A pet's new route to the couch

Finding it difficult to communicate with your precious mop of fur? She could need some mind over muzzle: the mediation of The Pet Psychic.

By COLETTE BANCROFT, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 24, 2002

[Photo: Animal Planet] A little bird told you? Sonya Fitzpatrick gets the scoop, not only from birds, but dogs, cats, alligators, pigs and miniature horses as well.

What are people (and others) watching in the depths of the dog days? Wait . . . it's coming to me . . .The Pet Psychic.

Animal Planet fans know who I mean. Sonya Fitzpatrick, a former model turned etiquette coach who lives in Houston but retains the plummy accents of her native Britain, is the A-Planet's new guilty pleasure.

Less manic than Steve Irwin and better dressed than John Edward, Fitzpatrick is the star of a summer series that airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m., Fridays at 9 p.m. and Sundays at 1 p.m. She meets with pets and their owners, converses telepathically with the animals and serves as a translator between them and their humans.

On the show, she often solves mysteries about a pet's unusual behavior or circumstances: Why is a dog chewing its paw until it bleeds? What caused a pig's paralyzed leg? Who abandoned a golden retriever found with a tin can stuck to its nose in a condemned house?

Sometimes the chats are more commonplace: Why does Fluffy seem to have forgotten where the litter box is? In every case, Fitzpatrick, who looks and sounds a bit like actor Angela Lansbury, projects a no-nonsense attitude and warm affection for animals.

I've seen her because I'm a dedicated Animal Planeteer, but I know I'm not the only one watching. Recently I got e-mail from a friend who's an English professor saying she's his favorite new TV personality:

"The other day she was explaining to a reptile handler that this creature was telling him that it was an American alligator, not a crocodile. Amazing that an animal whose brain hasn't changed in millions of years not only knows English but understands Linnean taxonomy. And is sensitive about its identity."

In other words, there's entertainment to be had here whether you believe in the psychic business or not.

Their id is worse than their bite

On the show's Web site, animal.discovery.com/fansites/petpsychic/petpsychic.html, Fitzpatrick says she always could communicate with animals, even as a small child. She was shocked when she discovered nobody else was chatting with the dogs and sheep around the village. A profound hearing loss made it easier for her to communicate with animals than people.

But she withdrew from the conversation after the family's three pet geese, which she considered close friends, showed up on the table as Christmas dinner. The trauma was too painful to risk repeating.

Her telepathic abilities stayed switched off until a "spiritual experience" in 1994. She began communicating with her own pets, then became a consultant, helping others with their pets' illnesses and behavioral problems and finding lost pets.

Appearances on talk shows, Unsolved Mysteries and an A&E special led to the Animal Planet series, a 13-episode summer run. Its second season begins shooting in September and will air next year.

Fitzpatrick lives with her husband, Dennis, a cat and seven dogs in The Woodlands, Texas, near Houston. (No "Lost Cat" signs on telephone poles in The Woodlands, I'll bet.) Besides consulting and appearing at seminars, she's active in animal rescue and assistance and promotes no-kill shelters.

Compared to psychics who communicate with people, such as John Edward, Fitzpatrick doesn't seem to work as hard. On his show Crossing Over, Edward works up a sweat asking rapid-fire questions until someone in the audience responds to one. Sometimes this takes quite a few questions. And once he does get a hit, all he gets to talk about are dead people.

Fitzpatrick doesn't need to cast so wide a net. Then again, if she reads a pet's mind and tells us what it says, who's going to pipe up and say she's wrong?

A lot of what animals communicate to her in sessions on the show and the Web site is not exactly news. They don't know whether Martha Stewart got insider tips, and they don't care. "Where are the treats? He loves those; he wants to know when he's getting more," she tells a cat's owner. Later, after talk about a recent move to a new apartment, she tells the woman earnestly, "He doesn't like change, darling." Show me a cat that does.

A miniature horse is fretting and off her feed. Fitzpatrick discerns the mare is pining over her foal, sold and taken away before it was weaned. The owner expresses surprise. The viewer wonders whether Fitzpatrick could suggest that a person without a clue that animals have powerful instincts to care for their young shouldn't be raising horses.

