As a professional Pet Psychic (Animal Communicator), I work intuitively with people and their pets from all over the world to psychically connect to the pet and pass that information on to the pet's human.

And yes, this is a real job that I do full-time - and I do love it! Even when the subject turns to the death of an animal - I've never doubted that helping people and their animals in this way was my soul's calling.

Whether I'm doing an in-person reading or we're connecting via Skype, there are a few universal questions that most people want to know.

The number one question I'm asked is:

Does my pet know how much I love her?

​This question is so popular because most people worry that their human love isn't understood by their beloved pets. The answer is ALWAYS, yes. Animals tune into our love very easily - in fact, that's what they're programmed to do! They seek out those places in the world where they feel the deep safety that love provides.

The second most frequent question I'm asked I'm asked by my clients is:

How can I know exactly when my pet is getting ready to die?  

Here's the thing: Even though I've intuitively worked with more than 20,000 animals and their people, I've never found a hard and fast rule on this. The signs that an animal is getting ready to die are different for every animal and for every human-animal relationship. There are, however, a few things to take into consideration as you navigate such a challenging time.

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Here are a few things to consider when trying to decipher what is really going on with your beloved pet:

Are you adding your human perceptions into what you THINK your pet is telling you?

As animals age, their bodies begin to break down (just like ours). They may lose their sight or hearing etc. For many of us, as people who love our animals, watching the breakdown of the body can be especially hard. We think about how challenging it would be for us to lose our sight or hearing. We wouldn't be able to drive or watching TV would completely change... Animals, though, have to be adaptable in order to survive so they've learned to do just that: adapt. I've actually never psychically connected to an animal who said, "Well, I can't see and it's making me hate my life and I want to cross over now." In fact, the animals most often tell me that they've learned how to get around just fine without the sight or hearing.

If you think your pet is miserable because his senses have changed, take a moment to be sure it's not your human experience showing up! Much of the time, these changes are not indicators that an animal is ready to cross over. 

Are you very worried about life without your pet?

If you're already concerned about how you'll make it through dinner time without Coco around, it's possible that you're more focused on what is coming in the future, than giving proper attention to the situation with your pet now. If you've heard yourself say, "I could never live without him," there's a good chance you may be someone prone to miss the messages your pet is sending you about getting ready to pass over. This is where having a good support network comes in handy. Friends and family can often see the situation more clearly than we can ourselves!

Are you bringing your best self to life with your pet?

As an Animal Communicator, I've seen this happen again and again. Sometimes, our love for our pets can actually contribute to their health and well-being challenges! Sometimes, we can mistake these experiences for signs from the pet that they are getting ready to cross when really these are signs that WE need to behave differently.

When you spend your days and nights concerned about your pet's well-being you're also spending your days and nights in a state of high-anxiety. Since animals have to be tuned into our emotional states in order to survive (they depend on us being strong and healthy in order to take care of them in our human world), when you're in a state of anxiety, your pet is going to feel this and react to it. If you want to know how your pet is REALLY feeling, the starting point should be you. Are you calm, clear, connected, and peaceful? Only then can you approach your pet to discern how he is really feeling. Otherwise, you're simply going to be observing his reaction to your anxiety and basing your decisions on next steps with him on inaccurate indicators.

Is your pet unable to enjoy life - according to what SHE really enjoys? ​ 

Every pet is different which means that every pet values different things about life. A lazy dog may not mind an inability to walk anymore, whereas a very active dog may feel she has no quality of life by losing her ability to walk. Think about what your pet really LOVES. If she can no longer participate in those things, she may be giving you the message that she's getting ready to or is ready to pass over.

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There's no rule book as to what behavior or experience provides the absolute answer on whether or not your pet is getting ready to cross over. In my experience with animals, they are doing everything they can to get the message to you about what they want with their passing. The better you are at managing your emotions and the more you're able to put yourself into this particular animal's shoes, the less traumatic your pet's end of life needs to be. 

In my almost two decades of doing this work with animals, I've never connected with an animal that said their passing was a mistake. Trust that, when the time comes, it will go exactly as your animal wishes for it to come.

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In my work with tens of thousands of people and their animals, from all over the world, I've had a lot of unique opportunity to connect with animals to learn what really happens in the dying process.

When talking about animals dying, I always think of my dog Bella on the day she crossed over.

I didn’t notice anything different before I left for the gym that morning, but when I walked in the door afterwards, I saw that she was perching on her dog bed (a bed she never used), in a weird, spacey, disconnected way.

