Animal communication for pets in distress

Timing is everything when you want to have an important conversation with someone you love. 

So when is it the right time to learn animal communication so you can talk to your pet directly? And when is it the right time to hire a professional animal communicator to help you talk with your pet? 

In this episode of Let's Talk to Animals podcast, we talk through this important question from several angles. 

Learn how to set an intention for your important animal communication conversation, how to select an animal communicator to work with or learn from, what to expect from your animal communication session, possible next steps after your animal shares input with you and how animal communication can change your relationship with your pet over time. 

Most vitally, discover how your own attitude towards interspecies conversation can shape the outcome of your conversation and how to come into each communication with mental and emotional openness. 

Transcript

Shannon Cutts : 0:12

Welcome to Let's Talk to Animals. My name is Shannon Cutts. I'm an animal sensitive and intuitive, a Reiki master practitioner and an animal communication teacher here at animallovelanguagescom. And if you are new to Let's Talk to Animals podcast and broadcast over on YouTube, we are the podcast about demystifying, de-wooing, if you will, all things inner species communication. This is a passion of mine that has been unfolding since I was a tiny human and really over the last few years has kind of burst into full bloom and turned into a daily practice, a business and a continual outreach and education effort to connect with other human animals who are as interested and passionate about inner species communication as I am.

Shannon Cutts : 1:11

And today on the podcast, we're going to tackle the tough topic and it's one of the topics that brought me to animal communication in the first place which is animal communication for pets or animals that are in distress. Often when someone reaches out to me for the first time and certainly the very first time that I reached out to an animal communicator myself I had a beloved animal companion, a pet that was in distress, and I didn't know what was wrong and I didn't know what to do next and I had tried everything else that I knew to do. I actually discovered animal communication in two interesting ways, the very first of which was through reading Dr Temple Grandin's book Thinking in Pictures and then watching the documentary on her life. Now, dr Temple Grandin is probably duly most famous for being a very high functioning, autistic human and for her groundbreaking work with livestock, with commercial livestock, with the facilities and the animal managers, and bringing in humane options for handling, care and daily life for these animals. And there was something about her book that was so powerful and so true to me, even though I had not yet heard of animal communication and she did not directly mention it in her book, other than just say that, because of the way her autistic brain works, she was able to see and feel and sense and live life like the animals she wanted to serve. She could literally see in pictures, she could see the things in their world as they saw them, the things that were troubling or frightening them or spooking them or causing them distress, and I was fascinated, I was just hooked.

Shannon Cutts : 3:14

And then I happened across a series of books by the animal communicator, Marta Williams, and she was the first animal communicator that I hired. And I hired her because my soul bird, pearl, who was in his early teens at the time, had developed this mysterious bleeding disorder. This was a different era than it is today and he was 24 when he passed. I think he was maybe 10 or 11 when I started working with Marta's. This was quite some time ago and we had tried everything that traditional Western veterinary medicine had to offer and I knew there was something else going on. And somehow I read one of Marta Williams books and that is how I first heard of animal communication and I hired Marta and Marta talked with Pearl and that led us on a bit of an adventure and I started learning about more holistic approaches and holistic veterinarians and homeopathic remedies and different things that I had never really been exposed to. We hear these things maybe in casual conversation or through reading books.

Shannon Cutts : 4:32

The internet wasn't really quite as much a force to be reckoned with back then as it is now. When I was growing up we didn't even have it. I've been my fifth decade of life. That gives you a little bit of context of just how far we've come as a society, as human animals, and so I was just getting exposed to these things through Pearl and then through Marta and, as I added, family members. I would turn to Marta for help managing some of the energies and the dissonances that cropped up. Pearl wasn't too keen on our turtles when I added a red-footed tortoise and then a box turtle to the family and then our doxened, and so I started kind of gotten the habit of having these family meetings with Marta. And then I had another crisis where my red-footed tortoise, malti, when she was a year old she ran away and went to go have a wild adventure and Marta wasn't available. So I hired a different animal communicator and I ended up working with three different animal communicators to locate malti, and all three of them were accurate when they told me where she was, and one of the communicators even told me when I would find her and where I would find her, and it blew my mind.

