Now available on Amazon.com for the Kindle and Kindle App:

Through Their Eyes

The Nature of the Beast

by
well … me!

Some of my clients may remember my mentioning, some time ago, that I was working on a book that covers animal “problems” from the animal’s point of view. Well, life being what it is, delays ensued, and the book is finally available in e-book form on Amazon.com. Though it’s a Kindle edition, you don’t need to own a Kindle to read it, as Amazon has a free Kindle app for most platforms: PC, Mac, Ipad, Iphone, Blackberry and a number of others.

Within the next few days, Barnes and Noble will also have Through Their Eyes available for the Nook and Nook App as well.

From Amazon:

Animals. They are our friends, our teachers, our companions, our family. However, living life in a household where various species interact moment by moment is not always easy.

Long-time professional animal communicator, Gayle Nastasi, helps people to overcome problems with their animal friends every day. In Through Their Eyes, she presents common problems that pet owners face, from a different perspective — the animal’s own.

Follow specific situations, real-life examples, and excerpts from Gayle’s free email newsletter, as you learn to see pet problems from the pet’s point of view. As you learn to view things from your animal’s viewpoint, you will not only understand them better, you will deepen the wonderful relationship you already have with them.

As a bonus, readers will enjoy some of Gayle’s own animal photography, interspersed between the pages.

I hope you enjoy my little book, and find it helpful as you deepen your relationship with your wonderful animal friends. Feel free to share the news!

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2. Book Recommendation: Animal-Speak
3. New Kindle Version and Now On Nook

Animals In Translation

Animals in Translation is an innovative classic which compares the animal mind to the mind of the autistic person.  She parallels the way animals think and feel with her own experiences, drawing some amazing and absolutely inarguable conclusions.  It was her ability to “think like an animal”, in fact, which led to her great success in the meat processing industry.

I’d like to say, to begin, that I do not agree with everything Grandin concludes.  I believe her experience with cattle and livestock is amazing, but I do question, with the utmost respect, her expertise on dogs, for example.  Throughout the book, I found that she tends to generalize a bit too much on the temperaments of dogs breed-by-breed (all Labradors are destructive chewers, for example).  I believe her opinion on “dangerous” breeds may go a bit too far and actually be a “dangerous” opinion.  I don’t feel one should be too quick to use the word “all” when it comes to pigeon-holing dogs into specific breed temperaments.  Yes, certain breeds may tend to lean certain ways, but nothing is written in stone, and a great deal depends on the way the dog is raised and trained.  I also was more than a bit taken aback when she indicated that she condones the use of shock collars in dogs that are prey-drive inspired to chase bikes and joggers.  I actually found that to be somewhat upsetting, and think that it did not take the whole picture into account.  By shocking a dog who’s chasing a jogger, you’re going to cause that dog to associate joggers with pain.  You’ll take a dog who’s being influenced by his prey-chasing instincts and turn that dog’s responses to the stimulus (the sight of the jogger) into fear.  Using a shock collar in this case, as far as I can see, though it might help with dogs that have otherwise unshakable temperaments, poses far too high a risk of turning the dog from a prey-chaser into a fear-biter.

However, that said, for the most part I loved this book.  Not only was her insight into the animal mind from the perspective of a person with autism inspiring, I was amazed by her vast knowledge of animal behavior studies.  Some of the most fascinating parts of Animals in Translation involved her account of studies which have been done with animals the world over and led to some very exciting breakthrough knowledge (as well as knocking some old beliefs on their butts!).  Grandin’s approach to animal behavior is unique and exciting in itself, but I must confess that a lot of my enjoyment of the book was caused by being able to so relate to some of these findings.

