Pawstalking

Pawstalking
A
A
BY LISA LARSON, M. A .
 Pawstalking: A Course in Communicating with Animals
Copyright ©2019 Lisa Larson, M.A.

Editors: Gabriella Gafni & Courtney Amber Kilian

Proofreader: Courtney Amber Kilian
Cover images copyright © Lisa Larson
Cover Design: Deanna Heitschmidt
Interior Design and Layout: Deanna Heitschmidt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded,

reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means
whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Edition Printing, April, 2019.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-0-9600231-0-3

pawstalk.net
This book is dedicated to Makana.
My life, my soul, my gift.
 Table of Contents
Praise for Pawstalking ....................................................................................9

Acknowledgements.........................................................................................11
Author’s Note to Text ...................................................................................15
PART I
Beginning Animal Communication
Introduction......................................................................................................21
ONE: How I Got Started .............................................................................31

TWO: What is Animal Communication? ................................................35

THREE: The Basics ...................................................................................... 49

FOUR: Getting Started .................................................................................61

FIVE: Reading Protocol .................................................................................71

SIX: Overcoming Obstacles .......................................................................83

PART II
Intermediate Animal Communication
SEVEN: Behavioral Problems .....................................................................97

EIGHT: Anxiety and PTSD........................................................................117

NINE: Moving with Animals ...................................................................... 127

PART III
Advanced Animal Communication
TEN: Missing Animals ................................................................................139

ELEVEN: Ill Animals ....................................................................................149

TWELVE: Fatally Ill Animals.......................................................................161

THIRTEEN: Animals in Transition .............................................................183

FOURTEEN: Animals in Spirit .................................................................. 189

FIFTEEN: Wild Animals and Nature ...................................................... 213

SIXTEEN: Working with People .............................................................. 227

SEVENTEEN: The Business of Being a Professional ........................243

EPILOGUE: Final Thoughts ...................................................................... 253

APPENDIXES
APPENDIX I: Handouts ............................................................................. 257

APPENDIX II: Exercises ............................................................................. 267

TERMS: Glossary ........................................................................................ 285

 Praise for Pawstalking
Wow! I cried in parts, laughed in others and learned so much.
So much wisdom and value packed into these near 300 pages. The
title choice is very apt, as it is very much a step-by-step course. It
isn’t just an interesting book, but rather a comprehensive guide.
— Krista Brown, Certified Equine Guided Facilitator/Coach;
Owner and Creative Director, Wisteria Acres Wellness & Retreats

Lisa Larson has written a “must read” book for anyone who aspires
to become an animal communicator or anyone who wants to attain
a better understanding of the relationship between humans and
animals. As one of Lisa’s former students, who committed, and suc-
cessfully became an animal communicator, I can vouch that what
she writes here is useful both as stand-alone learning and as an
adjunct to studying with her personally. If Lisa can teach me, a for-
mer skeptical left-brained empiricist/engineer how to communicate
with animals, she can teach anybody.
— Commander Gerald Bunch U.S.Navy (retired), author of
Warrior to Whisperer: An Odyssey into the Quantum Field with Oscar the Cat

Lisa Larson’s new book is so engaging and wonderfully written! You

will be able to make use of the practical, easy to use ideas — and
also be delighted by the warm and entertaining stories. Don’t miss
this book! It is a delight!
— Kay Fahlstrom, Psychic Medium, author of Reborn a Medium

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 Acknowledgements
In thinking about who I would like to thank, I realize there are
two parts to this book: the actual writing and publishing of it, and
the part that made me the person I am to be able to write it. Those
two things are inextricably entwined.
First and foremost, I want to thank my cat, Makana, for his
inspiration from the beyond, and in helping me find the courage
to lay in bed and write as a way to move through my grief of not
having him here in body anymore. I thank him for the years we
shared, for having him to fall asleep next to, wake up next to and
for giving me the true, heartfelt joy that only my son, my compan-
ion, my friend, my familiar, my dreaming partner and the other
half of my very soul could provide. I thank you, Makana, for giv-
ing me joy when I had none, love when I felt alone and a sense of
purpose when you were my sole
purpose. Thank you for being the
gift in my life that you are, have
been and always will be. My heart
is not whole without you. Until we
meet again, thank you for being
my Honey Bunny.
Thanks to my cat, Cuba, my
“Purrmeister,” and Makana’s bro-
ther, who sacrificed on an emo-
tional and universal soul level
so that Makana and I could have
the brief time that we had on this
earth together. Cuba, I thank you Cuba, our Purrmeister

