Welcome to the Soul Touched by Dogs Podcast, the show for dog lovers who
see dogs not as toys or tools, but wise souls worth our respect and care.
I'm an Herrmann, and I'm your host.
I talk to poor some humans, people who do great work for dogs and their people.
So come and join us for today's conversation.
Anke: Hello and welcome, Colleen.
I'm super excited to have you here.
Colleen: Hi Anke.
Yes, I'm, yeah, I'm also pleased to be here.
Thank you very much for having me.
Wonderful.
Anke: So before we dive into our favorite topic, um, why don't you
give people the bird's eye overview?
You know, like, where are you based?
What's, what's the day job if you have one?
Business, you know, what do you do with and for
Colleen: dogs?
So, uh, my name's Colleen, but you know that already.
Um, I live here in the Southwest France, um, but I'm originally South African.
Um, so I've, I've traveled quite a bit and lived in quite a few
countries before I've settled here.
Um, I don't have a day job.
My animal communication business.
Is my job, um, only since last year, um, I guess we'll come onto that in a bit,
but I am able to talk to animals, uh, which is, which is a fantastic privilege
and, uh, blows me away every day.
Every day.
I
Anke: bet.
I'm curious.
Well, I mean, I'm curious about a lot of things in that space.
Um, so the first piece I would love you to unpack a little bit is, is how
did you, how did you notice or how did you recognize that this is something
That you were able to do and that it's something worth leaning into.
And it's kind of riding on the back of like, is this learnable?
Colleen: It absolutely is learnable.
Um, so yes, I, I always say that I would love to tell people that I
spoke to animals, you know, when I was a little girl, but it didn't,
it didn't happen that way for me.
It was about four years ago.
Um, I was doing a Reiki, if you're familiar with Reiki, I was doing a Reiki
distance session with a cat in America.
And I was kind of deep in the zone and all of a sudden this really
crystal clear image of some tall bay windows and curtains and a, and
a, and a, you know, a seat by the window, a cushion popped into my head.
Um, it gave me such a fright that I remember thinking, oh gosh, maybe I
was dropping off to sleep, you know, and I was a bit embarrassed and I
thought, oh gosh, you know, put yourself together, Colin, pull yourself together.
And I don't know what prompted me, but when I was reporting back to the Cat's
Guardian afterwards, I just mentioned casually, oh, the weirdest thing happened
while I was mid session, and I described the scene, and she said to me, oh my
god, Colleen, that's our lounge window.
And I went, what?
She said, that's our lounge window.
So I tried to act as nonchalant as possible, like,
oh, okay, well, no problem.
And I got off the call thinking, How on earth did that happen?
What, you know, and I remember going to Google and typing in, you
know, can animals talk to people, thinking I'd lost the plot completely.
And of course, this whole thing came up on interspecies communication,
and it absolutely is a thing.
And I remember just throwing myself into websites and books and newsletters, just
gathering as much information as I could.
And I eventually did a A course which gave me some framework,
um, and, and that was it.
But it is absolutely a learnable skill, much like learning the
piano is a learnable skill.
Some people, everybody can learn to play the piano, just some
people find it easier than others.
Hmm, that's,
Anke: that's fascinating.
So, so do people perceive the messages in different ways, like visual versus
sound, or like how, you know, how do I know if I'm perceiving something,
how will I know that this is coming
Colleen: from the animal?
Everybody seems to have a primary way of receiving the information,
and animals also have a primary way of submitting that information.
So sometimes animals, for me, Most of the time for me personally,
I get images and moving images.
So I kind of see things, I see the animal doing something in my head.
Much like if I said to you, can you imagine a chair on a sunny beach?
You know, you could picture that in your head.
It's, it's a bit like that.
You see something in your mind's eye.
And I know some people are more about smells and sensations.
Some people are more about emotions, um, but I think for me, it's primarily
images, but I have had tastes and smells.
Um, that was a rookie mistake.
I asked an animal what their food tasted like.
I don't know what I was thinking.
I guess I've forgotten.
I guess I forgot that these things come through in various ways,
and I just remember thinking, Oh, Colleen, never do that again!
I
Anke: don't care what you ate, I don't want to know!
Colleen: But yes, so, you know, people, you know, you might receive images,
um, I, you know, someone else might receive emotions, so it just depends.
But you can build them, you can also practice and improve them,
so that they're all sort of on an equal footing, if you like.
Anke: It kind of, to me, it's, it's sort of, I don't know, like my mind goes
towards like, okay, is this like learning to notice and trust your intuition?
Colleen: Yes, absolutely, absolutely.
And I, and I've learned so many times you need to trust the absolute
first thing that pops into your head.
Because the problem with us having analytical minds, and it's happened to me
in a communication session with animals, I'll get something, and instead of going,
right, that's it, write it down, I'll go, oh no, it can't be that, because
that doesn't make any sense, because it's a dog, and why would a dog do that?
You know, and then you're analytic.
So now I just, I just jot it down.