I remember how she lifted her head up and wagged her tail at me four times and then rested her head on the bed once again. It just seemed so unlike her. It felt so unlike her. She was normally a much more present dog (like, you couldn’t miss her because she wouldn’t let you).

I’ve thought about that moment so many times since – and I’ve received emails, phone calls, and posts wondering the same thing I was worrying about:

What happens with an animal's body when they are dying?

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My answer to this question is based on what the animals have repeatedly told me during my many years of connecting intuitively with them. Unless you can communicate psychically with animals yourself (and I do believe everyone can!), this is about as close to hearing it "straight from the horse's mouth" as you can get.

Because animals choose how, when, why, and where – as well as WHO will (or won’t) be there with them when they cross over, they have the time to work the more spiritual angle of their passing.

Before passing, an animal’s spirit will begin to leave their body. Many times the animal will energetically show me a visual of how only part of their spirit is or was still in their body at the time of their passing. The rest of the spirit is making its way outward, to the Light (or heaven or the Rainbow Bridge – or whatever you call it).

Crossing to the Other Side is a big job for a person or an animal, and the last part of the process in crossing over, according to the animals, is the connection to the physical body.

In this sense, the spirit often gets a nice head start in the dying process.

The benefit to the animal (and to our human sensibilities) is that the animal is less connected to the physical world so there can be less pain and suffering than we imagine.

Think of it this way – if you’re distracted watching TV while someone is pinching you, you’re less likely to be bothered by it than if you’re in an empty room focusing on this person pinching you.

Crossing over for animals often works in the same way. The spirit is distracted with the separation process between the physical body and the spirit, so there is less connection to what is happening in the physical world.

Animals have told me this is the case when they are sick and dying, but they’ve even also said their spirit begins to leave their body when their passing is an “accident” (like getting hit by a car). In fact, once I've explained this to clients, many of them have looked back and noticed that their pet was acting slightly differently before the accident.

For me, knowing that animals aren’t usually all the way connected in to the world when they are about to pass over made me feel so much better about Bella and really about all animals I encounter who are dying or have died.

This disconnection turns out to be a natural kindness in the world that I'm so grateful the animals have shared with me so that I can share it with you.

Did you go through a tough experience when your animal was crossing over? Do you worry that you did something wrong? If you helped your pet cross (euthanasia), do you worry that perhaps it was too soon? Or that you waited too long?

Very often animals will have an increase in energy just before it is time for them to pass.

This increase in energy can manifest as a sickness that suddenly seems to go into remission, a depression that temporarily lifts, a returning appetite, or oddly high spirits…

Many people, in their (totally understandable) desire to believe their pet is not going to cross over, mistake this increase in energy for healing – when it is really serving a very different purpose.

At times like this, the animal’s body and soul are actually working together to create the necessary environment so that the animal can pass to the other side.  The soul of the pet needs to experience an energy increase in order to be able to leave the physical body. While this may make sense to you right now – at a time when your pet is going downhill AGAIN, after he was just looking so much better – this can be a difficult thing to believe and to experience.

If you’ve been feeling badly about or replaying a particular challenge you had with your pet’s passing, hopefully this information eases your heart and mind a little bit.

I often work with animals that are sick, dying or that have just passed over. In my job as an animal communicator, I’m constantly surrounded by death – or the thought and worry of death. I’ve witnessed what helps and doesn’t help people move through these experiences. You may be surprised at what really works.

To us, the humans left behind, it doesn’t matter that animals view "dying" as moving on to the next level of school - a beloved animal's passing is still really hard.

Animals don't hold grudges in the afterlife

A lot of people feel immense guilt about their animal’s passing. They wonder if they could have done more, they worry that they should have tried harder or if they should have been more grateful. If you have a friend suffering, try re-assuring them that they did their best, based on where they are in their life. Let them know that their animal understands this at the deepest levels because animals have mastered unconditional love. And it’s true. In connecting with animals after they’ve passed, I’ve never met an animal who said, “I’m mad at him – he didn’t do enough for me.”

Animals ONLY wish the best for their humans - even those humans that made mistakes

​Animals really are aligned with unconditional love. Does your friend worry that he made a mistake during his time with his animal? Does he think he didn’t act in his animal’s best interest? Does he think that, perhaps, he was preoccupied with the trials and tribulations of living his life instead of meeting his pet's every need? Whatever happened, animals have only love in their hearts. There is no need for apologies because animals don't experience life and death in that way. 

