Talk with the Animals

By Ann Walker

Talk with the animals something we can all do!

Now you can communicate better with your animals. All you need is a love and understanding of them as individuals and personalities in their own right, and a willingness to listen, watch and learn.

Ann Walker shares with us a lifetime of experiences and shows how the rewards of getting through to animals can be worthwhile even spectacular. Her own affinity with donkeys, ponies, mules, cats, dogs and sheep has had some surprising results at times!

This book explains why animals are valuable companions for young and old, for the sick and disabled, and as partners for the blind.

Ann Walker, popular Prime Time columnist and animal breeder, will help you develop day-to-day understanding with the animals who share your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jan 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493143917

Ann Walker

Illustrator’s Bio Beyonca Patterson is a freelancing illustrator who’s done a variety of commissioned work. Some of these commissioned projects include an album cover and a wine label, showcasing a range of artistic skill. Her high school work has received several Scholastic Art awards at the local level. Author’s Bio Ann Walker previously worked in the areas of film and video production. She is currently an educator in Nevada, USA, where she resides with her dear cat.

Book preview

CONTENTS

1.  Talking to the Animals

2.  Talking Animals

3.  Communicating without Words

4.  Learning their Language

5.  Thought Talk

6.  Common Sense or Super Senses?

7.  Animals who work with and for Us

8.  Companion Animals

9.  Are Animals aware of Death?

10.  The Return Trip

11.  Laughing with Animals

12.  Animals for an Ego Trip

13.  Matching, Hatching and Dispatching

14.  Animals are People like Us

15.  Every Animal is Different

DEDICATION

For Cindy,

and all other four-footed friends

who give so much more than they are given

1

Talking to the Animals

The immortal Dr Dolittle has caught the imagination of generations of children and parents with his ability to ‘talk to the animals’. That is, actually to converse with them as one being to another.

I would like to make the rather startling suggestion that there was nothing particularly remarkable about this. On the contrary, talking to the animals is something we can all do. I can, and so can you. The basic requirements are simple enough: a real love and understanding of animals as individuals and personalities in their own right, and a willingness to learn.

The legendary Dr Dolittle was by no means the only person credited with the gift of being able to talk to and understand the language of animals. Ever since the dawn of history, the wise men—the holy ones, the seers, prophets and spiritual leaders of every religious persuasion—have been said to have the gift of being able to communicate with members of the animal world.

Hiawatha, the legendary ‘Christ’ figure of the North American Indians was immortalised in verse by the poet Longfellow and was recorded by him as ‘learning of every beast its language’. The Buddha told many parables and stories about animals. When he went alone into the jungle he was accompanied by the wild monkeys and elephants who looked after him, kept him company and brought him food. We can take it as read that communication was a two-way thing between them!

In Old Testament literature we have the dramatic story of Daniel who was thrown to the lions but remained unhurt. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from this is that Daniel could talk to them and be understood. It has always been popularly believed that Solomon, wisest of kings, was able to communicate with the animals, but in fact the Bible tells us that he talked of the animals and birds, not to them.

Many Christian saints have been credited with an ability to talk to the animals, and among them is the outstanding example of St Francis, who not only talked to them but preached to them as well!

Whatever their time and place in history, whatever their personal ideologies, all these people had one thing in common: they knew the value of silence and how to observe—and listen—in silence. They were also caring people, not just for the animals but for their fellow men, too. They did not draw up arbitrary distinctions between people and animals, animals and people, or even between people, animals and plants; they cared for and loved life, in whatever form they met it.

Nearly all of us who live with animals do a lot of talking at them. I know I do! Whenever I am alone with one of my animal friends, I gabble away to it and feel very foolish if I am overheard.

This may be an excellent way of ‘getting it off your chest’, but it has absolutely nothing to do with talking with animals, which is a two-way thing, real communication.

The rewards of learning to do this could, I feel, be greater than the more dubious possibility of learning to communicate with beings from elsewhere in the galaxy.

After all, the animals are here with us, sharing our world. To a greater or lesser extent their lives are bound up with ours—their problems are our problems.

More immediately, the rewards of actually taking the trouble to ‘get through’ to animals can be very worthwhile and quite spectacular.

My daughter and I were breaking in a young pony. We bred Fleur and had owned her mother for many years, so she was very much part of the family. She was being thoroughly awkward and uncooperative about having the bit in her mouth for the first time. I was trying to hold her still while Ruth got the bridle over her head and the bit in her mouth.

She was not succeeding. Fleur was hopping about all over the place, throwing her head up out of reach each time Ruth attempted to get the bit between her teeth—which were clenched tight, anyway! I was finding it difficult to keep the pony still, because with only a light webbing headstall on her, it was impossible to stop her throwing her head about.

Both Ruth and Fleur were becoming increasingly het up, and I was beginning to feel more and more like the meat in the sandwich. As we all got progressively more uptight, success seemed further and further away.