And sometimes, you know, you jot something down and you think that makes no sense,
but I'm just going to go with my gut and then you feed it back to the person and
they go, Oh my God, how did you know that?
And I go, you know, so you've got to just trust that the animal's giving
you that information and that's.
That's how it is.
And so,
Anke: so how, you see, I'm totally fascinated by this, and
so how, how detailed or like what kind of stuff will you receive?
Will they, you know, what is it that, so you have a session that means like
you kind of go and you tune into.
into that animal?
And then what kind of stuff are they telling you?
Are you asking things, are they telling you kind of telling you something?
And, and yeah, so how detailed is that?
It's,
Colleen: it's kind of a combination of, of three things.
So what I tend to do is I tend to first connect with the animal.
And I say it's kind of like sitting with someone and getting a feel for their,
for their energy, much like we have a chat, you know, before the podcast stuff.
But then you get a kind of a sense of What the other person's like.
So I sit with the animal and that's when I get a feel for their
personality and their character.
So I normally put that first for people and at least that gives people the idea,
wow, okay, actually you have connected to my animal because I'm able to
describe their, their personality traits.
And then I encourage people to give me questions because it's, it's best
with a framework because otherwise an animal might spend an hour talking
to me about what happened to them with their previous owner, which is
going to have nothing to do with the lady that they're with at the moment.
So I tend to ask the questions that way and I always end off
with a question to the animal.
Is there anything you want to tell us?
Because, obviously, I've bombarded them with questions.
They might have something that they're burning to say, like, please, can
you stop giving me that dog food?
It's horrible.
Or something like it.
And the questions range from really everyday things, you know,
how do you like to give love?
How do you like to receive love?
Why do you bark at the postman?
You know, those kind of, like, everyday things.
But they can also be quite deep.
So I work with a lot of animals that are about to transition, and we discuss
when they feel ready, what signs they'll give when they're ready to
go, if they want help transitioning.
Um, so they can be quite, they can be quite deep.
Um, and then with animals and spirits, because I can also talk to
animals and spirit, that's quite, sometimes those messages are quite.
sort of profound because they're kind of giving messages about why they
came into people's lives and you know what they taught people or what they
felt they learned from people and things like that so it's it's kind
of a big combination of everything.
Anke: So what is it that people come to you for?
Like, you know, so there's people, okay, if the dog's kind of sick,
you'll go to a vet and if there's some behavioral issue, go to a trainer,
you know, like what does some, what do people in general or, you know, is
there a pattern or, you know, what's typical, what's a typical thing, what
are the typical things that people come
Colleen: to you for?
I would love to do an analysis.
Actually, I thought of doing one for the end of the year for my business
over the year to see what, you know, what types of things came up the most.
Um, but I haven't done that yet, alas, but the type of things, you know,
generally people just want to know their animals on a deeper level, because when
you know your animal on a deeper level, you're able to relate to it better.
You know what it wants, what makes it happy, etc., etc.
Um,
I think it's important for people to feel that it's a bit like going
into a relationship, isn't it?
If you don't understand that other person, it's difficult to have that
relationship and learn to love each other when you don't know each other
on that, on that sort of deep level.
So, yeah, I forgot where I was going with that.
I
Anke: might have to have you back.
Yeah.
I think the other thing I'm sort of curious about, like
in your own journey, right?
So you had this kind of situation, like in the Reiki session.
And so how was that for you to start trusting, like, and also like, how
do you know that what first popped to mind that that really came from
the animal, like how, you know, obviously if there's an owner who
says, Oh my God, this is our living room window, like then you have that.
you know, immediate confirmation, which obviously would be like a confidence
boost where you're like, oh, okay, so this, I'm not making this up, right?
So there is actually something there.
Yeah.
Did you, was there anything else other than like positive feedback from people
who go, oh my God, yeah, that makes, it doesn't make sense to you, but it
makes sense to me where you go, where you then over time learn to trust
those things, or was there something
Colleen: else at play?
No, it was really learning to trust and, you know, It was so hard.
I cannot even say.
I did loads of case studies.
I bombarded friends and family for months on end.
Anyone who had an animal before I went professional because I was just like,
you know, I can't, I can't charge money for this if I have any doubt that I'm
not actually speaking to the animal.
And time and time again, Because you're able to, you know, because you, I'm able
to describe the animal's personality for starters, which, which didn't
help with friends and family, because obviously I know the animals, right?
But when a complete stranger comes to me and I go, Oh, you know, your animal's
really cheeky and he likes to, I don't know, nip your ankles at night when you're
trying to watch TV or something like it.
And you know, sometimes it can be quite specific.
Um, and then it's just learning because quite a few times.
And in fact, it happened to me just this weekend when I asked an animal something
and I got something in my head, but again, I was like, no, that that's too obvious.
That's no, no, that's too obvious.
That's something I'm making up.
And I didn't, and I didn't say it.
And, but what I do now is when I give the information to the people, I say.