Shannon Cutts : 5:53

At some point in that whole mix of deeply distressing experiences, marta said something to me that I refused to believe at the time. She said you know, shannon, you can do this too, and I just didn't have any frame of reference for that. I just didn't see myself as somebody who would be able to hear the animals speak and would be able to have intentional, present, moment to way dialogues with animals, and so, even though she would periodically say this, I would ignore it, because I just thought I just kind of had it in my mind that you need to be special in order to do this, and so it took me and this is a whole other story that I probably get into in a different podcast episode it took me quite some time to come to realize that she was right and that I was being called to do this. However, all of where am I going with all of this today for our animal communication, for pets and distress? I never once even considered, even after I learned animal communication probably because of these early shaping experiences that I had, working with professional communicators who were skilled and experienced and very, very just, very, very grounding and helpful influences in my life I never even once considered trying to facilitate animal communication myself with one of my animals when they were in distress, and that is a question that crops up here and there. Will my animals nearing their end of life? Will my animals about to have a major operation? Will my animal was just diagnosed with a serious health condition? Maybe this is a good time for me to learn animal communication so I can talk with them and help them.

Shannon Cutts : 7:43

And I have two things to say about that. Number one it's always a great idea to learn animal communication, or rather relearn Rather I like the term remember or reawaken these interspecies communication abilities in yourself. So it's always a great idea. That's always a great idea, but it's not always the perfect moment and one of our personal animals is in distress. That is the moment when I would least encourage somebody to tackle the challenge, and no matter how easily it may come to you. I've had some students that struggle and some that pick it up right away. And so, no matter how easily it may come to you, when you're in a crisis, and especially when that crisis involves you or someone you love and when it involves your pet, it always involves both you and someone you love that is not typically the right moment to take on a significant new challenge of your own.

Shannon Cutts : 8:41

That's the time to seek support. That's the time to hire someone like I did, like I continue to do, when my soul bird pearl passed this past January. You better believe I worked with colleagues who were able to hold space for me and help me reconnect with him, even though I was hearing him. I needed their help, I needed the grounding I needed. The community. We need one another. We human animals, we are the only species that it seems as uniquely devoted to being isolationists, even when we're not wired that way, and so we really do need to give ourselves support when we're going through a challenge, and when someone we love needs our support, then we need to make sure we're supported.

Shannon Cutts : 9:29

So when your animal is in distress or when you see it brewing up ahead, that is generally I'm never going to dissuade you if you want to pursue learning animal communication, but that for me, energetically, is not typically the right moment to go ahead and sign up for a class and to start your own direct, two-way interspecies communication learning journey. That's the right moment to have an experience in a different way. Through working with a professional interspecies communicator who can hold space for you and your pet, you can still have an experience, you can still learn. You will definitely feel the inner confirmation and that's a great teaching tool. That's actually the way that I first learned about it for years before I started actually learning how to do it directly and then facilitating conversations for other humans and their animals. I learned through hiring animal communicators to work with me and my interspecies family, and I started to learn how to feel what felt true for me, and I had those wonderful moments when the animal communicator was able to share information about one of my animals that I thought only I knew, or information that I didn't even know, and it was really cool. And I still have that experience when I interview communicators here on the podcast or when I talk with animals for other podcasters and then we debrief on their shows. It's really fun. So that's a great way to learn, but it's also a great way to offer both support for you and support for your animal, which is what's most needed when your animal is in distress or in crisis.

Shannon Cutts : 11:14

So let's stop for a moment and talk about what does that mean when your animal is in distress or when your animal is in a crisis situation, it can mean anything from your animal is entering their end of life transition, when your animal is facing a major procedure or even a minor procedure that's got you both in a tailspin. It may mean that there's a big change brewing in your family. Maybe it's someone that your animal is very close to that's moving away or leaving for school, or there's a divorce or a separation brewing, or there's a human in the family that's entering their transition, their end of life transition. Maybe you're planning a move, either locally or nationally or internationally, maybe your schedule is about to change. The pandemic certainly through so many of us into these crisis situations where everybody's schedule was upended and everybody's lives were upended and we were just kind of struggling to stay afloat for a while as we navigated this new way of life. So you get the idea that when I'm talking about an animal in distress, it's something major.