In addition, parts of it really struck home for me emotionally.  For one example, when reading the section on music as a language, and how man is most definitely not the only animal who has been able to manipulate the many, often very sophisticated, characteristics of song, the following passage actually had me leaping out of bed, running into the living room with my nook, and calling my husband and son over so I could read it to them out loud:

Mozart was definitely influenced by birdsong. He owned a pet starling, and in his notebooks he recorded a passage from the Piano Concerto in G Major as he had written it, and as his pet starling had revised it. The bird had changed the sharps to flats. Mozart wrote, “That was beautiful” next to the starling’s version. When his starling died, Mozart sang hymns beside its grave and read a poem he had written for the bird. His next composition, “A Musical Joke”, has a starling style. If a musical genius like Mozart admired and learned from a bird, it seems extremely likely early humans learned from birds when they were inventing the first human music.

I’ve always said Mozart is my favorite classical composer.  Now I know why!

In the chapter on How Animals Think, Grandin talks about how many scientists believe that humans are the only animal which uses “recursive” language. This means that they use rules to combine individual sounds and words into sentences that have different meanings. She then points out that it’s been proven that both parrots and dolphins can understand recursive language quite well.

The famous African Grey parrot, Alex, who has the measurable intelligence of a four year old child, in fact, has proven that he can combine concepts in inventive ways to communicate.  One day when her sponsors were visiting Dr Pepperberg’s (Alex’s trainer/owner) lab, the researchers were giving a demonstration on how Alex and his parrot-buddy Griffin had been learning “phonemes”, which are basically the sounds letters and letter combinations represent.  For instance, when pronounced phonetically, a “T” is not “tee”, but “tuh”, an “S” not “ess” but “ssss”, etc.  They were a bit rushed, having to give this demonstration to an audience, and for each plastic magnetic letter Alex got right, he would ask for his usual reward, a nut, and be told he had to wait a bit, then given another letter to identify.  “Which sound is blue?”, for instance, would result in Alex correctly identifying the letter: “Sssss.  Want a nut.”  “Which sound is green?”  “Shhhh.  Want a nut.”  After answering correctly numerous times and having his reward delayed each time, Alex got frustrated.  The next time he answered the question, he added, “Want a nut.  Nnnn, Uh, Tuh!”  Everyone, including Dr Pepperberg, were quite surprised that Alex had taught himself to spell!

Alex took skills he had been taught, and displayed a full understanding not only of the action, but the meaning behind the action, by using them in a way that not only communicated what he wanted, but that he was getting tired of having his rewards delayed.

In the chapter on Animal Genius, Grandin talks about a macaw which re-combined words he knew to create his own concept.  He frequently would get treats of crackers and cookies, and the bird formed a new word, “crackey”, which indicated that he wanted a treat (but didn’t really care which one he got).

Why do I find these topics so fascinating?  Why did I read them while grinning from ear to ear?  Are you sick of hearing about my starlings yet?

I live with this kind of animal genius every day.  As I was reading about how these “amazing” birds are stunning their researchers with musical skills and communication talents, I was laughing and saying, “That’s not a surprise, my starlings do that all the time!”

In the post on this site called My Starlings Talking, you can, in fact, actually hear Stars say the word, “Pray-bee”.  Similar to “crackey”, it’s a combination of “Pretty” and “Baby”, both of which the birds would hear me say, and learned to repeat.  A “Pretty Baby”, to them, is more easily referred to as a “Pray-bee”, their own “recursive” word.

Stars and Stripes also recombine words to form new sentences all the time, always sentences that are, for the most part, grammatically correct and make sense.  For example, though they heard me asking, “Who’s a pretty bird?” and hearing me call them “Baby” many times, they took it on themselves to recombine the words frequently.  I never specifically taught them to “repeat” the variations, they just invented them on their own.  “Who’s a pretty baby?” “Who’s a pretty baby bird?”  And they taught themselves “Mommy” — which they very obviously apply only to me (my husband is “Chirpy” for some strange reason … a word they never actually heard us say as far as I know!)  They can frequently be heard to ask, “Who’s Mommy’s (yes, with the ‘s added!) pretty baby bird?”  No one ever actually taught that to them — they recombined words they already knew, and did so appropriately, to form a new sentence.

