Summer brings Monsoon in the Sonoran Desert, when a shift in wind direction from dry westerly to moist southerly winds brings a season punctuated by big winds, lightning and thunder storms and flash floods. The last two summers have been excruciating dry, a drought exacerbated by very little rain last winter. We hoped for a good rainy season this summer.

The first big rain of the monsoon brought a surprise to my door.

I was called upon to meet with a dog that I helped in the past. This time I found his behavior so unusual. He seemed to be in another dimension and was very ungrounded. How do you ground someone who is so taken over by another realm?

Kathy Runnion started Planned Feralhood in 2002 to manage the burgeoning feral cat population in the area. I helped Kathy by communicating with the cats in her sanctuary as needed.

Recently, she called me to help with Zoe, a cat with a large squamous cell carcinoma in her mouth endangering her swallowing and breathing.

What do you do when you suspect abuse or the animal tells you he's being abused? I know many of us would want to rescue the animal but we can't do that always and it could make things worse for the animal.

As a bodywork practitioner, observer, and absolute lover of animals, I have had a resistance to Animal Communication popularity simply because I have so many clients who are paying huge amounts of money for someone to "talk" to their animals when the animal is practically jumping up and down screaming at their person to just notice what they are trying to “say."

I was revamping the garden of my Sonoran desert tortoise, Mo, shifting blocks in the retaining wall and putting in a few large planter boxes. Mo was trundling around, munching on grass and exploring, when he suddenly made a beeline to one of the large planters I had on its side as I was cleaning it.

When I post an article or video on Facebook about an animal helping to rescue or heal others of its own kind or other species, including human, I have seen comments that seem to propose that humans are malign creatures and animals are saints.

Some animal communicators have had the experience in long-distance consultations when clients test them by asking them to communicate with an animal but hide the fact that the animal has died.

Readers have asked: Why doesn’t an animal communicator know if an animal who is not present is alive or dead?

Helping people with their animal friends as an animal communicator can be demanding work. To do it well requires a great deal of sensitivity, calm, centered presence, compassion, clear and deep communication, dedication to our own spiritual/emotional growth, strength, and courage.

Animals can be masters of being quiet while fully surveying and feeling their environment with heightened awareness. They can be aware of currents of energy and events far beyond their immediate surroundings and survey events happening around the world through their own species or interspecies connections.