The Cat Who Spoke Twice: Animal Communication in Cornwall

If there’s one thing I love during an animal communication, it’s when something happens that independently confirms what the animal is telling me. Sometimes it’s their human smiling in recognition because what I share fits their pet’s personality perfectly. Other times it’s something very specific, like an animal doing something in the physical world that mirrors the words I’m translating on their behalf.

I almost always work remotely, on Zoom or a phone call with an animals’ human. When I have Zoom calls I joke that there’s going to be nothing much to see, because I tend to keep my eyes closed so that I can really focus on receiving from the animal. That means that even if the animal is in the same room as their human, I’m not usually aware of their body language. I get such a kick out of the little affirmation moments when human bursts into laughter because, just as I’m feeding back what their animal feels, the animal demonstrates it physically in real time!

This summer, I had a rare in person communication with a cat who I’d never met or worked with before, whilst I was visiting Cornwall. She was so physically expressive that she deserves her own story!

Simba’s Story

Simba is one of those cats with a backstory full of twists. She had been missing from her original home for years before finally turning up at a vet’s practice, miles away. Nobody knows what she got up to in the meantime, but thanks to her microchip her owners were found and contacted, but their circumstances had changed in that time. A plea went out for a new home, and that’s how she came to live with my friends in Cornwall. I had promised at some point to do a communication for them, assuming it would be at a distance as usual. Instead, a summer visit provided the perfect opportunity to sit with Simba in person.

… It also meant that her human could watch her antics while I translated what she was saying - with my eyes closed, as usual! It turns out that Simba’s words and body language are equally as expressive as each other!

Claws, and Clear Opinions

Simba’s first concern was the disruption in her new home. The house had been decorated for a baby’s first birthday party, and she wanted to know why everything looked so unusual. I found myself trying to describe other times when the house would be decorated, to help her to mentally prepare. Have you ever tried to explain the concept of Christmas to a cat? “Yes, we bring a tree indoors… yes, we hang shiny things everywhere, and strangers will appear at random intervals… and they will all disappear again after a few weeks! Oh, and in October we hang fake spider webs everywhere. And we get floaty inflatable bags of air out for the little humans once a year. And no, none of these things are put there for you to play with!”

As I spoke, Simba walked around the room, giving each decorated surface a thorough sniff or stare. It was as if she wanted to check the evidence for herself.

Later, her human remembered she wanted to ask permission to clip Simba’s claws. Only my friend didn’t put it into a full question — she just exclaimed “Oh, claws!” As I was mid-communication, the mention of claws but not the question behind it shot straight through me to Simba, who replied, rather dryly, “Well, yes, I have claws… so what about it?” At that exact moment, she stretched out a paw and extended every claw for emphasis. It was such a sweet, funny moment, and a perfect example of an animal underscoring their intention with their body language!

From the owner’s viewpoint

Her human summed it up beautifully afterwards:

“Throughout the session Kathryn had her eyes closed and was not looking at Simba or aware of her movements around the room. I was watching them both closely and it was so very clear that the correlation between the words Kathryn was speaking and Simba’s physical actions were perfectly aligned.”

Even the more sceptical part of her human couldn’t ignore it. The body language and the communication flowed together seamlessly.

(You can read her owner’s full testimonial here).

If you’d like to discover what your own animal has to say — and maybe even watch their body language confirm it in real time, you can book a communication session with me here.