By Lisa Provence

People who communicate telepathically with animals-- sounds like a story for Echo or the late Pet Gazette.

Little did we suspect that the Charlottesville area is teeming with people who are chatting away with animals, at least according to advocate Pattie Boden. And because "anyone can learn to do this," says Boden, there will be even more folks yakking it up with their pets when Carol Gurney, who's nationally known in the world of animal communicators, comes to teach a seminar in Free Union in late February.

"It's not a crock," declares Boden. She says her horse saw two different vets and had four x-rays that couldn't turn up what was wrong. It took animal communicator Jan Spiers to discover swelling behind the knee, and that was enough to convince Boden to attend a workshop and try it herself.

Spiers lives in Gordonsville and has been a full-time communicator since 1995. She freely admits that her husband thought she was a "fruitcake" when she started doing it. Spiers had heard voices before when she was the only human in the house. As the former director of mental retardation at Region Ten, "I knew that hearing voices was not good," she says.

When she read about animal telepathy, Spiers was relieved to learn the source of those voices. In fact, she was so intrigued that she left her dream job with Region Ten to go into animal communications full-time. She now does consultations over the phone at $65 an hour or $45 a half hour, and "now it's as much or more as I can handle," she says.

And all of her clients come from word of mouth. The animal's owner describes its species, age, and, physical attributes over the phone to Spiers.

"I feel the essence of the animal through the description," explains Spiers. She'll ask the owner something specific to make sure it's the right animal-- for example, whether he has a cream-colored sofa with green pillows that the creature likes to lie on. In thousands of consultations, Spiers claims she's had only one client question whether she's contacted the right pet: "I don't think that's my horse," the woman responded.

And by the way, Spiers doesn't call the animals "pets." She prefers "companions"; and, like their human counterparts, once those animals start talking, they can be downright silly. One cat disappeared when her owner called her fat; it refused to return until the owner apologized, recalls Spiers. A horse that described himself as "the F. Scott Fitzgerald of the barn" told Spiers that he refused to do a jump at a major show because he felt the bright red and yellow flowers planted there were "tacky."

Spiers tells her clients she's not a vet and can't diagnose. She says she can tell them how the animal feels, and that information can be validated through medicine.

Veterinarian Al Smith has referred clients to Spiers. "This goes beyond normal medicine," he says. "Most people think it's a hoax. That's not what I've found," he admits, but he adds, "I can't explain it."

Smith says Spiers has picked out things she couldn't have known because she's not with the animal, and her talents are especially helpful in understanding behavioral problems. But he doesn't recommend her services to everyone. "I have to be careful with clients. Some think it's quackery."

Dr. Faye Witherell with Holistic Horse and Hound, who often refers clients to Spiers, is also cautious about her referrals. With some owners, "you can't even approach the subject," she says. "I run the real risk of losing a good client and getting talked about at cocktail parties as a kook. I want to make a living, too."

Some vets are not about to add mental telepathy to their diagnostic tools. When asked if he'd ever used an animal communicator, Dr. Richard Freedman at Albemarle Veterinary Hospital responds, "Have you ever had your palm read? Have you ever been to a seance?" Freedman's main concern is the liability involved in such a referral. And while he describes himself as open to acupuncture and other types of non-Western medicine, Freedman says he won't use animal communicators until "I have enough personal experience or communication with colleagues who have personal experience." He adds, "I don't see veterinary schools putting animal communicators on staff."

But despite such skepticism, Spiers isn't at all concerned that people may scoff at her abilities. "I'm not trying to convince anyone," she says. Neither is animal communicator Patty Summers, author of Talking with the Animals, who lives near Lynchburg and has many Charlottesville clients.

Summers is so successful that she has an office assistant to schedule 45-minute consultations that cost $75. "Often I'm called because people are at wit's end," she says. "What do you have to lose?"

Summers has been talking to the animals all her life. "I thought being able to converse with animals was normal but something you don't talk about," she says. Her consultations are performed over the phone, and she may use a photo of the animal. Both she and Spiers say seeing animals in the flesh can be distracting.

According to Summers, animals have a great sense of humor, and they're most profound when they talk about death. In fact, in her book Summers mentions communicating with the spirits of animals that have died.

So, do animals speak English or Spaniel or Cockatoo? Summers describes her communication with beasts as a combination of seeing, hearing, knowing, and feeling.

"Why do we think verbal language is the only way to communicate?" she asks. "Animals don't rely on that." Summers believes anyone can converse telepathically with creatures, and to aid those interested in tuning into the animal world, she, too, is offering a workshop in February.

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