talk to my gerbils, and if this had happened in the current climate, it’s quite possible that I would have been lauded as “the gerbil whisperer”. As it was, I reached my tenth birthday, and realised that it was a load of codswallop. Yes, the gerbils were curious about the sound I was making, but that was the limit of our interaction. I gave up the imaginings and decided to become a vet instead.

I’m not saying that the “animal whisperers” don’t have skills. Of course they do – they’re often accomplished animal trainers, combining knowledge of animals with an understanding of animal psychology. But the idea that they have some type of almost supernatural ability is pure guff, driven by self-promotion and hyped in the media.

As for the latest member of the club – the rabbit whisperer – perhaps he should read this paragraph from the BSAVA Textbook of Exotic Pets:

“Turning a rabbit onto its back results in a trance-like state (’hypnotization’ or tonic immobility). This behaviour is a defence mechanism i.e. playing dead if caught by a predator. This useful technique can be employed single-handed with the rabbit cradled in one arm, but it should be remembered that it is stressful for the rabbit and should be used for the minimum time possible. ”

The so-called trance is described by experts as “rabbits freezing because they’re scared to death”. There’s nothing magical about it, and it’s not much fun for them.

My favourite animal whisperer was at least open enough to be completely honest and up-front about his techniques, sharing his secret with television viewers. When Homer Simpson set himself up as a horse whisperer, he literally whispered in the horse’s ear: “When the race starts, run really fast.”

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peter ... i-grew-up/
 
To entertain the possibility that animal communicators are the real deal, a few assumptions must be made.
First, you need to accept that some kind of psychic transmission between minds (for which there is no reliable positive evidence, nor a plausible explanation) is possible. Next you need to accept that there are certain 'special' individuals who (despite having no significant physiologically unique traits) are capable of detecting such a phenomenon. Then you need to accept that you have absolutely no way of verifying what takes place in the communication process - it's all just the facilitator's say-so. Now consider this Wittgenstein quote: "If a lion could speak, we would not be able to understand them." What this means is that the frame of reference for a lion is so far removed from our own that there is no chance that we could engage in any meaningful communication. The divide in the context of where the lion's life and the human's life takes place (not to mention simple facts of biology) is too great. Consider also, that the same holds true between other animals. I'd contend that the differences between a lion and a horse and a pet dog are just as significant as those between the lion and the human. An animal communicator would have to be able to 'sense' and interpret a plethora of vastly different varieties of consciousness.
If you're willing ignore all prior plausibility and clear each (and probably several more) of these mental hurdles, then I think it must be acknowledged that you are employing a very magical world-view, where no consistent rules or patterns are discernible, and any explanation (no matter how absurd) - or even no explanation at all - is good enough. I can't say I share such a view.
In short, animal communicators are charlatans, and should be ashamed of themselves.
 
I second jmasel and the other ones who don't fall for this "fantasy". Animals don't give a shit about what humans think or do, as long as they can rely on us for food and protection etc. Base and instinct. A horse talking to a human psychically? HARR! With that sort of complex nonsense, they would be able to tell you what book was being held in front of them, and read it out! Mental *No pun intended!* :lol:
 
But its true! i saw homer simpson talk to a horse!
 
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