Fuzzy communication

Sunday, January 30, 2005
By DEAN BAKER, Columbian staff writer

LA CENTER - Carole Devereux says she found out by accident 14 years ago that she could communicate directly with her 5-year-old horse, Buddy.

    Not just that she could talk to Buddy, the first horse she ever owned. Not just that she simply sensed Buddy's moods and needs.

    No, Buddy doesn't talk like Mr. Ed not at all she says. No, she doesn't sing animal songs like Dr. Doolittle, either.

    Instead, she found that Buddy could send messages back to her telepathically. When she meditates and focuses her thoughts on an individual animal, messages from the animal come into her mind in the form of pictures or metaphors, she says.

    "I didn't go seeking this skill, and I didn't know I had it," says Devereux, 53, one of a growing crowd of professional "animal communicators" doing business across the United States. "It just came to me."

    Devereux says she discovered her communication skill in 1991 when she was working at a horse barn in the hills west of Portland, trying to train Buddy for dressage. The steps were too fussy for him, and he wouldn't obey her.

    "He had a fault, what they call a trick knee, and his knee would drop out from under him and then he'd quickly recover."

    But she'd always feel like he was going to fall. Buddy also seemed sulky and unhappy.

    She didn't know what to do until, in a Portland bookstore, she stumbled across a book, "Animal Talk," by modern American animal communicator Penelope Smith. She phoned Smith in California, and Smith referred her to her protege, Jeri Ryan.

    "Jeri Ryan told me things about my horse that she couldn't have known," says Devereux. Ryan did it over the telephone, by meditating and then connecting with Buddy by telepathy.

    "It's just like a radio," Devereux says. "She goes into meditation, which is where you are just quiet. And at that point she could receive telepathic information from anything she tuned herself to. Animal communication is just like broadcasting."

    She found out Buddy had an injured left hind leg, which hurt him. The horse told Ryan he wanted it fixed. And the horse also wanted the English- and Western-style riders at the stable to get along better with each other; it was too tense in the barn, the horse said.

    There was a lot of fighting among horse owners and horses at the barn.

    And one day, Buddy was kicked so hard by another horse that he couldn't walk.

    Devereux rescued him, got him veterinary attention and took him home to live with her. Their relationship improved, especially after she asked him what else he wanted.

    He wanted a female companion. So she got him Ellie, an ex-racehorse, a mare who is now 12 and lives with them, along with a third horse, Dutch, who is 36 years old.

    Devereux was so impressed by Ryan's advice that she signed up for one class and then another, and learned to do animal communication herself.

    Spreading the word

    Devereux has made believers of her doubting Clark County neighbors, including Lori Harris, Pat Brown and Georgia Huston.

    She also says she has enlisted clients around the United States. She helps them find their lost pets or diagnose their ailments, and she has taught hundreds of people about animal communication in workshops around the country.

    For her usual fee, $75 a hour, Devereux came a few weeks ago to Huston's house near Duluth, west of Battle Ground. Huston says she was a "total skeptic" with her "tongue in her cheek" when she first saw Devereux working with a neighbor's horses. But she became intrigued enough to bring Devereux to work with her 13-year-old mixed-breed dog, Jake, and her 34-year-old Welch pony, Nikki.

    After spending a few minutes petting the dog and talking to him, Devereux quickly knew that Jake had cancer, a fact that was later confirmed by a veterinarian. She also concluded that Nikki was worried because she is going blind.

    "You go into this with total skepticism and then you go 'maybe there is something to it,' and she sucks you in because the information she gives you isn't something she should have, and there's no way she should have known my dog had cancer. It was incredible," says Huston, 61, an animal rescuer who keeps 37 goats and lots of cats as well as her dog and two horses.

    "I don't believe in people from outer space," says Huston. "I don't believe in green people. I have no way to evaluate Carole's gift. I just know she has something special."

