As we waited for the lady to calm down, her husband told me the tale. They had taken the dogs to the seaside because they loved running into the water, but Pinkie had started to drift out to sea with Perky following her sister. “My wife was screaming for help but there was no-one about because it was a cold, windy day and the sea was choppy.” He started to cry too. “They just drifted out of sight. We have come here today hoping you could find out if they died, and where they are now.” 

The dogs were around my ankles now so that was definite, yes, they had died and were now furry spirits. Both dogs were looking up at me and telepathically passing on the message that they had drowned and had been picked up together by a fisherman, who was still looking after their bodies in his shed while he tried to find the owners. 

I told the couple this and also described the dogs’ pink collars decorated with little pigs; I was also shown their food bowls, one with ‘Pinkie’ inscribed and the other ‘Perky’ but with the name spelled wrongly. The lady gasped, “Unbelievable!” and put her hand over her mouth. Then an unmistakable smell drifted up around us all and she said, “That’s our Pinkie all right, she was always farting like that.” It was a struggle for me not to laugh. 

I was also able to tell them where the fisherman lived and a couple of weeks later the lady ’phoned me to say, “You were right. We’ve brought them back home and have decided to get them stuffed.” This might seem bizarre, but they were their special ‘babies’ so who are we to judge? 

It’s easy to understand that many people become very attached to their pets, but sometimes the relationship can be taken perhaps a little too far… A young couple came to see me and the lady said, “We have lost our baby girl and we want to know if she’s okay.” I felt I should use my Angel cards in this case since Spirit usually then comes forward straightaway, but I had mixed feelings about this couple who didn’t seem as terribly upset about the loss of a child as I’d expect. 

I asked the child’s name and the lady said, “Sheba.” Hmm, I suppose there are plenty of unusual names nowadays. What happened next took my breath away as the most beautiful golden Labrador appeared beside me. I was confused now but kept quiet and carried on until the man asked, “Who looks after animals in Heaven?” Ah, their ‘baby girl’ was this much-loved dog. 

I told them about the Rainbow Bridge and how animals are assessed and then looked after in different places according to how they’d been treated on Earth. When I told them about the golden Labrador at our feet the lady put her hands to her mouth and said, “That’s our baby girl, Sheba.” 

We began the reading with the Archangel Azrael card: ‘Your loved ones in Heaven are doing fine. Let go of worries and feel their love around you.’ I also had a message that Sheba was passing on to me for her ‘Mummy and Daddy’. 

‘You both seem to have lost yourselves in grief,’ she said. ‘Your mood is dim, your auras are dark.’ 

“What do dogs know about auras?” The lady seemed a bit sceptical now.

“Your girl is being helped on the Other Side. In fact, she is with your brother, Colin.” 

“No,” she said, “my brother isn’t there, he was frightened of dogs.” So Colin now chipped in himself. 

‘I saw our Mum crying when she went shopping and told that woman she was buying those things for our Colin.’ 

The lady across the table just stared at me and said that this was exactly what had happened two weeks ago. But she still wasn’t convinced – did she think I was in the queue in that shop behind her Mum? – and insisted I should describe her brother. Taking a couple of discreet deep breaths, I asked my guide Black Feather for a bit of extra help. I was shown a youth of about fourteen years-old in a wheelchair as he had spina bifida; he was clutching an Action Man figure. I was then given the date he passed over and relayed all this information to them. 

The second card was Angel Yvonne: ‘You have a special bond with animals. Your pets on Earth and in Heaven are watched over by the angels and all the animals you have loved continue to be with you, like guardian angels.’ Sheba then showed me the lower half of her body where there was a large swelling on her left leg and the couple confirmed that, yes, it had been a tumour that spread. 

“What are Guardian Angels?”

“How did you know Colin’s name?” 

“How do you communicate with animals?” 

This was turning into an interrogation, so I just told them that I connect with animals the same as I connect with humans and that I have a wolf and an owl as my animal spirit guides. The looked at me as though I was crackers, then thankfully said, “There is so much to understand. We will have to come again, this is amazing.” Sheba then stepped in again with more evidence, showing me a scene of this couple both kissing her head as her soul left her body; she said it brought her great comfort that they had made the decision not to keep her in pain but let her go.

The next card brought the message, ‘Have faith and hope, there is something new on the horizon that you cannot see yet.’ I thought about this for a moment and then Sheba herself showed me a vision of this couple looking at chocolate-coloured puppies. The man confirmed that she’d had four such puppies a few months before, and I continued, “One of those puppies is coming back to you.” The lady was still finding it hard to take all this in and shook her head. 

“No way, we vetted all the people who took the pups. And not only that, we’ve kept in touch with them and all the dogs are happy.” 

Undeterred, I carried on with the reading and drew the Archangel Raphael card. This archangel is the healer in the angelic hierarchy so I said, “I feel this card has come out because you both need healing since Sheba passed over.” Sheba herself showed me a lump behind her ear and the man confirmed it; they had only noticed it when she was put to sleep. 

Colin wanted to get back into the conversation now. ‘I wasn’t scared of Sheba,’ he objected. ‘I taught her to fetch her ball. She was so gentle as she picked it up and chucked it onto my lap.’ 

“No, that’s not right,” I was told, “we never saw that.” 

I was getting a bit fed up with their negativity and the reading had already taken twice as long as the normal one hour, so I just said, “I would check with your Mum, then, because she looked after Colin and Sheba while you both worked. And please check out the puppies’ owners.” 

The following day the man rang to say, “Guess what—” of course, I knew what was coming “—you were right. Dad did teach Sheba to fetch her ball to Colin. And an email was waiting for us saying that the owners of one of the puppies are emigrating so would we like their pup back…”