Grandin also talks about how birds in communication research have learned to recognize not only the words they use, but their meanings, and to use them properly in different situations.  Alex, for instance, knows what “blue” is, and can generalize “blue” regardless of what item he is looking at that is that color.  My starlings have long recombined concepts and shown me clearly that they not only know the word, they know what the word means.  When trying to express what they want, they sometimes have very interesting ways of doing so, too.

Twice now, I’ve been “doing” something where they could see me, but could not see what I was doing because my back was to them.  I would hear their adorable little alien voices ask, “Washee doin’?” and, without turning, I’d tell them.  One time it was “Knitting socks,” another, “Writing something”, for instance.  They’d continue to ask, “Washee doin’?” and, when I didn’t quite give them what they wanted (to actually see what I was up to), they’d then say, “Come see me doin’!”

They say “come see me” all the time, and ask “washee doin’?” frequently.  By combining the “come see me” (which brings the person to them) and “doin’”, they illustrated that they not only knew the words, they knew the meaning of the words.  They wanted me to come over to them and show them what I was doing.  And of course, I did!

One day, my friend and “birdie mentor”, wildlife rehabilitator Kelly Martin, was visiting.  The starlings gave me one of my biggest grins that day.  As with many birds, if there’s something new or strange in the house, they won’t talk.  Thus, Kelly, though she’d visited a number of times, had yet to actually hear them speak, even though I was always bragging about them.  She stopped in front of their cage that day and noted, “I see they need their beaks trimmed.”  Stars immediately responded, “Do you see me?”

Kelly stopped in her tracks, and gave me a sideways grin.  “Well?  Do you see him?” I asked and she replied, “Yes, I do.”

The starlings say many things they were never “taught” to say, but just picked up on their own.  They often take things we did actually teach them deliberately and recombine them in ways that make perfect grammatical (though sometimes in a round about way, such as “Come see me doin’”) sense.  They entertain and amaze us all the time, and very frequently illustrate not only that they have learned the words, but they know what they mean.  I truly do believe that they are not only “talking birds”, but “communicating birds”.  Some may try to call it all coincidence, but my little feathered friends, with their consistency and their continual adaptation skills, have taught me not to doubt.

The other day, I was sitting here at the computer writing, and Stars began to talk to me.  He was using a phrase that they taught themselves.  As I said, they picked up “Mommy” on their own, as well as using the word in sentences, such as “Where’s Mommy?” and “I see Mommy!”  This day, it was “I see Mommy!”

I’d turn toward them and respond, as usual, “I see you, too!”

“I see Mommy!”

“I see you, too!”

“I LOVE Mommy!”

Who could ever doubt that?

Mozart’s Piano Concerto in G Major (YouTube)

Mozart’s “A Musical Joke” (YouTube – Stars, Stripes, Whistle and I all love this piece)

Animals In Translation

Description, reviews and purchase options.

Related posts:

1. Doctors and Daylilies..and Birdies

Velma Gallant is a friend of mine in the TUT.com community, and she is herself a life coach and positive-thinking guru.  She helps dozens of TUT adventurers around their challenges, and through her websites, including Welcome Changes, she reaches out to many more.

Today I discovered a real little gem on her site, that just felt so right, I purchased it right away and have already listened to the entire thing.  It’s a little audio seminar on the “Joy Journal”.

As visitors to this website are probably tired of hearing by now, I’m currently working, once again, through The Artist’s Way.  This is a program that helps one to tap into the creative force of the Universe, to connect with the inner artist, and to bring forth works of creation of one’s own.  To me, this also means help in creating one’s own reality … another step toward the realization of our dreams.

When I read the write up on Welcome Changes about Velma’s Joy Journal program, it felt like a hand fitting into the glove of my current life path.  I just knew that it would be right for me, and I most definitely wasn’t disappointed.