Shannon Cutts : 12:30

So let's talk next about, let's say you've decided okay, now is not the right time to learn animal communication, even if you know, because our brain will try to throw all kinds of reasons at us well, it'll be more cost effective and I'll be able to talk with my pet directly. It's like, yeah, but you won't be in an objective, calm state to be able to really learn and master those skills. So let's instead change courses and talk about how to set yourself up for success and how to best support your animal. When you engage the services of a communicator who can help the two of you talk so you can get the most useful information that you can take with you going forward and best serve your animal for their comfort, for their healing, for their return to their regularly scheduled life, or for the highest and best transition process for you both. So the very first thing, of course, is you need to choose your communicator and here again, recognize there are no wrong or bad choices, because even if you don't click perfectly with the first communicator that you choose remember you can always choose again. You can always choose someone different, and you'll have more inner information about what feels right to you and who feels right to you and what you're looking for. And because we all have different styles, the way in which we work with humans and their animals. It's all unique to who we are as human animals, and you'll learn more about that, how you're wired and what your preferences are.

Shannon Cutts : 14:16

I have interviewed almost 100 different animal intuitives from all walks of life, engaged in some of the most intriguing disciplines and professional practices, and so I highly recommend, when you have some time and you're not in a crisis or a distress state, to go and listen back to episodes in seasons one, two and three, and you can hear some of the very different approaches and different styles that different professional animal communicators, animal intuitives and holistic practitioners bring to the table, and you can even, from listening to these episodes, start to get a sense of what feels really good to you, or even think to yourself as you're listening to the different practitioners talk. Who do I resonate with, like who would I really like to get to know better and consider reaching out to that person, or, if it's me, consider reaching out to me. I would be honored. So these resources are here for you and your animal so that you can start to feel for yourself who you connect with and what feels right to you for your animals highest and best good and your relationship and your journey together. So this is the first step and if you don't have a lot of time, then you can just set an intention. I choose a practitioner who is best positioned to serve my animals highest and best good, and then I've done it before you go on the internet and you choose the first thing that you see. I literally have done this and I have always gained so much value from it. So you type in animal communicator and whoever you see. If that's all the time you have, then just choose them and know that you'll get value regardless, and then you can course correct as you go along if you are seeking a different kind of experience later on. But just know that something good will come out of it, even if you don't have much time to choose. And then let's focus on the next step, which is let's get you set up for success.

Shannon Cutts : 16:12

Because when you schedule a communication for your animal, it's always going to be a three-way communication, at least the way that I work. There's always going to be three individuals, three beings in the dialogue. There's going to be myself as the animal communicator and we're just using me as generic animal communicator here. I'm going to be the facilitator, I'm going to be the translator, I'm going to be the objective third party. I'm going to enter into your relationship with your animal and be a support so that you and your pet can talk to one another directly. I am just there as a translator. I'm there to hold space for you and to ensure that you can accurately hear and understand and respond to your animal's end of the conversation. That is my job, that is my role. And then there's you and your pet. You're having a conversation, with a little help from the translator. That's what's going on here.

Shannon Cutts : 17:19

So there's going to be three individuals, and so it's not enough to just think to yourself or just say to yourself I want to set my animal up for success, I want them to have quiet, I want them to have rest, I want them to be hydrated, I want them to be as physically comfortable, as emotionally comfortable as they can possibly be. You also need to do these things for yourself, because you are going to be an active participant in this conversation, and this is probably the biggest misconception that people have. Is that the human animal, the other human animal in the mix, the pet parent or the animal guardian, or the rescue or shelter worker they're just passive, they're just note takers or they're just passive third party observers. No, you are an active participant and your energy is going to impact your pets energy and their responses. So you really want to set yourself up for success First. It's like that old, tired cliche that never is not relevant about putting your own oxygen mask on first and then assisting someone else. No matter how much you love them, if you're not breathing, you can't help anyone. So let's get you breathing, let's get you centered, let's get you grounded.

