Throwback Thursday: Interviewing a cat psychic
I actually used our cat Sadie (RIP) to help report this story
***EDITOR’S NOTE: Throwback Thursday features previously published articles that were particular favorites of mine, either due to subject matter or just because I liked how they turned out. I recognize this is a bit self-indulgent. Sue me.***
First published in The Dispatch/Rock Island Argus, Sept. 19, 2004 under the headline “Chatting with animals now her pet project”
Be careful what you’re thinking. Your cat may be listening.
Ever notice your pet is often nowhere to be found when you need to take it to the vet or give it a bath?
Linda Thomas, a self-proclaimed animal communicator from Moline, says it’s no coincidence.
“Our animals read our minds all the time,” she said. “They see our thoughts and know what we’re thinking.”
And a gifted few humans who have taken the time to learn can talk back to them, said Thomas, who shelved a teaching career to pursue animal communicating full-time.
Thomas said the non-verbal language of animals is a language of the senses and emotions. All species on earth share the language, but shortly after learning to speak and read, most humans lose it.
Still, she claims to chat with cats, discuss with dogs and gab with guinea pigs.
A sweet-natured, middle-aged animal lover, Thomas lays these facts on you as assuredly as she once taught the periodic table to her students at Riverdale High School in Port Byron.
“I was worried the parents wouldn’t trust the science teacher who said she could talk to animals to teach their children,” she laughed. “But after a while, they would come with their animals after school. And when they found out I really could do this, it wasn’t a big deal any more.”
Pulling up to Thomas’ shaded ranch home in Moline, my cat Sadie mewing in her car carrier, I remained a skeptic.
Thomas coaxed Sadie out, using a gentle voice, and gathered her into her lap. She says she doesn’t have to touch an animal or even be in the same place with it to speak with it. She does most of her business over the phone. All she needs is the name of the animal and where it lives.
“It’s kind of early in the morning to have your air conditioning on, isn’t it?” Thomas asked me.
“True, it was only 65 degrees or so, but I had left the AC cranked in my car from the prior day. I had no idea how she knew I had it on, considering she was in the house when I pulled in and parked.
“Sadie doesn’t like it blowing on her, or the noise it makes,” Thomas told me.
Thomas also surmised I had a couple of kids, ostensibly from seeing their image in Sadie’s mind.
“There’s a lot of activity in your house,” she said, accurately. “She doesn’t seem to be fond of grabby little fingers but she likes the children and loves to sit back and watch them.”
This is true.
Sadie stares at my 2-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter often, and loves to curl up with them when they sleep.
But hey, that’s not unusual cat behavior. And the two kids thing could have been a lucky guess.
When I really started getting a bit freaked out was when Thomas said Sadie lived with a sibling that looked like her but “she doesn’t think so. She think she’s very unique.”
Sadie’s sibling, Portia, does indeed live with us, and other than the white stipe down his nose, is a spitting image of his sister.
Thomas also said Sadie was upset because she couldn’t see out the French doors in our kitchen. When I came home and told my wife about that part of the interview, she was shocked.
“Oh my God,” she said. “This morning she was trying to push the sheers on the door aside so she could see outside.”
I wasn’t convinced enough to shell out the $35 per half-hour Thomas charges for a full conversation with my pets and the subsequent translation, but my skepticism abated a bit.
“I’m just a translator, I’m not psychic in the least,” Thomas said. “I can just translate what animals are saying. It’s like your memory; like how you can remember what your kitchen looks like even when you’re not at home looking at it. That’s how it comes to me from the animals.
Dr. Holly Bordner, a veterinarian at the East Moline Animal Clinic, said she has an open mind about people’s ability to communicate with animals.
“I think people can really be tuned in to their pets,” she said. “They know their body language and demeanor.”
But she isn’t convinced two-way conversations between homo sapiens and other animal species are common.
“I definitely don’t think it works too well to bark or meow at them,” Bordner said. “I think they communicate mostly through body language. Any dog owner will tell you that one bark is angry, one that’s excited and so on. But I don’t think they undetstand if you try to do it back at them.”