DENVER — Josh McGirk was skeptical about animal communicators.

The south Denver resident loved his four-legged family members and was at his wits’ end after adopting a new cat, Amelie, who his two other cats were terrorizing.

He heard mixed reviews about people who claimed to be able to communicate with pets, but Amelie’s separation anxiety and the continued fights with Olivier and Sebastien eventually convinced McGirk to call Denver animal communicator Marianne McKiernan to schedule a Zoom call.

“I was astonished at her ability to not even be in our household and pick up so many cues from me, my husband and our three pets,” he said.

McKiernan gave the couple practical advice about setting up their home to reduce conflict and insight into their cats’ personalities.

So when McGirk and his husband adopted another pet a few years later – a white Siberian husky named Keesa who seemed intent on eating their beloved cats for dinner – they again called McKiernan.

“She gave us so much specific feedback about her personality, where to take her for training and how to teach her not to kill the cats and that they’re not food, they’re family,” he said. “It’s been as vital to us as having a vet.”

Once considered a fringe, “woo-woo” practice, a growing number of Coloradans are seeking animal communicators to improve their relationship with their pets or to find answers and closure with those that have died.

“There’s been a definite wave of people treating animals as if they are family, especially for those who don’t have children,” said Gillian Edwards, a Littleton-based animal communicator. “As the world gets crazy, people are turning to, ‘Where do I find love?’ And you do get unconditional love and compassion from animals. That’s where we get our sanity.”

‘It’s kind of wacky’

McKiernan is aware that her job is a little odd.

She tries to avoid the term pet psychic, which she said conjures up images of a lady in a loose, flowy outfit with lots of beaded necklaces, and when people share their skepticism, she readily agrees.

“I’ll say, ‘I agree it’s kind of wacky. I think it’s strange and I’m the one who can do it. I’m thrilled I can do it, but I agree,’” she said, laughing.

McKiernan started taking classes to learn how to communicate with animals 20 years ago and started doing it professionally in 2011. She now works with dozens of clients each month through her business, Telling Tails Animal Communication.

But talking to animals started much earlier in life – she remembers sitting under the dining room table as a child, talking to a mouse while her mom told her to come eat breakfast.

“We can all do it as kids, but everyone just attributes that to kids having a vivid imagination,” she said. “As you get older, you don’t want to be the weird person talking to animals, so you gradually stop listening.”

Edwards, who owns Four Paws Holistic Therapy, said talking to animals is a lot like talking to a person.

She starts each session with a photo of the animal and asks their human to think of what questions they want to ask.

“You break the ice a little bit, treat it like a relationship with an interactive back and forth,” Edwards said. “I’m just the translator in the middle.”

Edwards communicates with animals using all of her senses, so she may feel pain in a certain part of her body or smell something that the pet is trying to share.

Pet owners usually want to know about their pet’s health and behavior or, if they’ve died, how they’re doing on the other side of the “rainbow bridge,” Edwards said.

One pet owner contacted McKiernan after her dog died suddenly while she was out of town.

“The dog was saying, ‘I was trying to hold out but my body just gave out,'” McKiernan said. “He verified that they were in touch, they had a very strong heart connection and then he sent me a picture of a green tennis ball.”

Once McKiernan shared that image with the dog’s owner, the woman sighed in fond exasperation. Her pup was known for littering the house with green tennis balls, and McKiernan sensed there were plenty of green tennis balls in the afterlife, too.

Many of their interactions with pets seem random before Edwards and McKiernan share them with the owners.

One owner who met with McKiernan wanted her dog to know the family was moving to a house with a lot of land around it.

“(The dog) said, ‘Does that mean we’re getting a cow?’” McKiernan said. “And the owner was very serious and she said ‘Yep, we’re getting a cow. He’s got a thing for cows, and we don’t know why.’”

It’s those oddly specific moments that reassure animal communicators they’re on the right track, Edwards said.

“That’s what I say to skeptics. You may not know the answer right away, but the animals don’t lie,” she said. “Once you hit on that one thing, the skepticism just goes away.”

Pandemic brought increasing interest, accpetance

Both Edwards and McKiernan have noticed more interest and general acceptance of the idea of talking to animals.

They both attributed some of the increased interest to the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were forced to stay at home with their pets for extended periods.

“People spent more time with their animals and maybe they were paying attention in a different kind of way,” McKiernan said. “The dog was at their feet while they were doing Zoom calls at their computers and maybe they started feeling that connection more.”

Animal communicators have also gained traction on social media, with videos on TikTok and Instagram of people hearing from their pets, both dead and alive, racking up millions of views.

“These days, everybody is on board,” Edwards said. “They’re looking for help. Years ago, there was a lot of skepticism, they would test me or ask me a silly question they would know the answer to. But the last 10 years, people are seeking me out because they need help or they want closure.”

When McGirk gets raised eyebrows when sharing his experience with animal communicators, he often encourages people to just give it a try.

“I almost believe it’s better for someone to be a skeptic when they see an animal communicator because with that skepticism it’s more of a journey to either see oh, there is something to this or see right off the bat that it’s not for you,” he said.

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