Shannon Cutts : 18:35

For me, based on how I work, I have an intake form that I use, and that form guides you, not just to provide some information about your animal their name, their age, their gender, whether they're here in spirit, where in the world the two of you live together, but also your intention. What is the highest and best outcome that you could ever hope to have from having this conversation? We go into important conversations, sometimes we go in with agendas, sometimes we go in with goals. My preference is to go in with intentions, and the intention always reflects the highest and best good of all. So consider this Not only will it be incredibly grounding to you, emotionally like energetically, to connect to an intention that you set, but it'll be a really good focuser for your anxious and worried mind, always anchoring back to this intention, always coming back to this intention, and it's something that I will draw you back to during our session as well. What is our intention? Is the information we're getting from your animal in service to that intention? Are we asking the right questions, the best questions, in service to this intention? Always staying open if your animal has other information to share. Always staying open if that intention may shift as the conversation continues, but it gives us a place to start.

Shannon Cutts : 20:01

Intentions aren't particularly grounding when we're in crisis or in distress, because they anchor us back to the fact that the crisis or the distress point is just for a moment. Maybe it's for many moments, maybe it's for too many moments, but it's still just a moment in time. And if we can vision past the crisis or the distress point, we can start shaping a future that doesn't include that crisis or distress point. And so that's really where recalibrating your energy, setting to be at the very highest frequency for your animal's highest good. So you'll hear me talk about that a lot. Let's use this intention to propel us forward, this or something even better, but at least it gives us a higher vibration point to aim for. And if we elevate that even more, I'm all for it. But we're going to start with the intention and we're going to make sure, as we're going along, as we're having this conversation with your animal, that we're receiving information Number one, that you understand, number two, that you can make use for. And number three that is in service to this bigger picture, goal or outcome or intention that we've set and, if necessary, providing some next steps or some other options that you and your pet can explore together in service to that intention, to that goal. And so that's where I want to head next.

Shannon Cutts : 21:36

We've all heard these rather dramatic miracle stories. I had one animal communication teacher in particular that was very fond, and I've had several psychic and intuitive teachers that have been very fond of telling me and telling us as a student body all of their major miraculous stories and experiences and achievements and we all love a good miracle story, right, and sometimes the results of animal communication conversations, just like human-human conversations, sometimes the results can be quite dramatic, very dramatic. Sometimes they can make whole movies out of them and that's great when that happens. But if you think about most of the conversations in your life you and other conversations with other human animals they're not quite so dramatic and often, especially when we're in relationship with someone over a period of time, those conversations unfold over time. They can seem quite dramatic when we compress them all into a shorter time span and we tell a story about it, but often the actual changes and the actual outcomes and results unfold slowly and more gradually over time and so it's actually rather subtle.

Shannon Cutts : 22:53

And so I never want a human, a pet guardian, a pet parent to come to me with these grandiose, dramatic expectations that would overshadow or overlook small gains in the present moment that can later lead to these bigger transformations. And so we're just. We're having an important conversation. It may be the only conversation, it may be one of many conversations that we have together. The most important thing is to focus on making this conversation, in this one present moment out of many, the very best that it can be.

Shannon Cutts : 23:35

So we start with the intention and then we recognize that sometimes animal communication by itself is enough. It's the only thing that you need, your pet. Maybe they just need to vent, maybe they need to make a request, maybe they need to get a question answered, maybe they need to grieve and heal, maybe they need to share something about themselves or about their life with you and that's all that's needed. I mean, think about if you lived in a place where nobody spoke your language I talk about this a lot in my animal communication courses and you were living in this place, whether temporarily or permanently, where you were the only one you knew who spoke your language, and you'd had a bad day or a bad year or just a traumatic experience and you had nobody to talk with. Think about how relieving, how amazing, how healing it would be if you finally met someone who could understand you and you could get it off your chest. So sometimes it's enough you get a question answered, you get a request through and fulfilled, you make a connection, you are able to vent, you're able to heal, you're able to move forward.

Shannon Cutts : 24:58

Sometimes, however, and more often than not, animal communication is a piece of the puzzle, no matter what any of the animal communicators that I've ever interviewed here on let's Talk to Animals have ever brought to the table, some of whom have had medical or veterinary training. I've interviewed veterinarians who communicate. I've interviewed vet techs who communicate. I've interviewed chiropractors and acupuncturists who communicate. Lots and lots of different modalities that have added animal communication to the toolkit. You still have to be really, really clear, when we're facilitating an interspecies conversation, which hat we're wearing. When I've got my animal communication hat on, even if I have all kinds of other credentials, I'm not using them. At that time, I am showing up fully for the role that I've agreed to play, the role that you have asked me to play. Now, I don't happen to be a veterinarian or a vet tech or an acupuncturist or a chiropractor, but I happen to have loads of wonderful referrals in my Rolodex.

