My friend, Carly, called me asking for help with her Jack Russell terrier.  As she described her dog’s actions, I could ‘feel’ a rush of heat course up the back of my neck. What an odd sensation. Within a few seconds I ‘knew’ that there was something  wrong with this little dog.   What I was feeling was significant pain. According to Carly, her dog would scream at odd times and without apparent reason. In my years communicating with animals, I have discovered that rarely do animals show emotion, especially a scream, without exhibiting a clue leading up to it. We  just have to ramp up our observation skills and tune into their signals of distress. After a few more minutes of conversation with Carly, she shared that she had observed her tail wags and could distinguish between a happy wag and a disturbed wag. And furthermore, she could even recall when ‘just prior to a scream’ her dog’s tail wouldn’t wag but shiver. Ah ha! Good job, Carly. Your skills are tuning to a ninth degree of accuracy. With that word of support, Carly can now ‘take her evidence’ to the veterinarian to help diagnose the problem. Our dogs, cats, horses and more are always finding ways to communicate with us. It’s just that their method to do so is obviously – different from ours. The language barrier doesn’t have to be if we will just take the time to tune in and watch for the communication signs. Isn’t it neat? We really do have skills to communicate with our dogs, cats, horses and more. All we have to do is use them.