By Jay Scott Kanes

Note: Some readers may struggle to accept parts of what animal communicator Rosina Maria Arquati says and the validity of what she does. Regardless, she's a fascinating person who loves animals, has special abilities and gladly shares her insights.

MID-LEVELS, Hong Kong Island – In three-decades-plus as a writer, I've never interviewed anyone more fascinating than Rosina Maria Arquati. She's a leading animal communicator and healer based in Hong Kong, but also active in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

Difficult as the concept may be for many people to grasp, 60-year-old Rosina professes to “talk” to all types of animals, communicating telepathically with them by swapping words, images, thoughts and sensations, like mind-email. “I can send messages or pictures to them, and they can send back,” she said.

Knowing what animals say and think must be fascinating. Does Rosina feel supremely lucky? “Yes, but sometimes when something comes naturally, you take it for granted,” she said. “To me, it was normal until I got to be a teenager and then adults tried to tell me I couldn't talk to animals.”

Rosina can communicate with any creature. “Even cockroaches,” she said. “I can ask them to leave. In New Zealand once, we had to have a house fumigated for termites. We opened the windows, and I told the insects they had to leave or be terminated. When we returned before the fumigation man arrived, most of the termites had gone. Just a few still were leaving.”

Desperation and Distress

Telepathic links to animals bring disadvantages too. When Rosina visits animal shelters, certain food markets or anywhere crowded with winged, finned or four-legged creatures, she receives mental messages from all directions, often at lightning speed. Much of the content reflects desperation and distress.

“I can't go to a wet market,” she said. “It's too painful. When the fish are jumping (flopping), I hear them say, ‘I'm suffocating. I'm suffocating.’ With the caged chickens, it's usually, ‘I want to get out. I want to get out.’

“In kennels where animals will be put to sleep, there's the most awful fear. It's impossible even to explain how much. I usually can't walk through those areas. The animals know. They know when they're taken to die.”

Often Rosina wants to smash cages, yell and protest, but she resists. “I can't help every fish dying in the markets,” she said. “I can't free every caged chicken. Yes, I want to fling open cage-doors, but I know that approach doesn't work. I've been around too long to imagine that aggressive behavior works. The slow way, through education, especially to school-children, works best.

“One person can't save the world immediately. In Borneo, I once saw an orangutan making a nest and asked, ‘Where will you sleep tomorrow night?’ She replied, ‘I don't know.’ From nearby, I heard the sounds of saws and the chopping down of trees. That's how fast the habitat was vanishing.

“Often I can't help even wild animals. I'd love to see a lot more animals free. But where's the habitat to support them? There are lots of things I can't do, so I try to work within my perimeter. Sometimes that means just trying to calm down the animals.”

Rosina even hears bewildered birds grumble about Hong Kong's dismal air quality. “Sometimes they lose their sense of direction from bad air,” she said. “And all the electric lights make them struggle to tell night from day.”

The creatures that humans despise most, like snakes and rats, seldom speak to Rosina. “They're just in survival mode trying to get food,” she said. “They can be vicious, but in the right environment with food, shelter and a nice home, they're not.”

When out walking, Rosina may receive mental remarks from dogs on the sidewalk or cats watching from window ledges. “Usually, I just look around wondering where the messages came from,” she said. “Sometimes I need to stay focused and just ‘turn off’. Otherwise, I'd be in constant depression. Passing near markets and receiving pictures of animals being slaughtered can get you down. Sometimes I try to ‘turn off’, but can't.”

Does what Rosina hears from troubled or abused animals keep her awake at night? “Yes,” she said. “But I've learned that I must work the best way I can at what I can do. If I tried to save every animal, I'd turn suicidal. When younger, I used to go down with depression. Luckily, I'm a little older and more mature.”

Are Humans Superior? Animals Doubt It

People like to feel superior, believing they behave better than animals. Most animals would disagree.

“Animals kill each other too, but at least it's while the other animals are free,” Rosina said. “It's a big difference. Animals who hunt also are hunted in a circle of nature, but animals in the wild have a chance. If the hunted ones are healthy and can run, they may get away. They're not kept in cages or pens unable to move or even enjoy proper daylight. The issue isn't that humans kill animals. It's how we get the animals, keep them and then kill them.

“Animals will continue to kill animals. People won't stop eating meat. But we could make life much more comfortable for animals when they're on the planet.”

Little about agriculture impresses Rosina. “Most cattle no longer live in nice barns or pastures with green grass. They're kept in stalls or pens too small for them to turn around.”