Shannon Cutts : 26:02

If, as sometimes happens, we're talking with your animal and we discover that one of those modalities is needed, then here again, it's very useful to come in with an open mind and an open heart to what will best serve for this particular conversation, versus expecting some kind of dramatic miracle All your animals problems will disappear, all your animals medical issues will disappear. I'm not saying that you're doing that, but I have clients that have come in with that mindset, which tends to be fueled by the media and by some of the psychic shows that are on TV and things like that. I have found it most useful to come into a conversation for my own animal family, intending to receive some useful bit of insight from my animal that I can then take that next step on. For my pearl, one of the things that unfolded is we needed to seek out homeopathic care. I actually worked with a homeopathic doctor that the animal communicator was working with at the time recommended and he prescribed a therapy and actually sent it to me in the mail and I administered it to my pearl and it eased some of his issues that he was having at the time. In that particular case, our conversation yielded useful information that adding homeopathic care might be beneficial and I was very open to that I wasn't told during the communication that this was absolutely going to be the be all and all cure. I was simply informed that this might be beneficial and was willing to try it.

Shannon Cutts : 27:42

We come into these conversations like we do into any conversation, if we're really paying attention to learning and grow. As my late best friend used to say, to grow in wisdom and learn to love better. Often, growing in wisdom means learning something new and learning to love better means stepping outside of our comfort zone to do something new, to try something new. That's where we're headed, especially if we're having an animal communication conversation with an animal and on behalf of an animal who may be in some kind of crisis or in some kind of distress state or just needing something different than we've ever tried or even heard of before. I have learned so much over the years that I never knew existed and probably might never have known existed if I wasn't open to animal communication itself.

Shannon Cutts : 28:32

Even the real value and the real benefit of interspecies communication is something we can only see looking back over our timeline. I look back from my very first animal communication session experience that I ever had with the very first practitioner that I hired, all the way to today and the benefits that I have received, that my animals have received from animal communication, are priceless. I can't even put a value on them, but I've received that in a body of evidence and experience over time. Most of the conversations were not very dramatic Small tweaks, small moves, small changes over time that have led to really big transformations in the long haul. And so even if your animal is in distress or in crisis, in most cases not all, but in the majority of cases that did not build up overnight, even if it seems like the symptom or the issue cropped up overnight or all of a sudden, if we really look back, there was probably a chain of events.

Shannon Cutts : 29:45

I've even had animal communication clients whose animals have passed suddenly, and at first they will tell me I had no warning. In fact, I had this experience with my pearl. At first I thought I had no warning and looking back now, post communications there were signs, I just wasn't seeing them, and so this has been something incredibly beneficial, a gift. Yes, it's very painful, but it's also a gift that my pearl has given to me to be more present, to be more attentive, to notice everything, which is why this is such a foundation in the way that I teach animal communication as well. And so we come in and we're not looking for the big bang, we're looking for a tiny little spark of light, and bringing that gratitude to it will increase it and we'll expand it and we'll ultimately increase our awareness, our attention, our ability to notice, get curious, wonder and ask better questions to get better answers and be more useful and even more helpful to our animals and to our relationship the relationship that we enjoy with our animals over time, even into the spirit realm, and so that's what I wanna share with you today.

Shannon Cutts : 31:02

As far as animal communication for pets in distress, it's always a good idea. Rarely is it a good idea for you to drop everything and learn it, but it's always a good idea to add it to your precious pets greater holistic support and care toolkit. And often through animal communication you will discover something else that could be a support to your pet that you may never have considered or even known about otherwise, and that's been one of the big values to me as well. So if you have more questions about how animal communication can be of service to your pet when there is a distress or a big change or upheaval or transition in your life. Let me know, drop me a comment or you can email me at Shannon at animallovelinguagescom, if you have more questions about this topic or something that you'd really like to hear about that I haven't addressed yet.

Shannon Cutts : 32:01

I will do my utmost. Let me know when. I will do my utmost. Right, we will do our utmost. Yeah, for now, I send you all my love. Okay, bye for now. I'll see you in the next one. I'll see you in the next one.