Dawn's Animal Connection
Ever wonder what that cat is thinking as it gazes at you with impenetrable yellow eyes. What does your dog really feel when it stares up at you with an apparently loving expression?
A growing cadre of pet owners are now taking advantage of an opportunity to know the unknowable by using animal communicators to translate their friends’ inner feelings. Dawn Allen of Westfield MA has been providing this service for nearly two decades since her graduation from Goddard College in Vermont with a degree in “Holistic Methods of Working with Animals.”
“At Goddard you can design your own course of study and I did mine in animal communication,” she said. “I am probably the only person in the country with that degree.”
Following school, she spent a year as an intern with Linda Tellington-Jones, founder of TTouch, and also studied with animal communicators Penelope Smith and Dawn Hayman.
Allen says she communicates with animals telepathically and can help owners to understand what their pets are thinking about issues as diverse as the environment and their health. The consultations are done over the phone, enabling her to communicate with animals at a distance - indeed, among her 6,200 clients are pet owners as far away as England and France.
“Telephathy is from the Greek: ‘tele’ for distant and ‘pathy’ for feeling,” she said. “Telepathy is a silent, mind-to-mind connection, using a universal language. Basically, telepathy is being able to understand what another being is thinking and feeling.”
The idea of communication can be “tricky” Allen said, because humans think of it as a literal process, while communication can involve a variety of non-verbal cues and signals. “Even as humans we communicate through body language,” she said, adding that she had an argument with her donkey, Ichabod, just that morning that involved a pushed stable door and knocking over a wheelbarrow. At issue was whether he would get an extra portion of grain. “How much clearer could he make himself?” she asked with a laugh.
But her telepathic consultations with clients are more profound interactions. Clients do not need to be with their animals, nor do they need to provide pictures. They are simply asked to describe their pets to allow the communicator to connect with them.
“Most of the calls I get are about health and behavior issues,” she said. She works frequently with a holistic veterinarian. “My communication is not meant to replace a medical diagnosis,” she cautioned. “I only reflect how the animal is feeling.”
Not all her clients are worried about health issues. Some simply want to know more about their furry companions - who they are, and what they think. “There is not necessarily a negative focus,” she said. “Most of the animals I communicate with are not frustrated or unhappy with their owners because the kind of people who contact me are not the kind of people who frustrate animals. I have one client who calls me as a birthday treat - how much fun is it to be in contact with your friend? Horse owners - I get a lot of calls from horse owners - might call me to find out if a saddle fits right. Others just want to know what their animals think.”
She says animal communication can be learned and that she has conducted workshops in it. “It’s not a gift but a skill,” she said, “although some are more skilled than others.” She said that speaking to literally thousands of animals in the past nineteen years has honed her own skills.
Her sessions are $65 for 40 minutes and $50 for 20 minutes. Sessions can include more than one animal. She can be reached at AnimalsTalk@comcast.net or her website, linked below.
