Pet Psychics: Real or Scam Artists?
The Denver Dog reports
Pet Psychics are one of the most controversial topics in the animal world. They are also known as animal communicators. Pet Psychics claim that they can communicate with animals, both alive and dead. In return they claim that they can offer behavioral advice to owners to help better the life of their pets. They also claim that they can help people reconnect with their deceased pets on the other side.
Many people are receptive to the idea of pet psychics while others are on the skeptical side. It’s not difficult to understand why people would be skeptical of these claims. It seems rather impossible that anyone could be capable of fulfilling these claims. Here at The Denver Dog, we all have open-minds. We decided to research a few of the most popular pet psychics and share our findings with our readers.
When we decided to write this article, we felt that we should have an experience with a pet psychic to include with the article. After researching several of the most popular pet psychics, we decided to schedule a call with Laura Stinchfield.
Laura Stinchfield, who literally calls herself The Pet Psychic, claims that she has been able to speak with animals since she was a child. Laura has authored a few books on animal communication and she hosts a weekly radio show on Blogtalkradio. Her sessions range from $150-$550 per session depending on the length. One of our team members, who we will call Kim for privacy reasons decided to call Laura to talk about her dog Sadie who hadn’t been eating well since the loss of her other dog. Sadie’s history is largely unknown as she was found as a stray in Mexico. She has the tendency to be very skittish and we all thought it would be interesting if we could find a way to get in her head.
After booking a session with Laura, Kim was sent a questionnaire about Sadie. Laura asks for an image and for details about your dog’s life and what questions you want answered. Kim filled out the questionnaire and returned it to Laura. When the day of the phone call came, three of us sat in on the call to hear what Laura would have to say.
Laura began by reading the questionnaire and stated she doesn’t read it until the call. This did take up several minutes of the reading as we had only booked a half hour session. Laura asked Kim what food she is feeding Sadie. Kim said that she was feeding a prescription diet from Purina. Before Kim could finish her sentence, Laura interrupted and said that Purina was a terrible dog food and it was full of sugar and that she needed to switch to a raw dog food immediately. We were a bit taken aback by this as Kim had not asked for dietary advice from Laura. However, we decided to keep our mouths shut and listen to what Laura had to say.
Laura then spent the next several minutes talking to Sadie. We could hear mumbling in the background as she spoke to Sadie but many of the words were incoherent. Laura got back on the line to report what Sadie had told her. She said that Sadie needed a dental and a chiropractic treatment. Laura also said that Sadie kept referring to the place with the river. Kim did not know what she was referring to as she has never taken Sadie near a river. Laura said Sadie told her about the “lollipop” treats. Again, Kim could not think of what she was talking about.
According to Laura, Sadie told her that she wants her own leash. Kim did not understand what this meant as Sadie has always had her own leash. Her deceased dog always had a separate leash. Laura said that Kim’s deceased dog came through and said Sadie needed a dental. (For the record Sadie is only two-years-old). Laura then brought up the issue of the food again and said that Kim needed to get Sadie off the prescription diet and on to raw dog food.
Before we knew it, the session was over. Kim was left shaking her head as almost nothing Laura said applied to Sadie. There were a few details that Laura had been accurate about. For instance, she said that Sadie was afraid of the wind. However, after reviewing the questionnaire, we discovered that Kim had told Laura this. So it turned out the detail she got right was something that Kim had told her but just forgot about.
Kim took Sadie to her scheduled veterinary visit the next day. The veterinarian looked closely at her teeth and did not see any reason why she would need a dental. There was no spinal pain noted on the exam as Laura had stated during the reading. Kim asked the veterinarian about the recommendation to switch Sadie’s prescription diet to a raw food diet. The vet stated that this recommendation could have made Sadie very ill. He also went on to say that it is not the place of a pet psychic to give medical advice.
Our session with Laura did raise the question about where to draw the line with taking advice from a pet psychic. Laura’s website stated that she does not give medical advice. However, one could argue that telling someone to switch from a prescription diet to a raw dog food is medical advice. While offering behavioral and training advice is rather harmless, a pet psychic offering medical advice could end in tragedy.
The lesson that we learned from this experience is that it is best to take a pet’s psychics advice with a grain of salt. Experiences with pet psychics will vary from person to person. Some people may come out of a session with a smile on their face at money well spent. Others will wonder why they just basically flushed 20 Starbuck’s drinks down the toilet.
Another pet psychic we researched for this article is Brent Atwater. Brent is known as a medical intuitive and animal communicator. She works with both people and animals and claims she can look inside your body and see your organs and predict future events. Her sessions range from $253 to over $2,300. She offers consults that delve into animal communication including reincarnated pets. She is the author of several books and also offers sessions to train others in animal communication.
We encourage our readers to form their own opinions on the topic of pet psychics. As we stated, experiences will vary from person to person. It is important to remember that pet psychics are not a replacement for veterinary care and they can’t (and shouldn’t) diagnose any illness your pet is experiencing.
