Opening the doors of communication with man's best friend

08:25 AM Mountain Standard Time on Tuesday, November 9, 2004

By Scott Davis / NewsChannel 3

Meet pet psychic Marla Steele (part 1)
Skeptic Mike Stackpole weighs in (part 2)

You've heard of palm readers. You've heard of those who claim they can contact your loved ones after they've passed away. Well, hold on to your leash because you're about to take a walk on the wild side with pet psychic Marla Steele.

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Self-proclaimed pet psychic Marla Steele works with a horse that's in foster care.

A self-proclaimed pet psychic, Steele grew up in Scottsdale and now travels between Arizona and California.

PETsMART believes in Steele enough to bring her into its Valley stores, where a $20 donation to charity gets pet owners a reading with "The Animal Communicator." One recent Saturday appearance drew dozens of pets and their parents. (Or is that dozens of people and their pets?)

With her hands on Jovi, a Great Dane, Steele tells his owner, "He's asking for a bit of adjustment and massage ... ."

The family of an arthritic beagle all began nodding when Steele, with no prompting, told them, "The other thing he's showing me is him pulling himself along with his front end."

Then there's Pam Heule, who wanted to know why little Chloe, a Yorkshire terrier, is so nervous. During the reading, Steel said, "When she was a baby, I'm getting something about her being dropped and falling. So, I don't know if you know about that, but that has a little to do with why she's a little bit nervous."

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Chloe's owner asked Steele why the little terrier was so nervous.

As it turns out, Steele hit the nail right on the head.

"Yes!" exclaimed Heule. "She fell and broke all four metacarpals and dislocated her shoulder."

Heule was stunned.

"I don't know this lady," she said of Steele. "I've never spoken to her. How would she know that? That was bizarre right there. I just called this morning for an appointment."

And Steele doesn't just work with dogs. We took her to a home in North Scottsdale where Kiki Cavuoto fosters injured and sick animals.

About Stella, a parrot who plucks the feathers off her chest, Steele said, "The other home where she was living was really neurotic, she says, and she's feeding off the energy of the people in the house."

As for Dragon the snake, "She'd like to cruise around on the floor," Steel said. "I get an image, I don't know if you let her do this, but I get an image of her going around in the grooves of the tile."

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Steele did a reading with the mother of these two abandoned kittens.

Then there's the mother cat abandoned with her four kittens. "She's bummed she can't teach them to hunt," Steele said. "They're not ready to eat that food yet, but that's something that she'd like to be able to do is hunt and show them how to hunt."

Steele says she "tunes in" to each animal's energy, and she's sure the thoughts, emotions and words come from the animals, themselves.

"Once I've connected with them, I'm not sure how information's gonna come," she explained. "I may see a picture. I may hear a certain word or phrase.

"Usually what happens, I feel pain in my body where they're having pain. I'll be talking and all of a sudden I'm not even aware of it, my hand will go like this," she says as she rubs her side "and all of a sudden, I realize I'm rubbing myself and 'Oh!' I feel pain, the animal feels pain here -- it just happens so fast."

Steele said she's had the ability to communication with animals for years and believes we all have the ability to talk to animals.

"We all talk to our pets all the time," she said. "You know most of us talk like they're our children. But actually hearing their thoughts, that's what I do. I just kind of bridge that communication gap."

But does it really take a psychic to know that dogs get sore and like to be rubbed?

Mike Stackpole thinks not. As executive director of Phoenix Skeptics, he encourages giving critical thought to all issues, both simple and complex. His take on Steele and others who claim to have psychic ability is that they are simply doing what's called cold reading.

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Mike Stackpole is a skeptic.

"For example a psychic might say to you, 'I'm getting an impression of a young man involved in your life, with dark hair, who you see on a daily basis.' You, the client, might say, 'Oh, yes, it's Richard.' And if I'm a good psychic I'm not going to say, 'Oh, yes, Richard.'" Stackpole explained. "I go on pulling more information. I just log the fact that it's Richard. Then the next time you come back to me and we're in the middle of a reading, I'm going, 'The name Richard just came to me, a tall slender young man.' And you go, 'Oh my God! It's Richard! Richard!'"

Steele denies any trickery. In fact, she believes skepticism is healthy. And while she does have clients fill out an information form prior to any reading, she says she just relates the animal's thoughts or feelings as they come to her.

"Sometimes it's like watching a movie," she said. "You kind of see a movie of what happened in their past or maybe a daily event in their life."

Pet owners are believers, though. At a "pet psychic party" we attended with Steele, Christine Coulson brought a photograph of her beloved beagle, Eleanor, who passed away in April.

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"We talk to our pets all the time," Steele said.

With her eyes focused on the picture, Steele said, "If you haven't done this already, she's showing me a pink rose bush -- more like a corally pink. I don't know if you've thought of putting one in, but ... ."

Coulson interrupted as the room filled with gasps from other partygoers, "Yeah, I'm building a new flower bed for roses. Yes! I didn't think pink, but I dug the trench."

Even the skeptic admits that it's possible.

"It could be that these powers exist," Stackpole said. "Have many people had what they call psychic experiences? Sure."

And in one last reading with the owner of a Great Dane named Violet, Steele said, "She's telling me about a new phase, a new hobby. It could be a new relationship or a new phase of love. She just says you have new love in your life right now -- new excitement."

After a short pause, Violet's owner, a young man named Jason, confirmed that he and his wife do have a new excitement in their lives. They recently found out they're pregnant.