I’m already writing my morning pages, through The Artist’s Way program.   Velma’s methods are a perfect addition.  Velma not only demonstrates that journal writing is a good way to help manifest the life you desire … she shows us just how to go about using the tool for its best effect.

Velma discovered the method in 2005, when changes in her husband’s business circumstances placed their family on the edge of a precarious financial situation.  They needed a shift for the better, and they needed it fast.  Within four months, the practices Velma developed in her Joy Journal turned things around for them.

For one who believes in, and attempts to implement, the law of attraction, I can easily see how keeping a Joy Journal might bring clarity to dreams and set them on a fast track.

I intend to start my daily morning pages, from now on, with the prescribed five minutes of my Joy Journal.

If you’re looking for a way to bring “this whole law of attraction thing” into better focus, I encourage you to check out Velma’s audio program.  It’s a quick listen (only about an hour of your time) to a quick practice (just five minutes a day) that makes great sense and holds, I feel, great promise.

And besides … it sounds like fun!

Related posts:

1. Little Victories, Big Gratitudes
2. The Heart’s A Muscle, Too
3. Negative Influence, Responsibility for You

by

Ted Andrews
(Llewellyn, 1993)

“There was a time when humanity recognized itself as part of nature, and nature as part of itself.  Dreaming and waking were inseparable realities; the natural and the supernatural merged and blended.  People used images of nature to express this unity and to instill a transpersonal kind of experience.”

I have been looking at my old, dog-eared copy of Animal-Speak for a couple of weeks now, thinking I should do a review on this classic text for the Cool Stuff section of gazehound.com.  And then, two things happened.  Yesterday, a friend emailed me to ask if I’d ever read this great book by Ted Andrews, and this morning I picked up the book and read the first paragraph again … quoted above.

If you visited yesterday, you would have read my post about none other than “The Dreamtime”.

I’ve often been heard to say “there are no coincidences”, so, here I am, doing as the Universe dictates, and letting my visitors know about a really marvelous resource.

Animal-Speak, first published in 1993, has been a standard resource, since it first hit the stands, for all who wish the opportunity to glimpse into the wisdom of nature though the symbolic imagery of the animal kingdom.  Tribal peoples the world over have watched and listened to animals, gaining signs and wisdom from their appearance, their actions, their habits.  Native tradition states that the spiritual world is reflected in the natural, and thus by observing nature we can learn more about our higher, and our inner, selves, and grow closer to both Creation and the Creator.

Animal-Speak, through it’s nearly four hundred pages, covers the natural symbolism of mammals, reptiles, insects and birds, as well as giving the reader many tips and suggestions on how to use that knowledge.  Andrews gives solid suggestions, gleaned from ancient practices, about finding your spirit totems, reading signs in nature, and working with various types of animal medicine.  Each main section then ends in an alphabetical reference on various animal species, and what their symbolism represents.

Not only will you learn about the symbolism and spiritual application of animal medicine, you will also gather a great deal of information about the animals themselves.

Ted Andrews has written many books on new-age and spiritual topics, although Animal-Speak remains his most well-known.  If you enjoy Animal-Speak, you may also wish to look for titles such as How To See and Read The Aura, How To Uncover Your Past Lives, and How To Meet and Work with Spirit Guides
.

Animal-Speak has long been a classic text on the topic of animal wisdom, and a title that everyone who is interested in gathering wisdom from the natural world should have on their bookshelf.

Animal-Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small

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2. Clicker Training E-book and Online Course
3. Animal Intelligence: the Vole and the Cookie

Bestselling Clickertraining Book For Dog Owners,
Written By Norwegian Top Trainers
Morten Egtvedt And Cecilie Koeste.
Click Here!