I finally suggested that Ruth and I swap over; as I took the bridle in my hand I made a supreme mental effort to clear my mind of all extraneous thoughts and to fill the void with a clear picture of Fleur opening her mouth as I slipped the bit between her teeth.

‘Now come on, open your mouth,’ I said, doing my best to sound confident.

Fleur opened her mouth and I slipped the bit in, just as I had visualised doing: she was the only one of the three of us who did not seem surprised!

But why should she be? What I had done was quite simple: I had spoken to her in a language she understood. A visual ‘thought language’ habitually used by animals to convey messages one to another.

This was a simple instance of breaking through the barrier of language and getting through to an animal so that she understood just what was required of her; as a result a great deal of stress was averted.

Of course, not every attempt to communicate with an animal is so successful. There are so many factors to take into consideration, the most obvious one being the difficulty of projecting a message in this way. Most of us have minds rather like cluttered family living rooms, whereas if you are to communicate successfully, the message to be sent has to be there by itself, crystal clear, rather like a colour slide projected onto a screen. In fact, when I am having difficulty getting rid of the clutter in my own mind, I concentrate on seeing nothing but a blank white screen on which I put (or try to put) the message I want to send.

Another factor we are apt to forget is the state of the receiving mind, which also may well be cluttered with confusing images, so that our message cannot find space. When I was sending my message to Fleur, probably her mind was also pre-occupied with the same subject and, not being cluttered up with other thoughts, it was that much easier for me to get through.

Finally, something we are all apt to overlook when we try to talk with the animals, is that they are not mechanical receivers permanently switched on waiting to receive from us. On the contrary, animals are individuals and personalities in their own rights with the power to switch off, refuse to listen or—in their own way—tell us to ‘Shut up!’ Which of us who owns a dog has not felt exasperated, sometimes almost beyond endurance, when an interesting smell so fully occupies his attention that he cannot, or will not hear our call or whistle?

Donkeys are past masters in this business of switching off, and it may be this ability more than anything else that has earned them their reputation for stubbornness and stupidity.

This so-called stubbornness and stupidity can also be cited as a prime example of failure to get through—to communicate—which, after all, is what talking with animals as distinct from just talking at, or even to them is all about.

Talking, after all, is really only an externalisation of a communication that is interior. It is also possible to talk without communicating. The world is full of people who live together, husbands and wives, parents and children, who may talk to each other a great deal yet never really communicate.

Similarly we can live with our animals and even talk to them, but real communication means that they will understand what we are trying to get over to them and in return we will understand what they say to us. To do this we have to learn to use all our faculties, not just our ears but our minds and hearts as well. To be successful, communication has to be a two-way thing, we have to learn to receive as well as transmit. This so often means just being, listening, watching and learning. Generally speaking, when we comment on any form of successful communication between man and animal, such as between a rider and his horse, a shepherd and his dog, for instance, it is the animal who has received and learned the words and signals that the man has chosen to transmit.

A lifetime of living with and loving animals has brought me to the conclusion that a great deal of animal communication is what I would call direct ‘mind to mind’ communication, such as I used with Fleur.

Individuals here and there are doing their best to understand and learn the language of other creatures and really converse with them. Notable among these experiments are those being done with dolphins.

These remarkable sea creatures have a high I.Q. and, as Ronald Lockley so neatly phrased it, generally speaking they have what he called a higher W.Q., or ‘Wisdom Quotient’. In other words, they know how to live their lives to the very best advantage. They enjoy themselves and each other, they do not engage in senseless toil or torturous war, neither do they pollute or ‘use up’ their environment. We could learn much from their way of life, and it might well be to our ultimate advantage to learn something of their language.

For some years dolphin enthusiasts in many different parts of the world have studied these remarkable creatures. Modern electronic equipment has aided considerably in this study and though it has now been surmised that they have at least a thousand different vocalisations, and many conversations and songs have been recorded, man has by no means deciphered the full meaning and extent of dolphin language.

The human watchers and listeners have noted that in the dolphins’ conversations with one another, they are always polite, pausing and listening for the other’s reply before continuing.

Were roles to be reversed and the dolphins permitted to observe humans conversing, they would not make the same observation! Humans may be excellent talkers, but for the most part they are very poor listeners. When two people are engaged in conversation, a careful observer would note that while one is talking the other is not so much listening as waiting for the talker to draw breath so that they can start talking. At the end of the conversation it is a fair bet that each one will have a much clearer idea of what they themselves said than the comments of the other person.

It is probably because we are so much better talkers than listeners that we find it so hard to learn to really communicate with our friends in the animal kingdom.

Whether or not animals actually understand human speech is a point which is often hotly debated. There are some people who claim that their dog, or other pet, understands every word they say. These are usually the people who humanise their animal friends.

This is a sad thing and a block to real understanding and worthwhile communication. If we treat animals as human and talk to them the same as we would to other humans we will find that language, far from facilitating understanding, comes between us like a brick wall.

