A pet psychic, animal communicator, or pet whisperer is a person who claims to be able to communicate psychically with animals.[1][2] Some pet psychics claim to be able to communicate with long-dead animals,[1] while others are more like animal communicators or animal psychologists.[3][4] Psychic refers to a claimed ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through what is described as extrasensory perception, or to those people said to have such abilities. Pet Whisperer is usually applied to a trainer like César Millan or Monty Roberts, who use their body language and the psychology of the dog or horse, to communicate with the animal.
The first animal communicators in the context of pet psychics was in the early twentieth century, when the Association for Research and Enlightenment began researching paranormal and psychic abilities in humans.[5] They claimed they could communicate telepathically with animals living or dead.[5] [6][7] The number of businesses offering pet psychic services has steadily increased but the industry remains unregulated and its claims unverifiable scientifically[2]
Psychics rely on different techniques when doing an animal reading. Pet psychics communicate with animals and some claim to connect with an animal's soul.[8] Some claim the readings are done by communicating with their "electromagnetic energy" similar to reiki and therapeutic touch healing.[9] Others claim the animal does not need to be proximately close to the one doing the reading or even alive.[1][10] Some pet psychics claim they can do a reading over the phone.[1][4] A large industry exists where psychics provide advice and counsel to clients, though skeptics attribute such putative powers to intentional trickery or self-delusion.[11][12][13][14][15]
Parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake claims that he has shown in experiments that some pets are psychic. A parrot, N'kisi, in New York uttered statistically more words that had to do with random cards her owner were looking at in another room in one series of experiments,[16] and in another series of experiments a dog, Jaytee, spent statistically more time at the window during the time his owner was on her way home (at random times) than other times when Jaytees owner was out[17]
Replicating Sheldrake's experiment with Jaytee, Richard Wiseman in 1998 designed four tests for a dog a Austrian television show felt had been successful knowing when its owner would return home. Wiseman ruled out all cues and routines the dog could previously have been picking up. When tested with these controls the dog failed all four tests. JREF investigator Joe Nickell writes that "the experiments suggested "that selective memory, multiple guesses and selective matching could often have sufficient scope to give an owner the impression of a paranormal effect."[18]
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Pet psychics appear regularly in fiction and science fiction, such as the hit movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective or Dr. Doolittle's books and movies. Amongst contemporary pet psychics, Sonya Fitzpatrick with her show The Pet Psychic and dog trainer/dog psychologist César Millan with his show Dog Whisperer are arguably the best known.[19][20]
The scientific community has rejected all claims of psychic phenomena, and no compelling evidence of psychic phenomena has been found.[21][22][23][24] A study using neuroimaging published in 2008 provides the strongest evidence yet obtained that paranormal mental phenomena do not exist.[24] A study at Bangor University, Wales, of people who hear voices found that fMRI scans of one 'animal communicator,' whilst allegedly hearing the voice of each of ten pets belonging to the research team, showed activity in Heschl's gyrus. When asked to imagine a conversation with each of ten humans, the activity was in a totally different brain area.[25] In 1988 the U.S. National Academy of Sciences gave a report on the subject that concluded there is "no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena."[26] In 1991 a survey of opinion amongst scientists in the National Academy of Sciences, 96% described themselves as "skeptical" of ESP, although 2% believed in psi and 10% felt that parapsychological research should be encouraged.[27][28]
Joe Nickell believes that cold reading is the reason why so many pet psychics look like they are communicating with animals. Watching pet psychics like Gerri Leigh and Animal Planet's Sonya Fitzpatrick work in front of an audience, their conversations with the animals appear to be impressive until you understand that "it is the pet owners, not the pets themselves, who "validate" the pronouncements."[18]
Linguistic professor Karen Stollznow writing for The Skeptic magazine tested a pet psychic with a cat named Jed. Not only was the psychic "completely inaccurate in her reading of Jed’s age, place of birth, background, behavior, health, and my health..." she was unable to tell that Jed was not her cat. Stollznow concludes that "language is human-species specific. We don’t and can’t “know” what animals think."[29]