A little over a year ago, I stumbled across the website of Morten Egtvedt and Cecilie Koeste, and discovered that they offered an email newsletter/beginners clicker training course.  I signed up for the course, and Kai and I had a fun time following the lessons for quite a while.  Even though we’d been clicker training for years, it was interesting to go back to basics and follow this well-known pair’s slightly different approach. We enjoyed a nice review of skills already learned, from a new perspective, and we went on to learn new tasks as well.

Egtvedt and Koeste also have a very popular e-book on the market, Clickertraining: The 4 Secrets Of Becoming A Supertrainer, which you can preview and purchase through the above link.  It covers their methods, from introduction to some fairly sophisticated skills, in a unique and entertaining way that you and your dogs … and cats, and horses and birds, and rabbits, and (as you choose to adapt) will be sure to enjoy.

This pair, who run Canis Clickertraining, are well-respected in the dog training community.  They’ve  helped many dog owners  through their classes, their website, and teaching at past Clicker Expo seminars.

Related links:

• CanisClickertraining.com
• ClickerExpo
• Clickertraining: The 4 Secrets Of Becoming A Supertrainer

Related posts:

1. Book Recommendation: Animal-Speak
2. Exciting News! New E-book from Gayle
3. New AnimalPlanet Show, Superfetch

The New Natural Cat

I’ve long called this book my “kitty bible”.  Although, as my cats aged and did not handle the raw meat as well, I went back to high quality holistic commercial food for them, for many years I used Anitra’s raw diet recipe, and “Vita-Mineral Mix” for my kitties.  They shone, they glowed, they rarely had health issues, and my two girls, Sachet and Pree, lived to nineteen and eighteen years old.

You can’t have a better endorsement than that.

This book is filled with wisdom: from the rudiments of cat-communication and empathy, to kind and gentle methods of treatment, to dietary advice, to an enormous lexicon of health issues and how to treat them naturally.  Years ago, when people adopted kittens from me, each baby went with a copy of the recipe for home made food, and a strong recommendation to the owners to purchase a copy of “The New Natural Cat”.

My own copy is now almost twenty years old, very threadbare, with cracking spine and dog-eared (sorry, kitties!) pages.  Rarely does a week go by that I don’t pull it off the shelf to look something up – whether for myself, or for one of my clients.  I can’t imagine a cat-owning home without a copy of Ms. Frazier’s book on the shelf.

Anitra Frazier started out her career in cat care as a groomer.  If memory serves me correctly, this began as an association with her feline specialist vet, and she began doing in-home cat grooming for his other clients, and expanded from there.  Her observations of cat behavior, health, coat, vitality, were astute, and she would consult with her excellent vet on ways to help her cat clients achieve the ultimate in purr-fection with their cats.  After many years of doing this, she finally sat down and, with the assistance of co-author Norma Eckroate, wrote a book.

What a book it turned out to be.  The information presented is not only holistic in nature, it’s extremely practical.  Frazier provides care suggestions which are easily carried out, and which I’ve seen lead to marvelous results.  Her approach is respectful and humane, and one that cats everywhere will thank their owners for adopting.  The author has an innate sense of what makes a cat a cat and imparts that knowledge to readers in a light, easy to follow way.  I can happily attest to the fact that reading the book will make owners feel like better cat-parents by the time they reach the final pages.

If you want to know your cat better; if you’d like to find a more holistic and ultimately workable approach to cat care; if you are looking for ways to improve diet and over all vitality; if you are faced with a perplexing problem that needs a new approach — pick up  a copy of Anitra Frazier’s book.  You’ll be happy to have it within reach!

The Natural Cat (2008)

Although the version I own is the older one, Ms Frazier has released a new edition, completely revamped.  “The Natural Cat” was published in 2008, and looks to be an excellent update of an excellent resource.  I have it on my wishlist, and hope to have a copy in hand soon.  If anyone owns the updated version of the book, and would like to submit a review before I get a chance to write one, just let me know by leaving a comment! Both the old, and the new versions of “Natural Cat” are available through the book shop here at animalcommunicator-ny.com.

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