On the other hand if we recognise the animalness of animals, and more specifically the dogginess of dogs and cattiness of cats, study their language and try to use what we have learned in our attempts at communication, we will find that we are getting somewhere.

At the other extreme to those people who think that animals understand every word we say are those who think they understand nothing! The truth, I believe, is somewhere in between.

When I am talking to or at Cindy, my dog, I don’t expect her to take in everything I am saying, but if I am observing her I will see that there are certain ‘key’ words that she knows and that evoke a response. Her name, of course, is one and if I happen to say ‘good girl’ she will roll her eyes up at me, or even lift her head and look at me, and her tail will go thump, thump on the floor.

The average family dog probably has a vocabulary of about twenty words, the intelligent dog living in very close companionship with a talkative person or people may well know up to sixty words.

You can test your own dog’s understanding of human speech quite easily. When the family, including the dog, are relaxing together in the living room with no extraneous speech sounds, such as the television or radio, to provide distractions, hold a conversation in which you deliberately include words you suspect your dog knows.

His own name is an obvious first choice. This will make him prick up his ears and take notice, in much the same way that we do ourselves when we overhear our own name mentioned in someone else’s conversation.

Having caught his attention, bring in other words you suspect he knows, such as ‘walk’, ‘car’, ‘bone’—you will know the things that he likes and that excite him.

If you know your dog well and are watching him carefully as you talk, you will have no difficulty recognising the tell-tale signs that he has not only heard, but understood.

Cindy and I had been attending our local Dog Obedience Club for a few weeks when I noticed that she was anticipating the commands I was giving her. It was only by a brief second or two and probably not even noticeable to an observer.

She loved every minute of these classes and was tip-toe eager to do as she was bidden. In fact, it was obvious to me that she was listening to the commands the trainer was giving to the handlers and acting on these instead of waiting for them to filter through to her via me!

Sometimes younger members of my family will telephone and ask to be met at the bus stop. Cindy, who loves a ride in the car, seemed to know so often that one was in the offing on these occasions that I took particular care to watch her when I was expecting such a summons.

She came with me to the telephone, listened carefully to my side of the conversation, and when I said ‘Yes, I’ll come’ or similar words, pricked up her ears, wagged her tail and gave all the signs of a happy dog expecting a treat.

Animals in a working situation with people have to learn a basic vocabulary as part of their training. Like a dog, the average horse will probably have a vocabulary of around twenty words. The young horse who has not begun his working life will have fewer, the old, well-trained one probably many more.

In his book, Horse Power & Magic, George Ewart Evans tells of an old horseman, Walter Cater, who was a genius with heavy horses; he always talked to his horses very softly and quietly, almost to himself, so that no-one but the horses could hear him. When they played up, however, he would take them into the stable and give them a good talking to. He would never allow anyone else to come in with him on these occasions, and what he actually said to them no-one knew, but they always came out sweating and always behaved perfectly afterwards!

Many gifted horsemen talk constantly to their horses, often in a sort of monotonous sing-song tone which seems to have a curiously soothing effect. In this case it is probably not the words that are important at all, but the comforting sound of the voice.

J.S. Rarey, the great American horse-breaker of the nineteenth century, remarked that he had often observed how much quieter highly strung horses became when handled by women, and he put this down to the fact that the women talked to them and caressed them more than men did.

In this context it is interesting to note that two races of people renowned for the excellence of their horses and the high standard of their horsemanship, the Bedouin Arabs and the Plains Indians of America, both hand over the rearing of their young horses entirely to the women.

The Australian bullocky and the American muleteer both have reputations for swearing at their animals. This is another case of the sounds, not the words, being important; in exactly the reverse to the horseman ‘whispering’ to his horses to soothe them, the bullocky used swear words with their sharp, explosive sounds, to spur his animals on to greater effort.

Body language is another form of communicating which is used extensively among animals. The most obvious examples that spring to mind are the wagging of a dog’s tail to denote pleasure; the raising of the hair along the neck and spine which expresses a mixture of fear, anger and aggression; and the laying back of a horse’s ears to threaten. These are all just a few of the many, familiar examples of body language.

They also seem to communicate by some form of close nose-to-nose breathing. Many animals will, as we say, ‘sniff noses’ and, in the sniffing, apparently communicate some message.

Barbara Woodhouse, well known not only as a dog-trainer but for her ability to train horses, relates in one of her books that while she was living in South America, she learned the secret of taming a horse by breathing up its nostrils from an Indian horse-trainer.

Interestingly, though different species use different forms of body language to express their feelings, these particular expressions seem to be readily recognised and understood by other species, including man.

Similarly we can talk to the animals by using body language; sometimes, this can be spontaneous gestures, in other instances it could be the use of carefully worked out movements that form a language of their own.

A typical example of this is what is known as ‘the Aids’, the body language by which man and horse communicate. This is a