Sarah Van Fleet
Interview by Emily Vandervort, Audrey Brown, & Lainie Farmer
Write-up by Emily Vandervort
About
We heard about Sara from Glenda Pearson, the animal studies librarian at the UW who told us that Sara had had an experience with an animal communicator, and we were able to set a time to meet with Sara. Sara was very open with us and happy to share her story.
The Interview
At the time she saw Polly, she and husband, Sam, had two cats and a dog. Buddy the cat was their first pet, and they had adopted him from a shelter after they found out he was going to be killed. Buddy is now 18.
Sara educates and advocates for cats indoors because it is safer for the cat and better for surrounding wildlife. Buddy had been an outdoor cat before he was taken to the shelter and after he was adopted he still really wanted to be outdoors. Their options were to either keep him indoors all the time or leash him, neither of which were ideal. Then Sara found out about invisible fences for cats so she and Sam decided to try that. This involves the cat wearing a special collar and learning the association between going in certain areas and receiving a low-frequency zap – not strong enough to hurt the cat, just enough to form a negative association with crossing that boundary. From the start, though, Buddy was resistant to the whole concept. It took him a long time to even adjust to wearing the collar and even longer to get to the point where they could train him with the beeper (which would warn him before he got far enough to receive the zap). “We got him to the point where he was wearing the collar, and then he was checking out the flag, and the beep, but the first time we used the lowest level of the little zap, he just went completely passive,” Polly told us. “[He] shrunk down, like waiting for the monsters to come and devour him.” Sara and Sam backtracked and started the whole process again from the beginning, but the same thing happened. They had invested a moderate sum of money in the fence system and they really wanted to find a way to allow Buddy to explore outdoors, but they also didn’t want to put Buddy through the same ordeal again.
Then Sara and Sam heard about a woman who was a fairly well-know animal communicator who had worked with a rescue greyhound on behavioral issues and reportedly had really positive results. The couple decided to hire her to come talk to Buddy. The woman, whose name was Polly Klein, came to their house, greeted all their animals, and t hen sat in the same room with Buddy: Polly recounted, “…and then she just sat there, and looked at him, and had this whole apparently silent conversation that went on. She’s like, ‘You’re welcome to stay and watch but it’s pretty boring really. He’s not going to do much, I’m not going to do much, we’re just going to be… communicating nonverbally.’ She was there for about 45 minutes or so… And I have to say, I don’t know if I believe her or not; I could clearly tell that she was very sensitive around animals. Whether she actually communicated or not, I don’t know, but the stuff she was saying that Buddy said… had she known Buddy, that is exactly how Buddy would actually see the world. So the way in which she captured Buddy’s personality in that short time, I thought that was pretty amazing.”
Polly communicated with Buddy why Sara and Sam were trying to use the collar – that they wanted Buddy to be able to go outside, but they wanted him to be safe too. She told Buddy that there were things outside that would eat him, and the collar was to keep him from going too far. Buddy apparently responded by asking why the other animals didn’t have to wear the collars instead; that didn’t make sense to him, and he had trouble getting past that.
After the session with the animal communicator, Sara said that things got a little better, but Buddy just wasn’t reacting to the collar well. The behavior that did change was that he was a little less desperate about getting out. Eventually Sara and Sam got what they called a “catio,” which is essentially an enclosed area where Buddy can roam outside, and Sara said that he’s been totally pleased with that. “He’s one of the happiest older cats I’ve seen,” she told us.
The animal communicator also briefly talked to Sara and Sam’s other cat, Simone, and received some confirmation about things they had heard about her background and that explain why she’s very fearful: “[We] found out that she was thrown away with her litter mate and pulled from her mother at four weeks old and stuck in a garbage bag at the Kingdome; someone tried to throw her away… We found her at PAWS… Anything that rustles like a bag [scares her]… I believe that [story] to be true, that really makes sense, because… we had a grocery bag, a plastic one, once, and she was exploring and got her foot caught in it and took off and it caught on the back of her tail, and so the faster she would run, the more it followed her… I’ve never seen a creature move faster or more terrified.”
Sara educates and advocates for cats indoors because it is safer for the cat and better for surrounding wildlife. Buddy had been an outdoor cat before he was taken to the shelter and after he was adopted he still really wanted to be outdoors. Their options were to either keep him indoors all the time or leash him, neither of which were ideal. Then Sara found out about invisible fences for cats so she and Sam decided to try that. This involves the cat wearing a special collar and learning the association between going in certain areas and receiving a low-frequency zap – not strong enough to hurt the cat, just enough to form a negative association with crossing that boundary. From the start, though, Buddy was resistant to the whole concept. It took him a long time to even adjust to wearing the collar and even longer to get to the point where they could train him with the beeper (which would warn him before he got far enough to receive the zap). “We got him to the point where he was wearing the collar, and then he was checking out the flag, and the beep, but the first time we used the lowest level of the little zap, he just went completely passive,” Polly told us. “[He] shrunk down, like waiting for the monsters to come and devour him.” Sara and Sam backtracked and started the whole process again from the beginning, but the same thing happened. They had invested a moderate sum of money in the fence system and they really wanted to find a way to allow Buddy to explore outdoors, but they also didn’t want to put Buddy through the same ordeal again.
Then Sara and Sam heard about a woman who was a fairly well-know animal communicator who had worked with a rescue greyhound on behavioral issues and reportedly had really positive results. The couple decided to hire her to come talk to Buddy. The woman, whose name was Polly Klein, came to their house, greeted all their animals, and t hen sat in the same room with Buddy: Polly recounted, “…and then she just sat there, and looked at him, and had this whole apparently silent conversation that went on. She’s like, ‘You’re welcome to stay and watch but it’s pretty boring really. He’s not going to do much, I’m not going to do much, we’re just going to be… communicating nonverbally.’ She was there for about 45 minutes or so… And I have to say, I don’t know if I believe her or not; I could clearly tell that she was very sensitive around animals. Whether she actually communicated or not, I don’t know, but the stuff she was saying that Buddy said… had she known Buddy, that is exactly how Buddy would actually see the world. So the way in which she captured Buddy’s personality in that short time, I thought that was pretty amazing.”
Polly communicated with Buddy why Sara and Sam were trying to use the collar – that they wanted Buddy to be able to go outside, but they wanted him to be safe too. She told Buddy that there were things outside that would eat him, and the collar was to keep him from going too far. Buddy apparently responded by asking why the other animals didn’t have to wear the collars instead; that didn’t make sense to him, and he had trouble getting past that.
After the session with the animal communicator, Sara said that things got a little better, but Buddy just wasn’t reacting to the collar well. The behavior that did change was that he was a little less desperate about getting out. Eventually Sara and Sam got what they called a “catio,” which is essentially an enclosed area where Buddy can roam outside, and Sara said that he’s been totally pleased with that. “He’s one of the happiest older cats I’ve seen,” she told us.
The animal communicator also briefly talked to Sara and Sam’s other cat, Simone, and received some confirmation about things they had heard about her background and that explain why she’s very fearful: “[We] found out that she was thrown away with her litter mate and pulled from her mother at four weeks old and stuck in a garbage bag at the Kingdome; someone tried to throw her away… We found her at PAWS… Anything that rustles like a bag [scares her]… I believe that [story] to be true, that really makes sense, because… we had a grocery bag, a plastic one, once, and she was exploring and got her foot caught in it and took off and it caught on the back of her tail, and so the faster she would run, the more it followed her… I’ve never seen a creature move faster or more terrified.”