“The owner told me she was crying, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, me too’,” laughed 32-year-old Amanda Pan, an Ipoh-born animal communicator now based in KL.
The dog, a rescue, had apparently revealed how devastated she’d felt watching her human go through a painful breakup. “She felt so guilty because she loved her owner so much, but she was just there watching her cry every day,” Pan recalled.
It’s this unexpected emotional depth that has defined the past two years for Pan as she communicates with pets – all through WhatsApp. No visits, no rituals: just a photo, some details, and a connection she calls “like a WiFi signal”.
Owners send her their questions and she types out the pet’s replies, working through as many as possible within the session.
Pan clarifies that she isn’t an animal behaviourist. Her work is intuitive and, despite initial scepticism, curiosity usually wins because owners want to know what their pets feel.
Yet Pan never started out believing any of this. In fact, she began exactly where many sceptics stand.
“My friend told me she tried animal communication and I was like, ‘Are you sure? Sounds very scammy’,” she admitted. But curiosity got the better of her. She tried it on her cats – and everything changed.
Unlike the sudden “gift” often portrayed in movies, Pan trained by enrolling in a pet communication course.
“There’s a lot of meditation and looking inwards,” she explained. “You need to be very self-aware so you don’t confuse your own thoughts with what the pet is telling you.”
At first, the messages would come through in a blur – like a child’s simple drawing. “I remember the first reading was with a dog. The owner asked about his favourite toy. I knew it was a ball, but I couldn’t tell if it was red or yellow. It was very abstract. But slowly it got clearer.”
And it isn’t just dogs or cats – over the past two years, Pan has communicated with rabbits, birds, hamsters, even the occasional exotic pet. To her, there’s no real limit: as long as an animal has a relationship with its human, the connection is possible.
Now, she takes on two to three clients a day, charging RM168 per hour. Before each session, she asks owners to gently inform their pet that “someone named Amanda will be talking to them, so please don’t be scared”.
Some pets, she said, open up immediately; others need coaxing. Some sessions are light and cheerful, such as new owners wanting to know what their puppies like to eat. Others, not so light.
“It gets tiring when it’s a sick pet,” Pan revealed. Sometimes owners come to her before going to the vet. Sometimes they come for last wishes – the kind of sessions she never rushes. “I always say goodbye to the pet. There must be a mental cut-off.”
Even with all these varied cases, nothing prepared her for the day a dog asked to be rehomed. “Not because the owner was bad – it was a very active dog, it wanted to hike, run, and do agility training. And it knew the owner couldn’t do all that. It didn’t want to burden her.”
To her relief, the owner eventually adjusted her lifestyle, fulfilling the dog’s wishes. “Seeing relationships improve so tangibly – that’s what keeps me going,” Pan said.
In fact, her work has changed how she sees animals entirely. “They are so much more aware than we think. They’re with us 24/7, in our homes, on our beds. They feel everything.”
Her advice to all pet owners? “You don’t actually need an animal communicator. Just communicate more. Label your relationship. Let them be involved.
“Even if you say, ‘I’m not happy today, leave me alone’, that’s still communication. They’ll appreciate it more than you think.”
Follow Amanda Pan on Instagram.