Why a Session with a Pet Psychic May Not Be Such a Great Idea

We last left off with me learning and applying the principles of how to communicate with one's pet for the first time. My hapless guinea pig was a white poodle named M1 of my M&M poodle duo. I took him into the back room, imagined for a little bit, and then open the door to the quizzical look of a baffled dog.

In the weeks that followed, I continued to devour episodes of the Animal Psychic, longing wistfully I could have a session of my very own to connect with and understand the thoughts of my dear beloved doggie.

Until I saw the giraffe episode.

It started out innocently enough. Ms. Fitzpatrick visited a zoo to communicate with a lovely adult female giraffe named Lilac. Or maybe Fluffy-I'm not sure. Regardless, the session turned warm and fuzzy when our heroine revealed that Daisy-the giraffe-was pregnant. The zoo keeper was moved, since it had not been revealed to anyone. Somehow the giraffe could feel the warm loving body growing inside her and knew-just knew-in that miraculous animal way-that she was with child. I think even I felt a little tear come to the corner of my eye. What an intensely intimate thing to know...and all through animal communication! Isn't that amazing?

The next animal came from an audience. It was a cat named Monsieur. Or Duke. Or maybe Bambi. Regardless, through a bit of round about questioning it came to light that our feline friend Kitty Killer really liked to be shaved. Yes, shaved. You see, the psychic, in the voice of Mr. Meow Mix requested that his mommy take him back to that place...with the hair dresser and have that thing done. It was so much cooler and oh my did he like that. The owner finally figured out what he was talking about and said she use to take him regularly but the hairdresser said cats hated to be shaved-

-to which the psychic quickly and emphatically replied that Furball very much liked to be shaved and would she please take him back to do it again. Look at that, the owner never would have known how much the cat enjoyed being...uh...hairless...if Ms. Fitzpatrick hadn't stepped in to save the day.

What a...personal thing to be able to relay. Almost like being a marriage counselor and letting the wife know that what her husband is trying to say is that he really likes sitting around in his undies farting NFL songs on Sunday mornings...so can she please stop trying to dressing him and slipping him beano? Wow, I thought.

But the final animal enlightened me to what the sense of growing unease and wormy distrust in my gut actually was. The owner had two or three large Dalmatians who communicated quite a bit to Ms. Fitzpatrick. One of the final things in the interview they told her was that they were kept in a small room, which they intensely disliked.

The owner quickly and apologetically explained that sometimes she had to lock them in a small bedroom, but she that it didn't happen often and only when necessary. Ms. Fitzpatrick must have gotten quite an earful from the dogs once they found someone that they could unload their woeful discomfort to, because she continued to describe how much they disliked it.

She didn't quite admonish the woman, but one felt like she might like to. The clincher came in the post interview without Ms. Fitzpatrick present. When the subject of the small room was brought up, the woman gave a quick a quick defensive explanation. What she may not have realized was that when she talked about locking them in a small room and tried to justify it that she actually admitted that it wasn't the bedroom-it was the bathroom.

Then I stopped.

Oh.

Isn't that amazing.

Your dogs just tattled on you.

On national TV.

All thanks to pet psychic communication.

In that moment of realization my life flashed before my eyes. I had been fantasizing about getting tickets to the show or saving up for a consultation.

Until 11 years of mistakes went whizzing right past my mental eyeballs. Did I really want my dog telling Ms. Fitzpatrick that it never got a bath? Or that when I first got him that no one in my family trained him so now he like to pee on piles of clothes?. (I was 11 at the time). Or that one of the groomers we took him to shaved his nipples off and we didn't realize it (male nipples are so small!) and made him go back to that groomer for years?

How about that fact that when he got seizure medications, my parents only gave it to him AFTER he had a seizure. I thought of all those times I tried to brush his teethor tortured him out of youthful ignorance and didn't realize it. ( I thought making sustained eye contact showed him I loved him! I didn't realize until years later it was a dominance thing...and he wasn't the alpha dog!)

Then puberty flashed before my eyes. My throat went dry at all of the things that dog could tell the world...on public television. All the boyfriends/girfriends he tried to scare off with poodle growls. He'd wedged between us if we were cuddling on the couch. Oh my. I blushed. That dog sat around and watched everything carefully, as if he was a silent chaperone...of sorts.

Then there was my parents divorce, my homelessness (and thus the dogs' homelessness too), my sister dropping his brother off at the pound including a narrowly escaped death sentence and more. I gulped. Then I gulped again, because my throat was so dry. There was no way I'd ever call a pet psychic for a session. This dog just had too much dirt on me.

I mean, imagine if you had a pet gerbil that ratted out how many times you needed to replace the batteries in your "Rabbit". Or if you took the dog in for a family session and good old Goldy talked about the husband's mistress? How nice she was, and brought him treats, and the roses were lovely...its funny how you never see her mom, I think you'd like her...except for when she bites dad. Can she come over more?

Wanna know if Larry Craig is really gay or not? Just ask the family cat...or better yet get the skinny on what REALLY went down in the bathroom by interviewing the local cockroaches. Wanna know what's happening under all the top secret stuff and record cleansing at the white house? Ask Barney and Ms. Beazley. Barney doesn't talk much(ex-CIA ya know), but Ms. Beazley will tell all.

Though I don't have gay scandals or top secret vote stealing tactics to hide, I don't particularly want my secret details to be outed on national television.

With the realization that watching and learning first hand from the Great Pet Psychic was out, I knew I could only rely on me and me alone if I wanted to know what was on my pets mind. Yikes! This was going to be harder than I thought considering I was going in with a plan tailored to my laziness factor. It was going to take a lot of practice, focus, drive and determination. And damn was I lazy.

I closed my eyes, imagined the dog, and told him I loved him. He looked at me, stood up, went to the food dish, and began chomping away. Did he hear me? I don't know. But if he did, maybe he was as relieved as I was that I wasn't going to make him sit in a quiet room with some strange lady who would stare at him while attempting to beam mental pictures into his head.

Up next: Who are the mysterious poodles that endure my attempts at psychicdom? An introduction to M1 and M2.