Animals understand the next phase of "life"

Unlike people, animals aren’t afraid of dying because they are connected in to the big picture. When I connect intuitively with animals around the time of their passing (and even after they have passed), they look at their passing very much as a fact of life. No animal has ever said to me, “I’m afraid to go,” or “I don’t want to go.” I have connected with animals that feel concerned for how their human will handle their passing, but death for an animal is not actually a scary thing at all. It’s just moving into that next phase. Try reassuring your friend that this passing was a beautiful graduation into the next phase of consciousness for their pet. 

Based on my experiences connecting with animals after they have passed, here are some other VERY TRUE things that you could say to someone grieving the passing of their pet:

• Your pet intuitively knew how much you loved her
  
  
• You did the very best you could and your pet knows this deeply and is grateful
  
  
• Your grief is real and it’s healthy to allow yourself to feel it – even if other people don’t understand and even if it isn’t pretty
  
  
• Your pet wants to come through with signs from the Other Side as you move through the grieving process. Keep an eye out for these comforting messages (while sleeping, or out of the corner of your eye, or maybe even a sound!)
  
  
• I’m here for you – whether you’d like to talk about it or not, just let me know what kind of support you’d like. I’ll hold whatever space works for you as you go through this.
  
  

In the end, there isn’t a whole lot of talking you need to do to be there for your friend as she grieves. Just offering your support in whatever way your friend asks for it is going to be perfect. Many people will not actually want to talk about their beloved animal for a little while, but they’ll want to know that you’re out there, ready to catch them if they need it. Eventually, most of them will need it.

On the flip side, here are some things that would not be helpful. I'm sure, if you're reading this, you would never say things like this, as you already KNOW the deep connection between humans and animals - however, just in case you've ever said some version of one of these phrases, I include them here:

• It was just an animal
  
  
• You can always get another one
  
  
• Are you thinking about finding another one
  
  
• It was just his time
  
  
• It's not like this was your child
  
  
• You only had her for a little while
  
  
• It's been weeks! Get over it!​​​​​
  

So many of us view the animals in our lives as part of our family and the pain and grief that come with their loss is just as real and deep (and in many cases MORE real and deep) than losing another human. Your friend is not weird or dramatic for experiencing the loss so deeply - your friend is simple being affected by the profound, unconditional love of an animal.

There's one question that I'm asked all the time. It's a loaded question. ​It's a question that makes you ponder the meaning of life too. And it's a question that I  can only answer based on my personal intuitive conversations with the animals and what they've told me.

Do animals reincarnate?

To answer this question, I'm not going to share what other people have told me about reincarnation, as how can any of us really know about it.

Animals, on the other hand, maintain a much stronger connection with Spirit and they've been able to share, very freely, their experiences with reincarnation. Unlike us (humans), they don't "lose" their memories of the Other Side (like we do).

Animals reincarnate.  Yay!

Again and again, animals have confirmed to me that they do reincarnate, again and again and that they have the collective goal of helping evolve human consciousness through all of their various lives. 

And even cooler than that, just like humans, animals reincarnate in Soul Families. This means that the particular animals now in your life, were also in your life before. Your dog could have been your horse in a prior life or the neighbor's cat could have been the super sweet mouse that lived in your attic.​ It's not just reincarnate and see which humans you interact with. For animals, they choose to come back again and again to the same soul groups to help us evolve.

Animals don't want to reincarnate as humans.

I've never met an animal that told me they were a human in a past life or that they were going to reincarnate as a human. In fact, animals have shared again and again, that they have no desire to ever be human. After all, they've said, they've mastered unconditional love while humans have yet to come close! The animals have told me they feel it would be like going backwards to reincarnate as a human!

Additionally, animals are not impatient to reincarnate. They take their time in order to choose the best moment when they'll be able to best accomplish their goal with the humans they'll encounter while alive. Unfortunately (for what most people would like), this means that animals don't usually reincarnate BACK into the same lifetime of their human. While many people have told me that their current pet is the reincarnation of the one from their childhood etc, whenever I intuitively ask the pet about this, the animal has made it clear that they are NOT the same soul. Instead, they are in constant touch with the previous animal soul so the new animal can learn how best to work with those particular humans. 

Many people wonder, “But how could this be? My Muffy acts so much like my childhood cat Farrah – they do the same funny little things – it HAS to be her!”  In my experience, the animal on the Other Side is actually assisting, training, and educating the new animal – and in many cases training the new animal to be in this human’s life or to take over the Soul Lesson that animal is teaching her human. That's why so many similarities between animals can happen!

