I met animal communicator Jackie Weaver a few years ago at one of my holistic fairs. I’d read about a lady who talked to the animals, but never met a real ‘Doctor Dolittle’ in the flesh. Whilst the fair was getting under way we sat down together and she demonstrated her gift by having a long distance chat with Percy, my English Springer Spaniel, who was back at home. He'd been playing us up since I'd met Steve, who was new to him at the time, so I asked if she could help.

Jackie has now written a book about her many animal encounters and is looking for a publisher. Here's what she's written about my dog:

"Percy is a complete livewire, as you would expect from a Springer and although enjoying life with Lauren and her children, when her new boyfriend came on the scene things started to change. Steve, the boyfriend, had tried every which way to get on Percy’s good side but still the dog was showing aggressive behaviour towards him.

We established that this was mainly in the house, and even more so if he tried to go upstairs. This was a complete “no go” area, confirmed by the picture of a long velvet stair curtain drawing Percy’s defence line. On asking Percy’s point of view and why he was being like this, he explained that Steve kept going away and one day he might not come back. He was worried that it would upset Lauren, just like it had during the break up of her last relationship, which he had been witness to.

It became apparent that Steve came from quite far away and was splitting his time between Lauren and his mother, so this was factually true but Percy saw this as “non-commitment”. I explained to Percy that this showed how caring Steve was, because as much as he liked Lauren, he still wanted to spend time helping his elderly mother. I reassured him it was nothing for him to worry about, and that if their relationship doesn’t work out, there is nothing he can do about it. The responsibility does not lie with him, so stop worrying about something that may never happen.

That night Lauren and Steve went home, and I am sure had a good chat about the fact that animals do have a voice like us humans, and it’s just a shame that only certain people can hear it. They arrived for the second day of the fair, and were excited to tell me how very affectionate Percy had been towards them both! Also they could see how much more relaxed he had become.

However the chat with him was not all doom and gloom, far from it. Although the above was a serious issue, he did chat away to us with a certain exuberance, very much like Lauren would have expected. Me too, I have yet to find a quiet Springer, I love chatting to them, they are so outgoing.

One thing that he did was to keep giving me the repeated picture of a garden shed door. As I can only say what I see, and as strange as this was, I said questioningly “Why does he keep showing me a shed door?” The reply was immediate, “Ah, Guinea Pig T.V.!!!” It turned out, that Percy spent many an hour just sitting tuned into his favourite motion picture, courtesy of their furry pets housed in the garden shed!

A few months later Lauren phoned me again, she had picked him up from kennels and taken him for a walk. On returning home she noticed a large wound, but had no idea how he had got it. Having checked the car over, she then immediately phoned the kennel owners who were equally mystified. They had gone and checked his kennel, and said there was no blood, so Lauren could only presume it must have happened elsewhere. She gave me a very limited outline, which is totally the way I prefer it, so I set out to try and unravel this mysterious injury; as to where and how he got it.

Percy straight away showed the gash on the inside of his right hind leg but fortunately did not seem to be upset by it in the slightest. He then took me over his journey. This was into the forestry, parking the car, jumping down from it with total ease and no hesitation, haring round at breakneck speed as usual. Then suddenly I saw it, he had gone onto a short sharp broken wooden stake that had caught him under his right hind leg, and “opened it like an envelope”. As bad as it looked, he said there was not a lot of bleeding and it wasn’t that sore. Sure enough, he couldn’t have felt much, as he had jumped back into the car without a problem - mystery solved."

I'm glad to say that Percy has completely recovered from his injury and it was a relief to find out what had happened. Percy has accepted Steve as one of the family since that chat and we have a truly loveable old hound again.

I'm pleased to say that some of my students have also been helped by Jackie's abilities and had great insight into their pets. She can work long distance from a photograph, so you don't have to live in Wales to consult her.