Animal Communicator

On a “normal day” she’ll find well over a hundred emails waiting for her attention when she boots up her computer after breakfast.

Requests for all kinds of help and advice: animals with behavioural problems, animals that have gone missing, animals that won’t eat, animals that one way or other are trying to tell their owners something… but what?

It’s Olga’s job to find out – more often than not, long-distance.

“People tend to think telepathy is a form of communication that works like Skype!” Olga smiles. “But that’s not the case at all - it is a way of communicating in a universal language open to all species”.

In fact, the word literally means “feeling across distance”, from the Greek “tele” plus “patheia” – not, as we’ve come to accept, some sort of paranormal power.

The day we arrived at her rural home outside Figueira, one of Olga’s emails of the day came from a couple who were splitting up, and needed to know which animals wanted to go with which partner.

How on earth is this possible?

Well, apparently, with the right information and questions, Olga can usually make a decision “pretty quickly”. Anything that needs further clarification can usually be fixed over Skype (the real thing this time: not telepathy) – and bills are paid via PayPal!

Bizarre? Well thousands think not. In America alone there are hundreds of animal communicators at work – and in the directory compiled by the doyen of animal communication Penelope Smith there are upwards of 150 over the various states – while Europe boasts a much more modest number: three in England, four in Germany, one exclusive to Spain and Portugal (that’s Olga), three in Switzerland, one in South Africa, one in Australia and one in China.

So how did Olga get into this line of work?

“I’d worked as a human therapist, a naturopath, for 20 years,” she explains. “But I love animals, and have always felt much closer to them than humans”.

A depression some years back led to her turning her attention from the two-legged species to those with four legs. Her German Shepherd, Tama, who spent hours on end with her in her Barcelona apartment as she battled with her demons, opened up communication one day when he’d finally had enough of taking his owner’s pain – and decided he needed help himself.

“He came and put himself in front of me, and started telling me what he wanted. At first I thought I must have gone mad! But little by little, I realised this was an ability that I’d always had. It wasn’t extraordinary at all. It was perfectly natural.

“Tama really saved me from a very black hole. I started working with animals shortly afterwards. I continued treating humans, but worked with my friends’ animals for free.”

And, bit by bit, one friend here, another there, encouraged her to give workshops and courses. Then, one day, she decided to create a blog

“That was the turning point. I am not normally a creative person, but suddenly I was consumed with ideas. I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat. I designed the blogsite and then everything started moving very quickly”.

Courses followed in Madrid, Seville, Barcelona. “At last I felt that I was moving in the right direction!”

These days, she has over 6.000 followers on Facebook.

The “wonderful thing” about working with animals, Olga explains, is that they respond to treatment “much more quickly” than humans because they aren’t hampered by rationale.

And the wonderful thing about her courses was that she realised that every pupil, “by the last hours of the course, was managing to communicate with their animal”.

“It was fantastic! Teaching people how to remember – and then seeing them in direct communication with their animals!”

Here in Portugal, Olga has already given a course in Montegordo, and has another planned for January.

We met her working pro-bono at the donkey sanctuary in Raposeira. There, animal protector Nana van der Velden had two donkeys with unusual problems. One that could barely walk, and another “suffering from depression”.

“She had seen her mother being killed and was absolutely heartbroken”, Nana explains. “I have never seen an animal cry before, but this tiny little donkey had water literally cascading from her eyes – and you could feel the waves of sadness coming off her”.

“She told me that all she could hear in her head was her mother’s dying screams”, Olga told after her first session with the little donkey.

A mixture of flower essences and healing touch communication, and days later the animal truly appeared to be a little happier.

“She’s still sad” said Olga, “but it’s no longer a depression”.

The donkey with hoof problems is another story. Slowly, with a mixture of therapies and communication, Olga is working on boosting the creature’s self-confidence and muscle tone, while encouraging her to walk.

The day after her first session, the donkey hobbled stoically up to the feeding barn. It was a journey she hadn’t made before – usually waiting to be fed in her own private “beach area” that Nana had made to be soothing for her hooves.

She makes the journey every day now. Still slowly – but she’s kilometres away from the euthanasia recommended a while ago by a visiting veterinarian.

Of course, there will always be those with “rational explanations” for success stories – but as Olga points out “communication with animals has positive repercussions on our health, as well as theirs. It also contributes to building greater harmony between the different species that make up the wonderful panorama of life on our planet”.

And who would want to argue with that?