It is possible that I have been communicating with animal friends since I was a child. However, I became conscious of this ability only after an attunement to the Reiki (ray-key) healing energy in 1993.

I had an uneventful childhood, living in the suburbs of central Ohio. I don't remember many details of childhood; I spent time entertaining myself, but was bored much of the time. I was not raised in or around psychics or animal communicators. In fact, I hadn't heard of this sort of thing. The closest I ever got to relating to animals was on my grandfathers farm. The only animal our family ever had was an outdoor cat belonging to my sister -- I was not close to Fluffy either.

I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Bowling Green State University in 1981 and in 1985 I became a Radiologic Technologist (R.T.).

One day in 1989, my wife suggested that it would be fun to visit some Great Dane puppies a doctor and his wife had just bred. This visit was merely something novel to do, because we had no interest in getting a dog. When we arrived, we found two puppies left; one ran out to us, the other hid under a kitchen chair. I was inexplicably drawn to the more timid puppy and we began to consider having him come live with us.

Baron would be the first dog for both my wife and I. Two weeks later we took Baron to have his ears cropped, which would give him that distinctive Great Dane look. I cried all the way to the Veterinarian's office. I hadn't cried in years and was shocked to be experiencing such deep feelings for this little guy so soon.

"One day you finally knew what you had to do."                                                                          - Mary Oliver
Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver   and friend in a quiet moment

I tried desperately to continue the pace of working, graduate school, a new marriage and a puppy but the demands overwhelmed me. Baron came into my life part way through my second year of MBA School. In those days, I was playing out the great American myth that material possession; status and income were signs of self-worth. Baron's first move was to demonstrate the error in my beliefs in a most simple manner. Every time I would lie on the floor to study or read, I had a 90-pound Great Dane sitting either on my books or on my head. As I look back on those times it is as if he were saying, "Wrong way, Dad." I quit MBA School a few months later, but it was years before I fully understood his very obvious message.

Now, with little more time on my hands, I began dog training classes with Baron. These became an enjoyable focus as I learned to think, in dog language, as quickly as he did. I began helping a trainer teach classes in 1991, and in 1992 I was consulting and training as a hobby and for my friends.

In 1993, I read a flier advertising a healing workshop to learn Reiki. Reiki utilizes the same Ki energy that I had learned to focus in the martial arts to subdue an attacker, but in this case it was focused to heal the body. The idea of Reiki intrigued me but I remained extremely skeptical of what I thought were esoteric and unfounded ideas.

I finished the Reiki class feeling as if I had been on some weird Oprah show. I was prepared to write it off to experience and let the experience fade away until the next evening. That evening I took the dogs for a walk in a long, open field and something happened that answered any skepticism. The sun was setting as we turned around to head back home. As I turned, I saw a bright pink cloud very low to the ground about 50 yards ahead of me. The dogs had trotted off about 50 feet ahead and were fully engaged in sniffing and exploring the grass and didn't seem to notice. I shook my head and opened and closed my eyes several times, thinking that what I was seeing was just something on the surface of my eye. When it didn't go away, I came to a halt wondering what to do next. The cloud moved towards the ground and began to come rapidly towards me. I felt curious but wasn't afraid at all; it was just a cloud, or so I thought. The cloud quickly formed into the shape of a human as it moved. It drew close with such speed that I had little time to think. Then it hit and moved into me; my body felt fuzzy and tingled. I was thinking, "Oh! What's happening?" Just then a distinct, clear voice from inside my head said, "Call your dogs." Somehow I knew to call them mentally without using my voice. "Baron, Jackson come 'ere," I thought to myself. Both raised their heads, turned to look at me and trotted right over as if I'd said it out loud! I was stunned. My mind raced. What had just happened? What was this pink thing? Why had it made all the hair on my body stand on end when it hit me? What, or who, was this voice inside my head? And, why did I call my dogs as this voice suggested? More than anything else, what made the dogs come to me? My mind raced to sort out these questions; my jaw hung open and both dogs stood in front of me staring. I felt baffled by what was happening and was completely speechless. For a few seconds the dogs and I were silent, then one of them said, "What?" I couldn't answer him, so I said, "I don't know. I don't know. I, uh… don't know." He let out a big disgusted snort, turned and both dogs walked away. Still stunned, I said to myself, "What am I going to do with this?"

The dogs and I eventually walked back to the van and, even though I don't remember doing so, I drove us home. It is difficult to describe all the thoughts and feelings that I experienced that evening. I couldn't tell anyone because they'd think I was crazy. My medical training had taught me that people who hear voices in their heads need psychiatric help, but it happened to me and I'm not crazy. For most of the evening I stared out the window as I replayed the experience over and over. This is the first occasion I can recall having a telepathic ability. I also remember thinking that evening that perhaps there was some substance to Reiki after all.

It took a few weeks for the shock of this experience to wear off. The reality of this event was that an animal and a human could talk to one another. Furthermore, I had experienced this ability. My natural curiosity took over as I began to explore whether I could make it happen again. I thought of questions I wanted to ask Baron or Jackson, then I wrote them on a piece of paper in blue ink. I sat meditating on one question until a thought came to me, I would write the reply in black ink before closing my eyes to meditate again. This process would continue for hours -- at times the words came quickly, other times nothing came. After practicing this way for a year, I found another person with this ability. She facilitated a 3-hour class in which we practiced connecting with our animal in a guided meditation. I discovered that I could communicate with other people's animals as well Baron and Jackson. I felt as if a door had just opened in my life and I was moving towards something wonderful.

Within a year, I became disillusioned with my management job and transferred to a staff position in the hospital. It seemed like a logical career move at the time, but life had something else in mind for me. A few months later while meditating I received a message to quit my job and go to Equine Massage school. I thought, "Equine Massage school? I don't know anything about horses or massage!" I can't explain exactly why, but I followed that inner wisdom and left the regular working world to become an Equine Massage Practitioner. In retrospect, all things turned out perfectly, but at the time, it felt like I was leaping off a cliff. I graduated in 1995 and began building a career working with horses and dogs. Over the next couple years, I took the remaining levels of Reiki classes and became a Reiki teacher. I found myself now self-employed, helping animals through massage, energy healing and telepathic communication as well as helping people by utilizing energy healing, yoga, psychic reading and teaching spiritual development classes. Baron helped me to navigate through this difficult life transition simply by staying close and by being kind.

Since 1995 I have continued to study, practice, and teach various healing arts, applying them to both animals and humans. My greatest love, however, is to help animals feel heard and understood by their people. Baron's gift to me was to look beyond my superficial personality into my soul, to accept me and to love. Once seen by this loving compassionate being, my soul reawakened. In 1996, Baron's contribution to my life became clear to me and I committed myself to helping animals understand their people, and people understand their animals. It was only through deep reflection that I could appreciate Baron's determination to lead me toward contentment and a deeper experience of life. He is my mentor now, my great teacher. It is in his honor that I chose to help my animal and human friends toward their greater contentment and joy of living.