I'll come clean, I entered the room a sceptic.

My colleague Ilyda had arranged a meeting with an animal communicator for me to connect with my dog Odey who had recently passed on.

"I'm hoping you'll get some closure," she expressed.

Expectations vs Reality

I'd previously heard from a family friend about how they'd engaged an animal communicator to help with their dog who wasn't eating its meals.

The communicator, having spoken to the pet, conveyed to the family that they shouldn't call it "fat" anymore.

While I laughed at the revelation, apparently when they stopped with the name calling meal times became a lot easier.

The same family also contacted the animal communicator when their dog passed on and to this day swear by how it was a comforting experience.

Yet, apart from having a vague idea of what could come out of my session with an animal communicator, I wasn't sure what to expect during the actual consultation.

Perhaps it would resemble visiting a therapist — a time for self-reflection, with a nice warm lady in her cosy office, where you're sat down in a comfy chair, ready for a deep heart-to-heart conversation.

But it was nothing like that.

The session was done over a Zoom call during her sole available slot at 2pm on a Wednesday.

Beforehand, the animal communicator, Susan (not her real name), knew what my dog's name was, his age and that he passed recently, along with the latest picture I have of him.

After wrestling with some technical issues, we began our session with Susan taking a moment to "connect" with Odey off-camera.

She reappeared after a minute or so and started by saying that she didn't do medical diagnostics.

Not that I was expecting her to anyway.

While she couldn't tell me what illness he was suffering from, she said the animals she'd worked in the past with usually told her how they felt before they passed.

And then she paused again, looking off-screen.

She said she could sense (or maybe was told) that Odey's heart rate had accelerated, there was heavy breathing and that he had felt nauseous in his last moments.

"Yeah, I guess," I responded, "I didn't know about the nausea."

I had prepared a couple of questions for her to ask Odey, and she asked me to go down the list.

Susan often started her sentence with "I see..." and "he said ..." and then she'd look away from the screen into space or down at her keyboard.

Some of her responses were comforting to hear.

When she described a muddled figure of a young woman playing with Odey, I immediately knew it was me.

Or how Odey knew he was getting old because he wasn't able to move as fast as he wanted to.

Other responses made me laugh.

Odey never weighed over 10kg his entire life, yet he occasionally picked fights with dogs four to five times his size — goldies, huskies, you name it.

So when Susan said Odey seemed to think he was a medium-sized dog, his over-confidence all these years made sense.

But most of the answers were too generic  — they could apply to most dogs and many Jack Russels, a breed known for being smart, energetic and feisty.

Susan told me to continue asking her questions; if Odey said anything she'd let me know.

Her replies were mostly descriptions of blurry images, responses delivered matter-of-factly in between a variation of hmm's and ahh's.

And then she looked away from her camera again.

"Why wasn't I getting any solid answers? Why am I only getting fragments of it?" I thought.

I tried to control my half-furrowed brows. It was as if I was looking at an important document with the most crucial information redacted.

By the end of her fourth or fifth answer, I caught myself spiralling deeper and deeper into confusion our interaction.

I had to ask: "Actually, what do you mean by you're connecting with him? Like how are you communicating with him?"

Actually, what is an animal communicator?

Finally looking into the camera, Susan explained that through a telepathic connection with Odey, she was receiving images in flashes and feelings that she could not fully comprehend.

According to UNC Media Hub, animal communicators are often dubbed "pet psychics".

Susan's skillset seems to fall somewhere in the spectrum between Dr Doolittle — who can talk directly to animals — and Cesar Millan, who can interpret their body language.

From what I understand, Odey was supposedly "sending" his thoughts, images and feelings to Susan who in turn, interprets it for me.

In Singapore, there are a couple of relatively prominent animal communicators with Facebook pages and Instagram accounts that have about 10,000 followers and a bank of clients — so they must be doing a good job right?

So while I wasn't convinced to begin with, I felt compelled to join the session.

Because it was for Odey who was no longer around.

Halfway through our session, however, I still wasn't getting convincing evidence that it was Odey speaking through her.

Fake news?

Admittedly, I started to let my scepticism get the better of me; I decided to test Susan with some questions I already knew the answer to.

I asked if he liked wearing a collar, and she said no, not really.

In fact, Odey was the only dog I knew who held his head high whenever he had a new collar — as if to show it off.

And then I asked if he liked it when people visited my home to which she said not really too.

But to me, Odey always seemed like one of the most people-loving dogs.

Other answers left me perplexed.

Odey was showing her flashes of baby blue when I asked about where he liked to sleep the most.

Susan also said that she could see a field of green with railings at the side — which is where he purportedly used to roam after escaping the house when he was a much younger chap.

Before I could ask for further clarification, the 30-minute session ended as quickly and abruptly as it started.

I returned to my desk snotty and red-nosed (not obvious enough for anyone to care thankfully).

Yes, the irony. Despite how cynical I was, the session did make me laugh and tear up.

It was an emotional roller coaster but frankly, this just happens any time I talk about Odey these days.

After work, my mum gave me a lift home.

During the car ride, I dissected the session with Susan, telling my mum every question and answer.

While she agreed that some answers were off, my mum did think that it was comforting just to know more about Odey.

Reality vs Expectations

In the days that followed, I thought about the baby blue flashes and the field of green more often than I want to admit, trying to spot them in my home and my neighbour.

The more I thought about it, the more I resented the exchange.

The conversation led me to doubt my connection with Odey — maybe I didn't know him as well as I thought I did.

I expected long, elaborate answers rather than fragments of them and some answers weren't aligned with what I knew about my Odey.

For instance, I know for a fact that his favourite room is my bedroom, which I always keep lined with white or cream sheets.

And on the occasions that he does head out on his own, he visits his friend — a husky named Paris — and they just sit together for the better half of the afternoon.

Grief-triggered emotions aside, it did give me a chance to look back at Odey's life and our 17 years of interactions.

But it didn't bring me comfort nor did it answer what I'd been longing to know— who's your favourite human in the house, why don't you like your nails cut and did you know I was by your side til your final breath?

Things I wish he could have told me if not for the language barrier between a dog and his girl.

Many pet owners reach out to animal communicators to understand why their pets are aggressive or unenergetic.

They're searching for something they don't have an answer to.

But I already knew the answers to all the questions I had about Odey.

Maybe that was the problem.

Top images via Alfie Kwa.