Some of the pets are real wiseacres. A dog's owner is concerned because it has attacked other dogs "ferociously" on two occasions. Fitzpatrick communes with the big pooch and reports, "She says, 'I didn't eat them. What's the big deal?' "

But the advice Fitzpatrick offers is often helpful common sense. Besides telepathically telling the aggressive dog to chill out, she counsels the owner to get a special harness that will help her control her pet. And she makes the horse's owner promise not to take the next foal away until it's weaned.

Watch the show or listen to a few of the Webcasts, and you may wonder whether Fitzpatrick's often impressive communication with animals is a feat of paranormal ability or just intelligent sensitivity to the many ways domestic animals unquestionably communicate with people: body language, sound and other behaviors.

I am a complete sucker for animals. I've rescued a cinder-covered kitten from a train station and two puppies that were thrown out a car window at a major intersection during rush hour. I once took three pups I couldn't find homes for to the Humane Society -- and decided in the parking lot I couldn't leave them and paid the adoption fees to get them back.

My all-time high pet population was six dogs and fourteen cats. By comparison, the current count at our house of one dog, one cat and five lovebirds is almost reasonable.

And of course I believe I know what they're thinking. When Violet, our Lab mix, sits in the dining room, her big head swiveling alertly from me to my husband, she's thinking, "Who can I con into giving me a pork chop?" When Phoebe, our imperious cat, looks at Violet, she's thinking, "Ick."

And when I've been singing Glory Days while I load up the coffeemaker and turn around to see all five lovebirds lined up on one perch and staring at me indignantly, they're thinking, "Birds don't make coffee, people shouldn't try to sing."

On The Pet Psychic's Web site, Fitzpatrick offers instructions for tapping your inner dog, or horse or iguana or whatever, to communicate with your own pet. "Anyone can talk to animals, and the best pet owners already do," the site says. "Here Sonya shares secrets to her successful communication with animals and offers some simple steps to making a psychic connection with your pet."

So I thought I'd try it. At first I consider our notoriously crabby cat but decide I probably don't want to know what she's thinking.

It's impossible to get the birds to sit still, so Violet becomes my test subject. Fitzpatrick's tips in hand, we work through the steps.

1. Begin with a calm and tranquil mind, and seek out a calm and tranquil atmosphere for you and your animal.

After we've had a walk and breakfast, we settle in the living room, me in a chaise longue Violet isn't supposed to sit on, she on the floor next to it. Because Fitzpatrick touches and holds the animals she reads, I stroke Vi's head. Fitzpatrick often leans her forehead against a dog's head, like a kind of interspecies Vulcan mind meld; I pass on this for fear of major licking.

2. Say your animal's name telepathically to get his attention.

Violet pants cheerfully and looks out the window.

3. Visualize your animal as you say his name.

Since all 100 pounds of her is leaning on my leg, this isn't difficult. She's still looking out the window.

4. Send a picture of his physical body. Direct this to him, along with his name.

I try this, and hey, she turns around and looks at me. Maybe she just wonders why I'm sitting here without turning on the TV or opening a book, but maybe she got the image.

5. Ask if there is anything your pet would like you to do for him. Imagine your animal is sending an answer back to you and accept whatever you receive in your imagination.

I sit for a minute or two, trying to open my mind to what the dog might want to say. Violet, apparently impatient with telepathy, switches to body language and tries to climb into the chair with me. I signal her to get down. She sits with her chest pressed against the chair, staring intently into my eyes. Maybe I am getting something . . . yes . . . she's saying, "Move over."

6. Always acknowledge the answer, whatever you receive in your imagination.

I move over. She climbs up, wedges herself in next to me and sighs deeply, her head on my shoulder. I'm sensing happiness.

7. Continue to ask him other questions, and remember to trust your imagination for what you are receiving back from your animal.

I think about asking her why she chewed the tiny plastic fruit off my beach flip-flops but left the shoes intact, but I need to get to work. There may be something to this, though, because all day I've been getting this image of Violet stretched out in that chaise longue, and of course she never sleeps there.

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