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 PAWSTALKING

for your teachings, your wisdom, your patience and your calm
demeanor. I will never forget when our eyes first met, and I wait to
see you again, in another incarnation, to deepen the relationship
that is meant to be ours.
Thank you to my husband, Michael, for his love and support,
not just for this book, but for helping me accept and understand
that the things I have to say are valuable, that I help people and
animals through my work, and that I am not the worthless per-
son I spent my life hearing I was. I thank him for helping me
see I didn’t need my family of origin’s approval to be successful
and that, in fact, that thinking was holding me back. Thank you,
Michael, for helping me “out.” In that same vein, I thank Michael,
Cuba and Makana for being my family when I had no other. We
were a good family.
I thank my cat, Puma, for being my companion, and the love
of my life, for eighteen years. I thank her for saving my life, in so
many ways, before I really understood its worth. Thank you, Puma,
for teaching me how to be a good cat mommy. I also thank Cairo
for his wisdom, inspiration, and for his assistance in helping lost
animals find their way home. Thank you, Cairo, for starting me on
this journey. I’m so grateful to you both for being my fur-family,
and I’m so blessed to have had you in my life.
I’d like to thank Gabriella Gafni for taking off her ghostwrit-
ing hat, and putting on her editing hat, allowing me to make this
book solely and uniquely mine in the way I needed it to be for my
sense of self-worth and accomplishment. Thank you, Gabriella,
for your patience, for making it safe for me to express myself and
for your example of what it means to be a genuinely good and
loving person.
Thank you to my savior, Deanna Heitschmidt for pulling my
rear out of the fire with her professional knowledge and excep-
tional sense of design. Thank you, Deanna, for understanding

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

what it feels like to make decisions when you want it right, what
it takes to make it right, and for the exact words I needed to hear
at the exact moment I needed to hear them. Thank you for your
extraordinary patience and support in helping me make this book
something I can be proud of.
I thank Kay Fahlstrom for answering my incessant questions
about authorship. Without her knowledge, I would have floun-
dered around for months trying to figure things out. Thanks, Kay,
for putting me on the right path.
I’d like to thank Susan Floyd for her genuine caring and
encouragement, and for her input and assistance with the Huna
section of this book.
I thank those friends who took the time to read the unedited
book and for the valuable insights they and others provided.
Last but not least, from my heart, I want to thank those clients
who graciously allowed me to share their stories with you, and I
thank all of my clients, both human and animal, for the love and
patience they have for one another. Thank you for opening up your
hearts, your souls and your lives to me, trusting me with your most
intimate thoughts, secrets, relationships and emotions. Your quest
to make the lives of your fur, hoofed, scaled and/or feathered fam-
ily better, makes your own life better and — in the process — mine,
as well.

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 Author’s Note to Text
To protect the privacy of both animal and human individu-
als involved, some names, genders and/or locations have been
changed.
Please note that I don’t use the word owner in this book to
refer to an animal’s person. In the U.S., with the exception of a
few isolated cities, animals are considered property — no differ-
ent than a car or a chair. This is complicit in a dangerous system
where our animal family members aren’t fully legally protected
from abuse and/or being killed. For that reason, there has been a
movement to change legal language from owner to guardian.
I feel it’s important to change the lexicon before we can change
the laws so that people understand. In that vein, instead of using
the word owner, I refer to animal guardians as pet parents, guard-
ians or simply, mom or dad.
While I do have some reservations using the word pet, and in
most references have used the word animal or fur-child instead, I
do still use the phrase pet parent. I like the feel and the alliteration
of it. It’s a phrase that people can easily understand and accept in
their role as a parent to their loving fur-child.

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 PART I
Beginning Animal
Communication
“Some people talk to animals.
Not many listen though.
That’s the problem.”
~ A.A. MILNE ~
 Introduction
This book was a long time coming. I have spent my life being
told, “You should write a book.” That’s all very well and nice, but
I believe that most of those people were thinking about the life I
had experienced, as opposed to the career I eventually wound up
having: communicating with animals.
I’ve started and stopped a myriad of books, often rejecting
the idea of writing a how-to book on animal communication,
thinking, “There are already good ones out there.” Then, one day
I thought, “Well, maybe that’s true, but they aren’t written by me.”
I’ve spent fifteen years teaching at the college level and fourteen
years talking to animals. I have a wealth of experience and the
class outline for the course I’ve been teaching for years. It occurred
to me, “Perhaps I will give a unique point of view.” Once I came to
that resolution within myself, the words fell onto the page.
Furthermore, I didn’t want to write a how-to book as much
as create a classroom-in-print, touching on the topics, stories and
examples that I use to teach my classes every year. I’m sure it’s
no coincidence that I had to be in the right place, with the right
amount of experience, to feel comfortable enough to write it.
It’s also no coincidence that even though I had written bits
and pieces, my conviction to write didn’t start to flow until I unex-
pectedly lost my cat, Makana, after only eleven short years. If we
can’t focus our grief somewhere, what can we do with it? I have no
doubt that every time I sat down to write, I was being poked by a
little orange paw.
Makana means “gift” in Hawaiian. My gift indeed. It is my
hope I can pass that extraordinary gift on to you. I can think of

