Do Pets Cross Over? An Honest Look at Animal Communication and Why I'm Skeptical of Most of It

I want to start with where I actually stand on this, because it's not where most people in my industry stand.

I'm skeptical of pet mediums. Not because I think connecting with animals in spirit is impossible — I'll get to that — but because I think it's one of the easiest areas in this entire field to fake, and one of the hardest for a grieving person to fact-check.

Think about it. If a "pet psychic" tells you your dog loved treats, was loyal, and missed sitting next to you on the couch — that's true of something like 95% of dogs that have ever lived. If they tell you your cat was independent but secretly affectionate, that describes most cats. None of that is evidence. That's just... pets.

And here's the part that bothers me more: a lot of pet readings end up telling people what their animal "thought" about their relationships, their decisions, their life choices. Your dog didn't have an opinion about whether you should stay with your boyfriend. I say that with love, but it's true. Animals have the emotional and cognitive processing of roughly a one or two year old human. They experience love, fear, comfort, distress, attachment — real things, genuinely felt. But they are not running a quiet analysis of your relationship choices from the foot of your bed.

When a reading starts attributing complex human reasoning to an animal, that's where I get uncomfortable. That's not channeling. That's a story.

So Why Am I Writing About This At All?

Because I'm not certain I'm right, and because the loss itself is real regardless of what I believe about the mechanism.

If your fifteen-year-old golden retriever stepped through clearly in a reading with me — specific, verifiable, something I had no way of knowing — I would be thrilled. Genuinely. I'd want to be wrong about my own skepticism here. I just haven't seen it happen in a way that meets the same evidential bar I hold myself to with human connections, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise just because it would be a nicer thing to say.

What I don't doubt for one second is the grief. And I don't doubt that animals matter — maybe more than almost anything else in this conversation.

The Love Is Real. That Part Isn't In Question.

Animals give you something most humans can't: love with absolutely no conditions attached. No agenda, no resentment, no bad days where they're short with you. Just consistent, uncomplicated presence.

That kind of love is rare. And losing it is brutal.

I lost my puggle to cancer when she was thirteen. I was there for the transition. I watched it happen, and I remember sitting there afterward in this completely irrational state of wanting to reach into the air and grab her soul and shove it back into her cute little body. Like I could physically undo it if I just moved fast enough. I cried in a way I don't cry for most things. Ugly, gasping, can't-breathe crying.

To have animals is to lose them. That's the deal, every time, no exceptions. And the fact that we keep choosing to love them anyway, knowing how it ends, says something about what they actually mean to us.

Here's a little photo of Duchess, my amazing puggle (albeit, also super annoying puggle. She was great and annoying and I couldn't have asked for better!)

Where I Think the Real Comfort Comes From

Here's my honest take: I think most of the comfort people get from "signs" after a pet passes — the dream that felt different, the sense of their presence on the bed, the strange behavior from a surviving pet — comes from something real, but it's not necessarily what's being sold.

Grief itself does strange things to perception. Dreams about people and animals we've lost are often more vivid because our minds are actively processing the loss. A surviving pet acting oddly might be picking up on your grief, not seeing a ghost. None of that makes the experience less meaningful. It just means I'm not going to tell you it's definitely your dog visiting you from the other side when I genuinely don't know that.

What I will say is this: if you feel something, you don't need my permission to find comfort in it. You also don't need to pay someone $200 to tell you what you already felt.

What I'd Rather You Do Instead

I know that's not the answer people want from someone in my field. But here's what I actually believe matters more than any reading.

While your animal is alive, build your own intuitive relationship with them. You already have one — you just might not trust it. You know when something's off with your dog before the vet does. You know your cat's normal versus not-normal. That's not magic. That's attunement, built over years of paying attention to a creature you love.

That intuition is worth more than any external reading, before or after they're gone. It's what lets you make good decisions for them while they're here — including, eventually, the hardest decision, the one most pet owners eventually face. Knowing when it's time. Being present for it, even though it's unbearable. Being the person who stays until the very end, the way they stayed with you their whole life.

That's what being a steward for an animal actually looks like. Not a reading after the fact. The years of attention before.

If You're Grieving an Animal Right Now

I'm not going to give you a tidy list of signs to look for, because I don't think that's honest, and I think it can sometimes turn grief into a scavenger hunt instead of letting it just be grief.

What I'll say instead: the love you had for that animal was real, the loss is real, and you don't have to justify the size of your grief to anyone who's never had that kind of relationship with an animal. "It was just a dog" has never been true for anyone who's actually lost one.

Grieve it the way you need to. If signs come, let them mean whatever they mean to you. And if you're ever in a reading with me and something with fur and four legs shows up uninvited and tells me something I couldn't have known — I'll be the first one surprised, and I'll tell you exactly that.

And sharing my two amazing babies who are still with us. Tina and Queenie. You will see them from time to time on the Soul Signals podcast! I love them so much.