This is what I got, but I dismissed it because I felt it was too obvious,
so at least that way then, if it is something that resonates with them, and
in this case it was, thank goodness.
Um, but I think it's just It's, it's experience and knowing that time and time
again, being brave enough to go, oof, okay, I've got a picture of a big, large
globe of golden light around the animal.
I have no idea what that means, but let's just put it in the document
and see what it, what it is.
And then the owner says, oh my gosh, every night when I go to
bed, I ask for a golden sphere of protection around me and my animals.
And I was just like, oh my God.
And it's just, it's just learning to trust.
It is, it is hard.
And every time I send off a document, if I'm just doing an email reading
for someone and I send off the document, you just like, send.
Trust, trust you're on your path.
Trust you're on your path.
Yeah.
So
Anke: people then like, they can basically book a session with you.
I mean, it can be remotely obviously, but you know, like
they don't need to be there.
So it's not like I have to kind of, you point my webcam to my
dog, so I can send you a photo.
Colleen: That's right.
Yeah.
Some people do work sort of live.
Um, but I've said that doesn't, for me, that's not always a reliable
use of, of both of our time, because sometimes animals take a long time
and I could be sitting there for 10, 15 minutes waiting for response.
And of course, if you sitting there twiddling your fingers, you know,
so yes, I work early by photo, but that's also great because it means.
You know, it could work with people all over the world.
I just need a recent photo.
Otherwise, I find I can read kind of old energy, if you know what I mean.
So it needs to be a recent photo.
And I just, I use that as the basis.
And then, you know, I, I, I sort of, I have all the questions.
I have the picture of the animal up on the screen, all the questions,
and I literally ask, I sort of direct the questions to the animal, and
then I just type whatever I get back.
You know, the animals show me, I don't know what they're doing now,
they're running in some long grass or something, and there's something
yellow that they're chasing, or I don't know, you know, whatever.
And then I type up the document and I send that, and then people have the option,
either they can just have the document, Or we can have a video conference where
we go through the document together, which is more fun because they get
to ask questions like, that's right.
Yeah.
Did they also show you that?
And, you know, so, uh, yeah, that's great.
Anke: Amazing.
It's, it's, I find it fascinating because at the end of the day, like
it does make sense, like even for.
you know, even for like an engineer's mind, you know, on an energetic
level, it makes perfect sense.
Like it's not, it's not kind of hard to trace, to sort of follow, even
though we can't always trace back every individual message, you know, in
that, but that, that we can predict.
With them energetically, like there's no doubt about that, right?
Absolutely.
So it's not hard to, hard to lean into.
Yeah.
So where can people go and, you know, book a session, find out
more about you, connect with you?
Colleen: Well, it's very exciting.
Just on the 1st of December.
I know.
I launched my new website.
So it's www.
ColleenKersey.
com.
Um, I did have a business name beforehand and then I've, I've done like a recent,
a whole kind of rebrand and nice new shiny website, nice new shiny logo,
but all the information is there.
There's different types of sessions that people can book
depending on what they want.
So general or transition or rainbow bridge or even bespoke.
So I can do kind of vet visits and international moves and, you know.
People bringing babies home and kind of talking to animals
to prepare them for that.
Um, and you get discounts if you book more than one session.
Because that's a good thing.
If you have multiple dogs.
I
Anke: mean, that's actually, that's another thing.
Like, I think I need to have you back because like, there's
so much more to talk about.
Would somebody usually have one session or do people come and say, I
have one every month for the same dog because I have different questions
or what's, what's typical there?
Colleen: There's, there's a few people who, who come regularly.
Um, there's one lady who has quite a few rescue dogs.
So she, she has regular sessions so we can see how the dogs are adjusting to their
life and, you know, life around them.
Mostly also when people have elderly dogs, when they're starting to notice
that The dogs are kind of really struggling, then we have regular sessions
just to check in and make sure that the animal's comfortable and it has
everything it needs before the inevitable.
So it really depends on the the circumstances.
And also if there's, if there's somebody like, I have had a couple
of cases where they've brought like a new dog in, you know, then they'll
check in with the original dog.
How do you feel about this new dog coming in?
And then we'll check with the new dog and how things going.
So yeah, it just depends on the household.
Yeah.
Anke: I love that.
So we, yeah, the website, I can highly recommend it because I
saw your post the other day.
Check it out.
And it is wonderful.
So, and I, you know, if you're listening, it's going to be in the show notes.
If you're watching, it's going to be right below this video or above.
I don't know.
I can't remember, but it's going to be right next to this video.
So you won't have fun.
You won't have a hard time.
You don't have to go, you know, very far energetically to connect with me.
So so much.
This was awesome.
And, um.
Yeah, I hope a lot of people check you out and get in touch because the
more we can understand our animals, like the better we are as people and
the better we can have, the better the life that we can have with them.
Colleen: Yes, I agree.
I agree.
Thank you very much for that.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for listening.
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Email me at Anke.
That's A N k E at Soul touched by dogs.com.