Interview with Animal Communicator Sonya Fitzpatrick

by Becca Gladden
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I first became aware of Sonya Fitzpatrick while driving in my car, when I happened upon her radio show, Animal Intuition, which airs on Sirius-XM Sunday from 5-7 p.m. ET. It’s fascinating to listen as Sonya helps callers understand their pets. But just as compelling is her unwavering kindness and empathy, which is heartfelt and totally genuine.

Sonya had a hit television series for two seasons on Animal Planet and is the author of three books: The Pet Psychic: What the Animals Tell Me, and Cat Talk: The Secrets of Communicating with Your Cat, along with her latest book, There Are No Sad Dogs in Heaven, just published this month. Her clients have included celebrities such as Tori Spelling, Ellen DeGeneres, and Paula Abdul, as well as thousands of everyday callers who seek her help on the radio or through private readings.

There Are No Sad Dogs In Heaven is available on Amazon.com, and, as one reviewer writes: “This is a book for anyone who has lost any of one’s own dear hearts – animal or otherwise. This is a book for anyone who is grieving; this is a book for anyone who knows anyone who has suffered a loss. This book helps fill the hole in your heart.”

Q. On your website, you’re described as an Animal Communicator. Can you tell me exactly what that is?

A. It’s talking to animals. I talk to them and communicate with them. Their language is a little different than ours, although we are doing this all the time without realizing it, because we have the faculty of speech. They speak in images. If I said to you, “Can you tell me about the Statue of Liberty?” you get an image of it, rather than a picture with your physical eye, don’t you?

Q. Yes.

A. Those are the pictures I get from animals. They talk in those images – picture images – and domestic animals also learn our language, like cats and dogs that live with us, or any other animals, rabbits or whatever it is. They get to learn our language, so not only do I get their feelings, emotions and senses, I also hear them at times when they chat to each other, because they do communicate with each other, and also when they talk about other things.

Q. I understand that this is something you were able to do at a very young age.

A. Yes. I was born with a hearing loss, so I could always hear the animals. I didn’t speak verbally until I was about four or five. They thought I was deaf and dumb, but I wasn’t. The animals were much nicer to talk to than people (laughs).

Q. Tell me the story about having to turn this gift off for a long time and step away from it, and then how you got back into it.

A. I had three geese and I raised them from eggs. I watched them peck their way out of the eggs and my father said to me, “These are your geese.” I loved the geese and they used to come with me everywhere. When I was little, they would follow me no matter where I was. They’d wait for me outside of school and they would walk home with me, and people would say, “How do those geese know what time she’s coming out?” Well, of course, telepathic communication – they would know because they were picking up my pictures and I was feeling happy because I finished school. I never did well in school because I was dyslexic, too, and that helped – I believe – with the communication.

I came home one day and [my parents] said, “We’ve got goose for dinner,” and there was one of my geese on the platter to eat. I was devastated. It broke my heart. I ran to see where my other geese where and I found them in the barn hanging with blood dripping from their beaks. The pain was horrendous and I can still cry, even today, years later; it overwhelms me. I decided that I was never going to speak to animals in that special way again. I was going to speak to them like I speak to people and how people spoke to animals, and that’s when it stopped.

Then, many years later, I came to America. I left my dog Bella for six months in England and then I was going to bring my dog over here and my cat, Wellington. Then Bella went for Wellington and she had never done that before. She was a huge Ridgeback and she went for Wellington and snapped at him. That was so unusual and she’d never done it before.

I was talking to a friend of mine and she said, “Sonya, I know of an animal communicator and she’s brilliant. She’ll sort out why Bella went for the cat.” So, I spoke to the animal communicator on the telephone and when I came off the phone, my girlfriend said to me – because she knew I was psychic – “You know you can do this, don’t you?” I said, “Yes, I do know I can do this.” Then she said, “Will you sort my cats out for me, Sonya? Let’s try. You haven’t done it for a very long time.” She said, “I’m having trouble with my cats. They keep waking me up in the night playing with the blinds. Can you ask them not to do it?” So I said, “Well, yes, I’ll see why they do it to start with,” because there’s always a reason why they do that. Of course, it was for attention, because she gave them a lot of attention during the day, but at nighttime when she was sleeping, they missed it. So at about three o’clock, regular as clockwork, they’d start playing on the blinds, making them rattle, banging them around to wake her up. I asked them not to do this and I explained to them that she needed to sleep and that when she got up in the morning, she would give them even more attention. And they stopped it.

Then, by word of mouth, everybody was wanting me to talk to their animals! There was an art dealer who heard about me in New York and she said, “Will you come to Fire Island? I’m going to invite people.” So I came to New York and went to Fire Island and everybody was bringing their pets on the boat – you know, you have to catch those ferries to go over – there were snakes and dogs and cats and a monkey. One of the top literary agents in New York was on the boat and she said, “What are all these animals doing here?” And they said, “Oh, there’s a lady who talks to them. She can hear them and she sorts problems out with them.” On Monday she called me and said, “I want a book out of you.” Then the book came out. That’s when I started talking to animals again.

Q. It’s obviously what you were meant to be doing.

A. Yes, darling, I know it.

Q. Tell me about the new book that just came out, There Are No Sad Dogs In Heaven.

A. I wrote that because that is a big part of my business and it’s the hardest part for people to let go of their animals, when their animals have gone on to the spiritual realm. Lots of people don’t know where they’ve gone or what’s happened to them. That’s the reason, to give people comfort. One of the stories in the book is about a Chinese lady who said, “Is my cat being fed?” and I explained to her that when we go out of the physical body – it’s just a vehicle that we travel in – and when we leave it, we go on home to the spiritual realm and we’re just energy, so we don’t need food. She wanted to know if she’d eventually be with her cat and I said, “Yes, of course,” and that gave her great comfort.

Another lady asked me the same question and people will come through, too, because it’s the only opportunity they get to speak to their loved ones. This lady came through and I felt in my throat, “Oh, God, this is what caused her death,” and it was cancer. I said to the lady, “There’s a relative here that was very close to you before she passed and she had cancer of the throat, and she’s holding your cat.” She said, “My God, that’s my sister,” and that gave her such comfort. I said, “Your sister’s mentioning something about a bike and that you fell off of it,” and she said, “She pushed me off it.” That verifies what I’m saying. It validates it. By the time people come off the phone with me and they’re devastated about their animals, they’re in a much better state of mind because they know their animals are with relatives on the other side.

The animals always give me definite things about what happened with their human companions when they were in their physical body and, most times, they’ll tell me what they died with. I don’t only use my mind energy, I use my body energy. One lady had spent $6,000 trying to find out what was wrong with her dog and I said, “Oh my God, he needs a chiropractor, the back’s out.” She took it to the chiropractor and then the dog was running around, and he hadn’t come out of his crate for months. I’m able to feel in my body where they hurt. I’m not able to diagnose, because I’m not a vet, but I’m able to tell people where it hurts.

Q. You’ve been successful on television, on radio, and you’re a best-selling author. What’s next on the horizon for you?

A. We’re still looking at TV shows and I’m working with Oprah’s ex-producer now, so we’re hoping to get a new TV show.

Q. Being an Animal Communicator is a very unusual career and it’s not one that a lot of people are able to do. If you were going to give career advice to someone who is pursuing something unconventional, what would your advice be for them?

A. My career advice to them would be to always believe in yourself. No matter what people say to you, to perhaps discourage you, just keep going, because you know – your higher self knows – this is what you really want to do. Don’t give up on yourself.