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nothing greater than the opportunity to speak with and under-

stand animals in a way many people think not possible.
This book is for making the impossible possible. It’s the book
that alleviates your concerns that you “aren’t capable of speaking
to animals.” You are. My hope is that the logical progression of my
class, in book form, is the catalyst you need to understand it’s not
only possible, it’s possible for you.
I have spent the past fourteen years speaking to animals of
all kinds. This is not something I grew up doing, as many other
psychics have. (Or if I did, I don’t remember, since I had a pretty
traumatic childhood and blocked a lot of it out.)
I’ve had animals all my life, but more than that, I had a moment
when my subconscious told me, “It’s okay to think out of the box.”
It is my belief that all creatures, human and animal, are born
with telepathic abilities. Many humans, however, have the unfor-
tunate distinction of having their parents beat the idea of telepathy
out of them when they are young. Around the age of seven is when
we, as children, begin to have a conscious awareness of how our
families, society and the world at large see us.
During this period, our egos step in, and we begin to care about
what other people think of us. When a child comes running up to
mommy and says, “I just talked to the cat, and he said he doesn’t
like his food,” that mother has two ways to go. She can say, “That’s
ridiculous, you know cats can’t talk. Stop it.” Or, she can say, “He
does? Well, what food do you think he would like better?” While
the latter response may or may not show the parent believes the
child, it does create an open door for the child to explore things
further. The former response, in contrast, immediately shuts the
child down and creates a barrier in his or her mind extending
into adulthood. Furthermore, given that former experience, even
if children grow up to believe in telepathic communication with
animals, they may not believe they can do it.

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 INTRODUCTION

My own personal experience with this open door wasn’t quite

as direct with regard to animals, but certainly was with regard
to me thinking outside the box. (Curiously, years later, I find my
comments were remarkably shamanistic.)
It was late at night. My father, my mother and I were driving
home on an isolated, windy mountain road (now merely a front-
age road to a major Southern California freeway). In those days it
was a dark mountain pass that connected “The Valley” to the out-
side world. Dad was driving, mom was in the passenger seat and I
was in the back. I was about seven or eight years old.
My parents were talking about a friend they knew who had
been committed to a psychiatric hospital. My mother inquired
as to the reason. Dad responded, “I guess he just lost touch with
reality.”
Until that point, I had just been listening quietly, but some-
thing about that statement made me think. I chimed in. “How do
you know that what he sees isn’t really what’s real, and what we see
is not real at all?”
Wide-eyed, I waited for an answer to my innocent question.
There was a silence in the car as both my mother and father, slack-
jawed, turned and looked at each other. Quietly, they turned their
heads back to look at me. My father, then returning his gaze back
towards the road, said, “Well, Punkin’, I can’t really say that might
not be the case.” With that, somewhere inside, I understood it was
safe for me to become the crazy lady who talks to animals and dead
people.
In this respect, I was fortunate. While I had other issues I had
to deal with in my childhood (which prevented me from remem-
bering much of it), I was, at least, not shut down from thinking
beyond what is accepted as normal.
With that nugget of hope, I have traveled a lifelong journey of
spiritual learning, knowledge and practice, which has brought me

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to where I am today. Animals, on so many levels, have been part

of that journey.
I now want to share that knowledge with you. In this book you
will not learn how to talk to animals, you will re-learn how to talk
to them. It is my hope that I can help you overcome whatever neg-
ative messages you were given which made you feel that speaking
to animals is for somebody else.
For those of you who have spent your entire lives getting mes-
sages and not knowing what to do with them, I provide you with
concrete techniques to learn how to control those skills for the
benefit of others.
In addition to those techniques, I cover what animal commu-
nication is, and everything from the basics to advanced work and
beyond. I have supplied you with class materials, as well as a clear
structure of how to format a reading. I give methods and proce-
dures, as well as a meditation, and I show you how to jump in and
start practicing animal communication skills from the very early
chapters.
Ultimately, it is up to you to find animals to practice with and
get validation from their pet parents, but in this book, you will
find all of the basic knowledge you need to get you there.
Before I spring into teaching you how to communicate with
animals, however, I want to explain that throughout this book I
will be referencing an ancient Hawaiian philosophy called “Huna.”
It is a significant part of my personal practice and my life so it
would be difficult for me to write this book without at least men-
tioning it.
Learning Huna is not necessary in learning to speak with ani-
mals, but it does, in part, explain my process in the context of how
I use it and how I think.
The type of Huna I outline here comes from my Huna teacher,
Serge Kahili King, rather than the teachings of theorist Max

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