Pea Horsley - Heart to Heart

By tuning back into our own intuition, into our senses, we can open the doorway to inter-species communication. John Wheeler, the physicist, once said, ‘Everything must be based on a simple idea. Once we have finally discovered it, it will be so compelling, so beautiful, that we will say to one another, “Yes, how could it have been any different?”’ That’s how it is with animal communication – it’s a simple idea that is so compelling, so beautiful, that once discovered you’ll wonder how life could have been like anything other than this.

We’re not humanizing animals by listening to their thoughts, we’re enabling them to have a voice in a world where they struggle to be heard. We communicate with animals to understand them and to bring them comfort. As we do this, we continue to respect all species and their own laws of nature. This is essential to animals’ health and well-being.

Communication with animals is a deep, tender, intuitive and heartfelt method which can bring joy and end suffering. It can be a step towards a world where animals are seen as equals and treated with respect.

This is my gentle introduction to the subject of animal communication, told with the help of the animals with whom I shared my journey. It is my hope that you, too, will step out on this path and find that life is as surprising and exciting as it was when you were younger.

Empower yourself by venturing beyond the boundary of your own current experience, of what you have always believed to be true in your life, and prepare to join everyone who has contributed to placing this book in your hands on a wondrous journey of seeing animals in all their glory.

SITTING BOLT upright on my uncomfortable plastic chair, arms folded over my chest, legs crossed and no doubt a scowl on my face, I was wondering what on Earth was happening here. I didn’t believe a word of it. A rather dubious-looking man in casual jeans and a sweater was trying to tell me we could talk to animals!

At the time I was working as company stage manager at the Comedy Theatre in London’s West End on a play called The Old Masters directed by Harold Pinter. Working for 15 years in the theatre, sourcing props, calculating wages, organizing schedules, running dress rehearsals, looking after the company and making sure everything went smoothly, especially on press night, I considered myself a practical and sensible person, not airy-fairy like. Yet here I was sitting listening to Doctor Doolittle -type stories.

So how did I get here? Let me take you back to where it all started and I’ll explain. In the very beginning my journey began with cats.

All my life I have been a huge cat fanatic. As a young child I grew up with a cat called Pixie, a no-nonsense minute dynamo. Her beautiful swirls of caramel, coffee and chocolate fooled the unwary to believing she was gooey and soft, but in reality she was more Joanna Lumley in spurs. Her original owners, our neighbours, often left her alone whilst they went on holiday without arranging for her meals and care, and Pixie checked out my family while they were away and decided to adopt us. I remember my parents and the neighbours having a bit of a heated argument about it until finally my dad said, ‘Pixie should be allowed to make up her own mind where she wants to live.’ And she did. She immediately packed her bags and moved in with us. Not long after, her old family moved away. They didn’t even come by to say goodbye to her.

Pixie’s favourite sunbathing spot became the bed my mum made out of an old veggie box and some soft towels, positioned on the top shelf in the greenhouse. Years later, just before we buried her in our garden, my mum cut off a small piece of her fur, which I sellotaped into my ‘Favourite Things’ notebook, along with one of her whiskers. I was upset, but not distraught. Through her independent spirit and her fierce protection of her personal space, Pixie helped me to learn these qualities, and also, I feel, subconsciously, she taught me that we all have the right to be cared for and loved.

Then Winston, my second cat, entered my teenage life and promptly took it over. The first night he arrived home he draped his large butterscotch body over my lap and we fell madly and deeply in love. I was about 13 at the time and he was my first boyfriend. He was adopted from a rescue centre in Warwickshire, but he didn’t carry the marks of a mistreated cat, he was a laid-back kinda guy who gave off an air of Italian Romeo entwined with Mafia boss. I saw him a bit like a lion who was very comfortable in his own skin.

The hardest part about leaving home to attend Bristol Old Vic Theatre School was leaving Winston behind. He always knew when I was upset and would find me to offer affection and just be with me during my sadness. He’d also meet me from school, having an uncanny ability to know when to sit and wait for me at the top of the road. We developed a friendship where he was my comforter, my rock, and we grew so close, we had an unspoken understanding of one another, like an inner knowing.

As often as I could, I went home especially to see him and I thought about him all the time. When he began to lose weight and became sick, those trips back home were heartbreaking, for I never knew whether I would see him again. Then one day I received a call and my parents told me it was time to put him to sleep. Once I’d put the phone down I cried out loud in agonizing pain. It felt as if my stomach was being ripped out. When Winston passed over I was utterly heartbroken and it took a long time for the pain to subside. I was 29 before I was in a position to welcome a new cat into my life.

I never thought for a minute another cat would be able to touch my heart like Winston, but at that time I hadn’t met Texas. He captured my heart the moment he bolted out of his wired-fronted cage at London’s Battersea Dogs’ and Cats’ Home and rubbed his tiny six-month body slam-dunk against my legs. He was a miniature tiger with mellow gold, ginger and cream stripes, a soft pink nose, yellow-green eyes and gleaming ivory-white whiskers. He was stunning, really friendly and the sexiest cat I’d ever met – it was a done deal.

I now feel these cats were grooming me, teaching me and preparing me all my life for the moment when I would consciously realize humans and animals could communicate with one another using an intuitive language. But, to my surprise, it took a dog to make me understand inter-species communication was possible and that I could learn to talk to animals.

It all began for me when I adopted my first dog from the Mayhew Animal Home: an eight-year old scruffy mutt of questionable beagle heritage whom I named Morgan.

Morgan looks like an older version of one of the best-known trademarks in the world, ‘His Master’s Voice’ – a terrier with a cocked head listening intently to his master’s voice coming from a gramophone horn. He has a broken coat of both rough and smooth grungy white hair with velvet soft beagle chestnut ears that invite you to stroke them and a smooth chestnut facemask streaked with a terrier flash up between his eyes. His almond-shaped eyes with heavy black eyeliner, black playdough nose and thick black lips give him an almost clown-like appearance. Underneath his tummy hair he has Parson Russell terrier brown splodges and he has a thick mane of hair over his shoulders.