Pets are Talking » Wild Animals

A Rare Conversation with a Rarer Turtle

Bridget Pilloud — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:49:20 +0000

This gorgeous creature is the last-known Female Yangtze Soft Shell Turtle.

She’s eighty years old. I hope I look that good at eighty.

She lives in a zoo in China, where officials have pinned their hopes on her successful mating with her 100 year old gentleman friend.

Turtles do talk very slowly. Still Waters Run Deep.

Last week, I asked her how she was. She showed me that her front left hand hurt.

I asked about mating and she told me that she’d really like it if everybody would back off and not put so much pressure on her. “People need to relax,” she said.

Then, I asked her the question I really wanted to know. How did it feel to be the last female of her species?

She said, “That’s ridiculous. I’m not the last female of my species. I know there are more out there.” She showed me a secluded spot and three or four beautiful soft shells sunning themselves, and swimming in the water.

I said, “You’re sure they’re out there somewhere?”

She said, “Yes, and I’m not saying where. They’re hidden.”

It feels good to know that there are hidden places, untouched by humanity, where turtles can swim in peace.

Spontaneous Animal Communication

Bridget Pilloud — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:23:30 +0000

I recently received this email from Cathy Elaine, a massage therapist in Houston:

Bridget-

Here’s something interesting I wanted to share with you:

I have only experience one real conversation with an animal. It was a squirrel.

I was observing the squirrel, and I mentally told it how cool it was that it would humble itself to become a rodent.

It replied to me, “This isn’t humbling. That’s just your judgment.”

It was quite a lesson for me, and caused me to rethink my views on the animal kingdom.

Even though I don’t think communicating with animals is what I am here to do, it was a blessing to me, newly opening to my intuition, to find such communication was possible.

My experience with squirrels is pretty similar. They never think of themselves as small, and certainly never inferior to us nut-hoarding humans!

Have you had the experience of hearing an animal? Just for a second? Odds are, you did! I hope you’ll share that with me and the folks who read this blog…

Elk’s Blessing

Bridget Pilloud — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 07:04:04 +0000

When I was in kindergarten, our class took a field trip to the second saddest zoo in town. A smattering of animals on cement floors surrounded by cyclone fencing. Two timber wolves continuously paced their small enclosure, circling and circling, then stopping and staring north.

I didn’t notice the wolves until I was much older. In kindergarten, I liked to go to the zoo to see the bears. Usually they were sleeping, but sometimes they woke up and batted a ball around their cage. They were little black bears. I never knew where they came from.

In a small fenced field next to a primeval forest, there was a group of elk and deer. They usually stayed over on the other side, away from the parking lot. They lounged. Of the animals there, they seemed the most content.

On this autumn day, we watched the deer. We tried to get them to come to us, holding out our little empty hands. The deer ignored us. The deer always ignored us.

Then, an elk turned and looked at me. He climbed to his feet with a groan, and walked over. My friends backed away, and I froze as this huge bull loomed over me. He leaned his head down, and breathed on my head, “Chuff, Chuff Chuff.” His breath was warm and wet.

I felt safe with this elk. I stood there and he stood there, together. After a respectable time, he turned and walked back to his herd, and I watched until a teacher took my hand and walked me to the picnic shelter.

I don’t claim to know why this elk bull chose to do this. I only know at that moment, this old boy leaned down to breathe on a little girl. Blessings come when we don’t expect them, from places unknown for reasons we can only guess.

When people ask how I got my start in animal communication, I think it was here.