Have you ever wondered what the bear in the famous “Funny bear walking like human” video say? To answer some questions from curious readers about my animal communication skill, here’s a short conversation that the bear and I had. Whether it’s an imaginary or a real conversation, only the bear and I know 🙂
Me: Isn’t it hard to balance yourself and walk on hind legs?
Bear: No, I’m comfortable doing it. It’s not difficult at all.
M: Why do you walk like that?
B: I feel more comfortable walking like this. It’s not wrong to walk like this, is it?
M: What do you mean ‘more comfortable’? Isn’t it easier for you to walk on four legs?
B: Look at my legs, they are very short! What can I see by standing on those short legs? I need better vision of my surrounding.
M: But you know what your enclosure look like. Why do you still need better vision?
B: So I know when food is approaching.
M: Don’t you get enough food already?
B: It’s never enough.
M: Then what can make you feel better?
B: Water. It’s very hot recently.
M: I mean what kind of food can make you feel better or less hungry?
B: Banana.
Do you have questions you want to ask the bear? Leave a comment below or contact us. I’ll convey your questions to the bear and publish the answers in the next few days.
This is another common question that people ask regarding animal communication experience. One of my clients was surprised when I found out from his dog that he had stopped sending his dog for spine massage therapy. He looked at me in shocked and asked “How do you know? What did my dog say?” and I replied “She didn’t say anything but when I asked what could make her feel better, she shared this massage experience with me.” He had no clue about what I told him at that time and I had to explain in length to him about the animal communication techniques.
So to make people understand and to avoid similar confusion, I’d like to share my experience here. When I ‘talk’ to animals, do I hold conversation as when I talk to human? Do we exchange words in English? What do I experience?
Depends on the questions I ask, the animals will share their answers in different ways. They may share images, tastes, smells, physical and emotional feelings, and sounds. This experience may differ from person to person. Because I’m a visual person and good at visualizing, most information comes to me as images or videos. An animal communicator who is an empath will get different experience and information may come to them as physical and emotional feelings. On the contrary to popular belief, information as messages and long conversations are not common for me. There are a few possible factors for this and one of them could be the result of animals’ inability to speak human language.
Here are some examples the questions I ask and the common form of answers that I receive:
How do you feel? → physical or emotional feelings (happy, worried, painful knee, numb in right elbow, etc)
Where are you now? → images of what the animal probably see at the moment (near a lake, in front of big building, in a small alley next to a restaurant, etc)
What do you want me to tell your masters? → messages (“I feel uncomfortable right now but I’ll be fine in a few days”, “They shouldn’t worry about me, I’ll be okay when they are out of town”, “I love everyone in the family especially the young brother but sorry I’m getting old and my time almost come”, etc)
What can make you feel better? → physical feelings (feel of something warm on my back, feel of someone stroking my head) or taste (something tastes sweet and sour, something soft with mild meat smell) or images (a picture of certain fruit, a picture of soft cushion) or smell (lavender aroma, mint aroma).
Do the examples give you more understanding about communicating with animals? If you have experience communicating with animals or other sentient beings, either similar or different experience, please let us know and leave a comment below 🙂
In the video above you can watch a very funny Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) walking on his hind legs, just like how human walks. Everyone finds this very amusing, even me! I laughed when I first saw him walking like that and still smile whenever I see him walk like that in his big open enclosure.
Many volunteers and staff asked me why he walks like that. At first I could not answer their questions but after further observation here is my educated guess:
This bear was rescued from bear bile farm where he was kept in tiny cages and fed very little amount of food, only to keep him alive so they could extract his bile liquid. With this living condition it’s not surprising that he’s malnourished, which is shown by how short his legs are and the body size is disproportionately small for his head size. He is much smaller than an adult Asiatic black bear of his age should be. Click here to see how it’s like to live in bear bile farms.
Before his current place was turned into a rescue center, it functioned as a zoo where visitors could feed him and other bears by throwing food from outside the fence. With his smaller and malnourished body, it is easier for him to stand on his hind leg because his spine can support his light body weight. Standing up and waiting for food slowly became a habit which he does on a daily basis now. Click here to read what conversation I had with this bear regarding his condition now.
It was human who took him from the wild.
It was human who put him in bear bile farm and tortured him.
It was human who saved him from the farm.
It was human who fed him and ‘taught’ him to stand like that.
It is human greed which destroys our beautiful environment.
One of the greatest challenge being a holistic veterinarian is facing skeptics. I know some people think of woo woo stuff when they hear holistic, but for me holistic simply means psychological and holistic approach means minimizing psychological stress during treatment. Psychological mental state cannot be measured but can be felt, while physical state can be measured with lab test but usually cannot be felt (blood test, urinalysis, MRI, etc). While most physical symptoms can be healed almost instantly and the result can be reflected in lab result not long after that, treating psychological or behavioral issue may take longer. Same as in human, physical pain heals faster and easier but psychological pain may takes years to heal.
In human, once the client feels the effect of holistic medicine they can tell their friends and family about the experience, but in animals, they cannot speak to share what they experience. When an animal feels sick or when they feel better, nobody can tell except their observant owners. Often, the owners run out of patience because they do not see progress after several therapy sessions. This is normal, and I’m going to discuss this matter further using an example of psychological treatment which can be seen in the video by ASPCA below.
Coconut was a puppy mill dog and was abused for a long time. She was aggressive and did not let anyone touch her. A 6 week intensive daily therapy can finally change her behavior. Kristen Collins, the animal behaviorist in the video stated that Coconut is very smart and six week treatment was considered “extremely quick recovery” according to her. Now here comes the math: if Kristen works 5 days a week for 6 weeks and spent at least 2 hours a day with Coconut, it took her at least 60 hours to change Coconut’s behavior! That is a quick progress for a smart dog and may take longer for different individuals. Now imagine if I needed to do 60 therapy sessions for my clients, what would they say? That there’s no progress even after 50 sessions? That I’m ripping them off with endless therapy sessions? That there’s no significant effect of holistic medicine?
I find this to be the greatest challenge facing clients. One of the measurement done to make sure the therapy session works is to record everything. Every time I get a new client, I have to make sure that all complaints are listed. If necessary, pictures or videos can be taken to keep track of the whole progress. The same thing applies to you as a pet owner. List the symptoms and behaviors when you take your pet for therapy (contact me to download free checklist forms), then compare their condition after a few therapy sessions. Do they make any improvements? Can you tell the effect of holistic medicine?
Holiztic Vet 