No one has all the answers about reincarnation. Here, I'm simply sharing what the animals have told me. If and when I learn more or different things about how animals are reincarnating, I will begin sharing that new information. For now, this is what they've wanted me to know that I'm sharing with you today.

I bet, like almost everyone, you want to receive a message from your pet on the Other Side, but I also bet, like almost everyone, you're not quite sure what that message would actually be - or how it could possibly come to you or if you may be missing it.

As a professional animal communicator for almost twenty years, I’ve been in the unique position to experience animals at all stages of dying – from before the animal is even close to passing over to when it’s happening and very often after the fact as well.

I’ve learned through these experiences that animals on the Other Side WANT to communicate with us! Animals on the Other Side WANT us to get their messages. For animals, being on the Other Side doesn't mean that their relationship with us is over. Here's what you need to know about hearing from your animal that has crossed over.

Animals need time to adjust to the Other Side before sending messages

As the animals have explained it to me, when an animal dies, their spirit goes to some version of a spirit school. While no animal has yet explained what actually goes on in the spirit school, they have told me the purpose: to adjust to no longer having a physical body. 

When I first started working intuitively with animals, the typical adjustment phase was about two weeks long - but that was almost twenty years ago. As things have shifted and human consciousness has advanced, the typical adjustment phase is now about three days. During that time, it's very hard to intuitively connect to an animal on the Other Side as their spirit seems to be busy at school. Once they have completed that work though, they are free to start giving messages.

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Grief can prevent you from "getting" a message from your pet

Grief is a very natural part of any relationship and it's no less present when a beloved animal dies than when a beloved friend dies. To receive a message from your pet on the Other Side, you want to be in a calm and peaceful state of mind - but grief is anything but calm and peaceful. Trust that, as you begin to move through the grieving process and as your vibration starts to move higher (away from the sadness), you'll be able to start getting those messages. Until then, allow yourself to experience your sadness and loss with the knowledge that, eventually, you'll be able to reconnect with your pet through his messages from the Other Side.

You don’t have to be psychic to pick up your pet’s messages!

Once you've moved through your grief, animals are excited to be able to send you signs and messages from the other side and they will use whatever method they can to get their messages to you! They'll figure out which ways you are most open to receiving their signs and then they'll use that to their advantage. Because of this, you don't have to be intuitive to pick up what they're "putting down" for you - you just have to be open-minded.

Here are a few examples I've seen happen with my clients and while these experiences may seem extraordinary, they're actually not. If you can be open to receiving a message - and trust what happens - you, too, can have something awesome happen between you and your pet!

• One animal sent a visual of himself up into the sky as he was passing – and only his human saw it. But is was the confirmation she'd been looking for and she finally knew he was safe
  
  
• The experience of an animal's moment of passing inspired her human to write a song that was later recorded and became a big hit.
  
  
• One dog sent the picture of his passing to his human several days before he passed – which allowed his humans to plan things out exactly as they were in the picture…

Interestingly, none of the people experiencing these events considered themselves psychic. They were simply living their lives with the intention of being open to what their animal wanted to share with them.

Animals on the Other Side work hard to make sure we can “catch” their messages of love.

Here are a few more examples:

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• A dog that had crossed over a few weeks prior, showed up in his human’s dream to tell him it was time to quit his job.
  
  
• A little girl’s cat on the Other Side actually appeared on the bed one night and she stayed up all night petting him.
  
  
• A woman woke up to her cat's collar, which had been put away in a box in the closet, laying on the floor of her bedroom. Her cat had been on the Other Side for weeks already.​
  
  
• My dog Bella will periodically remind me that she’s still around (despite having died several years ago) by sending me a distant (but loud) Bella-bark.
  

Yet again, there were no intuitive abilities required to have these experiences. Animals have so much to give us.

If you'd like to start receiving your own messages from your animal on the Other Side, and are making sure you are moving through your grief, you can then start by setting your intention. This doesn't take any fancy ritual. Before you go to bed at night, simply say to yourself something like, "I'm setting my intention to receive a message from my Bella." (Fill in your own animal's name here.)

Then, carry on with your life and let the messages come to you!

One last thing: if you want to receive a message, you have to suspend your disbelief. There are no coincidences!  Don't discount your experience. If you think you may have received a sign or a message, trust that you have. The more you trust, the more the messages can pour in!