    Harris, 48, of La Center, had a similar experience. Her 9-year-old buckskin quarterhorse, Lacy, was getting snippy and Harris didn't know what to do. She called in Devereux, who, after a few minutes told her that the horse missed Harris' son, Brandon, who had left to serve in the Navy.

    Devereux quickly learned that Harris' son, Brandon, had stealthily fed treats to Lacy, even though Brandon had claimed he disliked horses. Harris hadn't known about the treats, but Brandon later admitted it was true.

    Lacy had become threatening toward Harris' husband, Charles, after Brandon went away to the Navy. After consulting with Lacy, Devereux revealed that the problem was Lacy missed Brandon and also a trainer she had liked working with. The trainer had become ill and couldn't work with her any more. Once all was explained to the horse, Harris said, the horse became loving.

    "There were things she knew about our horses that she absolutely shouldn't have known," says Harris.

    Brown, 57, of Venersborg, east of Battle Ground, found her horses, Homer, 22, and Star, 12, were acting disagreeable, and she called in Devereux.

    After she spent a few minutes with the horses, she reported that Star liked it when her husband, Richard, 48, sang to her or fed her Cheerios. Homer said he liked it when they had other horses visiting as they had for a while. Pat Brown, the horses' main caregiver, hadn't known about the songs and treats.

    When the horses had been listened to, Brown says they seemed to settle down. "I was very pleased with the communication that was made... It was an experience that changed my feeling toward my horses. To me they are not so much like little kids any more, but now like adult beings. I respect their feelings and it's a very nice experience."

    Vet pays attention

    As animal communicators have become more common, some have begun to work with veterinarians. One prominent Clark County vet allowed there is value in the work of animal communicators, despite lack of scientific proof.

    "I think there probably are people who are more intuitive than others. Just like human psychics," says Meg Brinton, a veterinarian who runs Ridgefield Equine Clinic. She admitted she is open-minded and gleaned insights from an animal communicator who once rode along with her as she took care of horses around the county. The communicator would remark on horses that were "apprehensive" or showing other emotions. That was helpful, Brinton says.

    Still, Brinton cautions, "If people are paying for that, they need to have their eyes wide open." But, she says, "Who am I to say it is not possible?"

    Respecting animals

    Devereux says benefits accrue to the health of the world when humans and animals communicate.

    "It's like ecological conservation," Devereux says. "Animals are like the miner's canaries in the coal mine. We're trying to be conscientious about taking care of them, our environment and ourselves."

    Devereux also has put her skill to work politically.

    After claiming her horse Buddy told her some of her neighbors' horses were being left out in the rain and underfed, she complained publicly to Clark County commissioners and began to work with animal control officers to improve laws to fight animal abuse.

    Linda Moorhead, Clark County's animal control manager, says Devereux's complaints spurred the animal control advisory committee to work on upgrading the county's animal abuse laws. The laws aren't clear now on how much food, water and shelter is required for an animal, Moorhead says, and the committee plans to work with Devereux to improve the language so animals can receive better care.

    An ancient skill

    Devereux considers herself a leader in her field.

    "There are hundreds of people doing this," she says. "I'm a pioneer. I'm second-generation to Penelope Smith. And it's not new. It's an ancient ability that all people used to have. You can learn this because you are hard-wired to do this, from primitive times."

    She says early people followed animals around and communicated with them to survive, and the humans who were best at this skill are the ones who survived, passing on the gene to modern humans.

    She says she's simply heir to this ancient skill and is trying to share it.

    She lives with her husband of 14 years, Portland attorney Gregory Hunts, in a log house on 10 acres in the hills above La Center.

    She has three dogs, the three horses and a flock of geese. She teaches workshops and talks with clients on the telephone. She expects soon to publish a book on her experiences with Buddy, which led to her work as an animal communicator.

    Listening to animals is a job that was meant for her, she says. So she's just doing it as best she can.

    Dean Baker writes about rural issues, including the 35,000 horses in Clark County. Reach him at 360-759-8009, or e-mail dean.baker@columbian.com.

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