5 Tips For Communicating With Animals

If You Could Talk To The Animals

Dr. Dolittle aside, we can all benefit from learning new communication skills!

We can improve communication and strengthen our relationship with our animals using these 5 great tips from Animal Communicator Courtney French Moffatt on how you can get better communication with your pets.

#1. If anything is going to involve or affect your pets in anyway, big or small, let them know what’s going on, why it’s happening and what is the behavior that you expect them to do. You do not want any surprises.

This can be as simple as a friend is coming to visit or it can be as complex as you’re going to move into a new place. It doesn’t matter how big or small, let them know what’s going on.

 

#2. Always make sure that you are talking to them in a positive language and never a negative language.

Animals, like people, see things as pictures in our minds. We see pictures in our mind all the time but some people don’t even realize it. If you are talking to someone, listening to someone or even reading a book, the information is playing out like a movie in your mind. That is why we can read a book and it’s just like watching a movie!

 

Because animals see the words we are saying as pictures in their minds, there are some words that do not have a clear picture. The word “not” is one of them. There is no clear picture for not. Therefore, there is no clear picture for the words don’t, can’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t. It’s very hard for us humans, even me, to not use those words. They are part of our language and it’s second nature for us to say them. We have to really think about what we’re saying before we say it so that we don’t use those words. And see, I just said don’t!

An example of this is if your dog jumps on everyone when they come in the door. If you say the words don’t jump, then you’re putting an image of a dog jumping in their head. That is only reaffirming what they think they’re supposed to do. So they jump! Instead, you can say something like I want you to stay calm and keep all four feet on the floor. That way, you are putting a positive image of what you want them to do in their head.

 

#3. Believing what you are telling them.

Whatever you are telling them, you have to 100% believe it. If you have any shred of doubt in the back of your mind, and they will definitely pick up on that.

 

This can be easier said than done, especially if it’s the behavior that has gone on for a very long time. Or, if there is any fear involved with it. Example, if you got bucked off your horse and broke your leg then once you get back on your horse months later, you’re going to have that accident in the back of your mind. Your horses will pick up on that and may or may not react. But it is very hard to act like everything will be 100% fine when the last time you rode it wasn’t.

So it is something that will help strengthen your message, but is not easy to do. Everyone struggles with this, even people who have practiced this for years!

#4. Giving animals a pep talk – this is as needed.

Pep talks can be given to help issues such as fear, anxiety or low confidence. Some animals need a “talk down” to bring them back to reality because they have a big ego.

 

A pep talk should be given a minimum of one time a day. If they have severe behavior then I would recommend doing this multiple times a day. It’s also good if you can have other people give pep talks. I use the analogy of a 15 year old girl in high school who thinks that she is fat and ugly. Her mother tells her she’s beautiful but she doesn’t listen to her mother because she’s “mom”. But if other people tell that girl how beautiful she is, then she just might listen to them. So if possible, try to have other people talk to them as well.

#5. Giving a job to redirect undesired behavior – as needed.

Animals love when we assign them a job to help us out. They always want to feel useful. Get creative and give them a job to help their behavior.

An example of this is when I talked to a client’s dog who is having aggression issues with her 5 year old daughter. They just rescued this dog from a shelter and nobody was acclimated with anybody. The dog bit the five year old girl and didn’t feel sorry about it. I asked her why she did it and she said that she knew she was dominant over her and didn’t feel that she had to bow down to her. I explained that it was wrong and she had to be nice and respect the little girl.

I told her that little kids are a lot of fun and she will never leave you bored. She will take you on many adventures and tire you out by the end of the day. But, that little girl doesn’t know all the ways of the world like the dog does so she needed the dog to be her sidekick. The dog needed to give her guidance and protection and really take her under her wing.

When I mentioned this to the dog, she was very excited and didn’t know that this was even a possibility. Soon after that, those two became best friends!

Keep them busy!

You can get real creative with your jobs and they do not have to be very complex. They can be something as simple as watch over me while I’m in the shower and if I fall down, start barking to get someone’s attention. Even that minor job is a big deal and an animal would take that very seriously.

I recommend mixing up the pep talks and the jobs after a while so that they don’t become stale. You don’t want your pets to tune you out because they are tired of hearing you say the same things over and over again.

A word about the subconscious mind…

Our pets have a subconscious mind just like humans do. Your subconscious mind is what controls all of our involuntary bodily functions such as breathing. It also acts similar to a Cloud Server because it’s stores all of our memories. It’s where our habits are formed and where our personalities are derived from.

The problem with the subconscious mind is it does not know what’s real and what’s fake. It doesn’t know what’s good and what’s bad. Anything that we experience, it thinks it’s real and true. That is why whenever we watch a scary movie, we know it’s fake but we still get scared!

The Power of Positive Thinking

Every single behavior problem for people or animals can be fixed if you can change the wiring of your subconscious mind. You do this by thinking positive thoughts of what you want to have happen. You never ever think of anything negative or worst case scenario. It is just happy, positive thinking. (This plays into my 5 tips!)

Have patience…

This will not happen overnight nor will it happen in a week. You have to think like this every single day for possibly a couple months. Of course, it depends on how much change needs to happen. If it’s just a slight problem it might only take a few weeks but if it’s a severe problem that could take many months. Everyone has a different timeline.

 

A great analogy somebody said about the subconscious mind is to think of your conscious mind as the gardener and your subconscious mind is the garden. How your garden fairs all depends on how well the gardener took care of it. Is the garden going to be full of weeds? Or will it be full of beautiful vegetables or flowers? It all depends on how it was taken care of!

Consistency is key!

So you can change whatever you want by changing your thinking. The power of positive thinking is real! You just have to commit to it and be consistent.