Pet Psychics

[Sandy M]

Aaargh!! Last night, when I went out to feed and exercise my horse at the boarding stable where I keep him, I noticed on the BB a notice that some "Animal Communicator" was going to be conducting a session at our barn - at $25 a pop! Her advertisement also noted that she could do "over the phone" appointments!!

Now, I have tried in the past, on equestrian-related internet BBs, to argue that this is arrant nonsense. That it is just "cold reading" at one remove - guesses/assessing the horse owner's reaction, with perhaps a little genuine animal behaviorist knowledge mixed in, but people will swear how Penny or Claire or whomever just "revealed" all this marvelous stuff that their horse was "thinking", and that only the horse or its owner could know. It is difficult, if not impossible, to convince them otherwise.
I apparently, am a heartless non-believer. They absolutely WON'T follow my suggestions to tell the "psychic" nothing - not even the horse's name (they usually rattle off a history of their relationship with the horse first thing!). After all, if she's psychic, the horse should TELL her its name. I only wish there were an imported horse in the barn, so I could ask her how she manages to communicate with it in Dutch or German.

Does anyone know where there is a website where there is something I could print out that is a more organized statement about the "scam" of pet psychics. Yeah, I know the "argument from authority" and all that: But if they won't believe me, perhaps something that looks a little more "official" might help.

Sigh. Well, at least she won't be getting MY $25. ROFLOL
:p :p

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Sandy M
Does anyone know where there is a website where there is something I could print out that is a more organized statement about the "scam" of pet psychics.You could try this one here:

The Task Force for Veterinary Science (http://www.vet-task-force.com/)

They also have an open email discussion list you could try asking - details are on the web site somewhere.

Rolfe.

[WildCat]

I'm channeling your horse right now...hmmm, he wants some oats. I'll bet you $1 million he'll go nuts for some oats right now! ;)

BTW, the first job I ever had was picking stalls at the stables near my house. $3.35/hr, seemed like a lot when I was 12. After 1 day I'd have money for model rocket engines and a new kit or 2.

[Sandy M]

When an animal psychic came to the barn where I kept the horse I owned previous to the one I hae now, she wanted to do a "free" reading to establish her credentials. I told her she could go ahead and "communicate" with my horse. She opened the stall door, and he practically walked out over the top of her. While his ground manners were usually good, you had to establish parameters with him. "He says he is very self-confident and assured" she pronounced. Wow!!! She PSYCHICALLY intuited that after a 1,400 lb. animal brushed her out of the way, laying back his ears and baring his teeth as he passed her!!!

[BTox]

Originally posted by Rolfe

They also have an open email discussion list you could try asking - details are on the web site somewhere.

Rolfe.

Great site. I used to be a member of the altvetskept email discussion, but lost it when my email account changed. Should sign up again, it was informative and fun. David Ramey does an excellent job at this.

[abramis]

Here in Sweden we have a show called "Insider", which sets out to expose for example people involved in child pornography, poachers, and drunk driving. About a year ago, they did a test of animal "psychologists", people who said they could communicate telepathically with horses. In this program, they took a horse to a vet who examined the horse and gave it a clean bill of health. Then they consulted five of these "Horse whisperers" or whatever you might call them, and pretended to be concerned with a few medical problems with the horse, for example ; "the horse has a bad leg, it seems to be depressed" and a few other things, and then requested that they would come and talk to their horse, and tell them what the horse would tell them(the mediums).

Everything was filmed with hidden cameras, so the mediums did not know that they were set up.

The mediums (all women,BTW) were very enthusiastic and told the "owner" that every living creature could communicate telepathically, and that they themselves had a special "gift" to speak with animals. Anyway, they started.
The mediums spent from 1/2 hour to 2 hours with the animals, and the readings were done with them sittning on a chair in front of the horse taking notes.

They came up with five diffrent "diagnosis" for the same animal, and they had been told that the horse really liked to eat bananas, rather than carrots. All failed on this, as they explained that the horse had told them it liked the soft, fruity taste of bananas, and that carrots were hard to chew and swallow and so on. They also said that the horse had problems in other areas of it´s body, bad back and stuff like that.

About a week after, the TV-team visited the mediums and confronted them with the vet´s conclusion, and the errors they they made in their readings. One of the mediums admitted that she was new to this and may have misread this and put their own thoughts in the horse´s place. The other mediums said that they were correct, and that the vet missed or misread the horse´s problems. One funny thing was that they tv-team filmed the horse while they tried to make it eat bananas. It didn´t work. The mediums still said that the horse liked bananas, and refused to watch the video.

I´m sorry for my sometimes bad english, and there may be errors in this story, since I write this from memory. But it really exposed these frauds, and I think that since the show aired prime-time, many people who normally don´t watch this program got some of their beliefs turned upside down.

[Rolfe]

Your English is very good, and this is very funny.

Rolfe.

[CFLarsen]

abramis,

Yes, you speak excellent English. Certainly better than most Americans here! :D

Is there any way I can obtain a video tape of that show?

(Og jeg er dansker, bare så du ved det... :))

[abramis]

Thanks.... It takes a long time and a dictionary to write here...but it´s fun.

I´ll try to find a copy of that show, and maybe I could load it up on my computer in some way... I´ll look in to it.

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by abramis
Thanks.... It takes a long time and a dictionary to write here...but it´s fun.

I´ll try to find a copy of that show, and maybe I could load it up on my computer in some way... I´ll look in to it.

That would be extremely appreciated :)

[abramis]

CFLarsen, if you speak danish, maybe you can read this, it´s from www.folkvett.nu, the swedish sceptics, they have a brief article about this subject. I can translate it, but that will take some time though.

http://www.physto.se/~vetfolk/Folkvett/20032svenska.html

[CFLarsen]

abramis,

Det är jätte bra! :)