Animals: Our Great Teachers
I’ve been lucky, all through my life, to share it with animals. Chickens, dogs, cats, canaries, goldfish, guinea pigs, rabbits and ponies a whole menagerie over the years, and I still carry every single one of them with me. It’s one of the saddest parts of loving an animal: we usually outlive them. And yet, even years after they’ve gone, I can still picture their quirks. The way they moved, the sounds they made, the funny little habits that made them exactly who they were. That doesn’t fade.
I think so many of us know this feeling the pleasure of feeding our animals well, giving them a good home, treats, cuddles, kisses. Walks, if you’ve got a dog. Rides, if you’re lucky enough to have a pony. Extending the garden so the rabbits have more room to run. All of that matters. But honestly, I think the most special time is the quiet time. When the work is done and you’re just hanging out together. Watching how they behave, how they interact with each other. Our cat, for instance, will demand absolute respect from any dog sharing her home and she gets it.
And then there’s the way animals show up for us when we’re low. When we’re lonely, or grieving, or just having a hard day, a beloved pet will come and sit with us. No words. Just those big eyes looking up, saying, in their own way: I’ve got you. I’m here.
Have you ever noticed how intuitive animals can be? A dog barking half an hour before anyone actually knocks on the door. A cat staring fixedly at a corner of the room where you can’t see a thing. You have to wonder — do they see more than we do? Do they sense someone, or something, approaching long before we ever could?
What I See on Stage
Working as a medium for as long as I have, I’ve noticed something else too how often animals act as the great go-betweens for spirit contact. I’ll be standing on stage, and suddenly a German Shepherd will appear right beside me. I’ll describe him his personality, his quirks, maybe he was a security dog, a police dog, an assistance dog, or just a much-loved family pet with an unshakeable obsession with squeaky balls. And standing right there with him, almost every time, is the person he belonged to. A mother, a brother, a father. Spirit recognises them instantly.
It’s almost as if the animal gets the medium’s attention more easily than the person does. Or maybe the animal comes through first quite deliberately to remind us all that our pets live on too. That they carry on, and they go on evolving spiritually, just as we do.
I’ve also heard it said, over many years, that when people talk about their guardian spirit or spirit guide, it isn’t always a person. Sometimes it’s a wild animal one they’ve never actually known in this life. People drawn to shamanic or traditional work will often speak of a lion, a tiger, a horse. It’s a fascinating thing to sit with the role animals play not just in our day-to-day lives, but in our spiritual lives too.
The Reunion to Come
If there’s one thing I feel certain of, it’s this: when each of us crosses over into that next phase of being, every animal we were ever kind to and especially every animal that loved us back will come find us. There will be a proper reunion. A joyful one. And I find myself wondering what they’ll have to share with us everything they’ve been up to in the space between our meetings.
Animals give us so much while they’re here: companionship, comfort, a mirror for our own kindness, and quiet reminders that there’s more going on around us than we can see. Maybe that’s the real lesson. They don’t teach us in words. They teach us simply by being who they are, and by loving us exactly as we are in return.
