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"She talks to the animals" The stomping and whinnying began at precisely 3:30 p.m., just before the oat cart rounded the corner.As news of food quickly spread from stall to stall, the noise inside the Rhone Thoroughbred Training Center barn, just south of Chaska, reached deafening levels. It didn't take any special talent to understand that the horses were hungry - especially when all of the commotion subsided as soon as the animals were fed. But according to Janet Roper, animals have other messages to convey to humans, many of which "As a kid, I talked to animals and the animals talked back," said the Shoreview resident, who boards her horse, and offers her communication services, at the Rhone stables. "I thought everyone could do it." Now Roper has parlayed her talent into a business venture. As an animal communicator, she makes part of her living translating what animals have to say back to their human companions. Roper knows that the idea of communicating with animals is a stretch for many, but she is optimistic that more people are opening up to the possibility. "Why can't intuition be just another sense?" she asked. Tuning in Though Roper said she could always talk to animals, it wasn't until she hired an animal communicator to help with one of her own dogs that she began to really see the possibilities of talking to four-legged creatures. "Teddy had housetraining issues," recalled Roper. "He knew not to go (to the bathroom) in his kennel but anywhere else in the house was fair game." After veterinarian advice failed to solve the problem, Roper happened to run across an ad for an animal communicator. She decided to give it a try. The communicator told Roper that Teddy was confused. His previous owners had sent him mixed messages about where it was and wasn't acceptable to go to the bathroom and he still wasn't sure what was right and what was wrong. To Roper, the session with Teddy was helpful and inspiring. Though she was already plenty busy giving musical lessons and spiritual direction, she decided to embrace her natural talent and hone her animal communication skills through spiritual training, Shamanic healing classes and through personal study with Ilga Cimbulis, an area animal communicator and trainer in animal communication. Over time she learned for herself how to tap into animal energies. She likened the experience to learning a foreign language. "Messages come differently to different people," she said. "Some people feel it, some picture it. With me, I hear a conversation if I'm tuned in." Roper 'tunes in' to animals by entering a meditative state. Once there, she can send and receive messages. Roper has to trust that whatever information she gets is what needs to be said. "I don't tune in unless I have the owner's permission and the animal's permission," she said. "It's no problem getting the owner's permission, because usually they've contacted you. And most of the time I get the animal's permission, but sometimes I get 'Oh gee, I really want to play ball' or 'I'm busy right now. Can you come back later?'" For the most part, the animals appreciate when humans talk to them, Roper said. "They have so many messages, so much to teach us." And humans find plenty of reasons to communicate with the animals. In the few months that she has been charging for her services, Roper has had a dozen paid referrals. "It could be about finding a lost pet, learning how to deepen a relationship, discovering what the animal needs, or addressing behavioral and training issues," explained Roper. Sometimes it's just about providing the humans with a bit of reassurance. "There was one dog that I was communicating with that kept telling me, 'My bowl fits me to a T,'" recalled Roper. "I didn't think anything of it, but when I mentioned it to the couple they got tears in their eyes. The food bowl had belonged to their former dog and they had been thinking about replacing it with a new bowl." For the animal and human lover, the biggest challenge can be relaying the information she receives. "I need to honor whatever the animal says, not edit it," she said. Lost pets are her least favorite communications to undertake. "Most of the time, you're talking to deceased animals," she said. "It breaks your heart." Roper has to force herself to practice detached compassion. "My job is to pick up the information. Not solve the problem." Roper cautions that her work is not a substitute for veterinary care or training, but rather a supplement to existing systems. Getting personal To date, Roper said she has been able to connect with a host of different animals, from horses to cats and dogs, to ferrets and birds, to squirrels and even flies. But her most fulfilling conversations have been with her own 13-year-old horse, Shiloh. "There's something special with him," she gushed. "We have a heart connection." Roper and Shiloh have had a lot to talk about lately. For weeks, Roper had been bracing the horse for eye surgery. Shiloh suffers from moon blindness in his left eye. With the eye sinking deeper into Shiloh's head, Roper had no choice but to schedule surgery for the eye to be removed and replaced with a prosthetic eye. Roper reported that the brave Shiloh took the news in stride. "He's not worried about the surgery," said Roper. "He's worried about the accommodations." Roper has assured Shiloh that she will be there to make sure everything is OK after the surgery. And if all goes well, he might get also finally get the blanket he's been asking Roper for. "He wants a bluish-gray blanket with yellow stars," she said. "He thinks he's quite the stud."
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