When Rosina travels in rural areas, she receives distress messages from farm animals. “It's difficult,” she said. “Lots of people imagine communicating with animals as a hunky-dory thing, a chance to ask questions to dogs and cats. Are you happy? Do you like this food? But it's more. On the dark side of animal communication, I hear about lots of pain.”

Similarly, Rosina dislikes many of Hong Kong's outlying places. “I don't enjoy watching the fish swim around in tanks, like outside the restaurants on Lamma Island,” she said. “I find it very difficult to walk around there.”

She takes a more favorable view of Hong Kong's most creature-filled theme park. “At Ocean Park, the animals are looked after,” she said. “The dolphins love to play too. I’ve been there during typhoons when the performances were cancelled, and they were very unhappy about it. When they saw us, their reaction was: ‘Oh, good! Here's someone to talk to and play with.’

“If animals live in a good theme park or zoo and are well looked after, that's okay. Some of them enjoy being there. Others don't. I once had a dog who would have loved to be a circus performer. That was her character. She always thought: ‘Let me dance. Let me show off. Let me stand on my hind legs.’ The biggest problem about theme parks and zoos is how the animals got there. Were they taken, stolen?”

Creatures Tune In To What People Think

No matter how many people reject the possibility of telepathic exchanges with animals, the cats, dogs and others still apply their own skills to listen in and assess much of what humans think. “People have thousands of thoughts in their heads every day,” Rosina said. “Animals tune in or out of what humans are thinking. They know and understand a lot more than most people ever imagine.

“They're aware of what goes on wherever they live – the emotions and everything. Whether pets like it or not, they take aboard stresses and emotions from humans. Some animals have behavior problems that aren't their fault, but come from an owner being stressed.”

Otherwise, most animals living in homes as pets say they're reasonably happy. “Most dogs or cats that I see and know usually feel quite happy, unless they're kept in cages or it's too hot. Most were brought up in Hong Kong so they only know the lifestyle here. They're used to it. But dogs who once lived in a place like Australia, with big houses and acres of land, may feel unhappy in Hong Kong. Pets from different countries face big adjustments, but they can manage. They usually live in the present tense and don't hold onto the past like humans do.”

Originally from London, England, Rosina arrived in Hong Kong 35 years ago. Before turning professional as an animal talker, she worked in bookshops. Now she has a small office (Animal Talk Ltd) in the Mid-Levels from which she offers animal communication, pet-bereavement advice and Reiki (hands-on healing) for animals or people. She lives with her husband and pet dogs in Yuen Long.

People have countless reasons for wanting to communicate better with pets or other animals. Maybe they want to help a dog or cat to cope with a new home, a change in diet or a new family member. Maybe they wonder what the animal thinks and likes.

Often Rosina visits homes to meet her clients and their pets. That allows the pets to tell her readily about problems and eases the search for solutions. She tries to help people and pets to better understand and respect each other. “There are very few problems I haven't seen before.

“Any punishment-or-reward system needs enforcing,” Rosina said. “Otherwise the animals think ‘they won't punish me’. I remember a dog telling me that. When I talked to the owner, she told me, ‘Well, I said I'd put the dog in a naughty room, but never did.’ You have to follow through, just as with children. Animals have free will and won’t always do what you want.”

Marvels of Telepathy and Technology

Combined marvels of telepathy and technology mean that Rosina doesn't need to see the pets in person. She can “connect” telepathically after viewing their photos or when watching them on a computer screen. Theoretically, she can work with clients and animals worldwide. But on medical issues, her problem-solving never replaces proper veterinary care.

“With animals, I often need to tell them, ‘You can't do this. You can't be naughty in a new home. When living on the streets you could bark when you wanted, but it doesn't apply here.’ I try to better connect them to the surroundings. It's like taking people from bad neighborhoods into good ones. Maybe they were on the streets fighting for food. Then they lived in a shelter. Finally they went into a home and needed an entirely different behavior pattern for their new ‘pack’. It takes time and adjustment.”

“Talking” to Rosina doesn't surprise or bother the animals. To them, telepathic chat comes naturally, although they rarely meet receptive humans. It's how they usually communicate with each other. “For them, it's normal.”

When dogs bark or cats meow, they're being extra forceful, probably to grab the attention of non-telepathic humans. “That's their basic language,” Rosina said. “Barks and meows are ways to get us to act, like serving their meals. Recently, I worked with a beagle as his dinner time neared. When I finished, he said, ‘Thanks for leaving. Now it's time for me to eat.’ ”

‘They're Individuals’

Every animal has different characteristics. They're individuals, like people are. “They vary.” Some are quiet and shy. The chatty ones love to communicate. “Each case, each animal, is different,” Rosina said.

“Usually, animals will talk to me if they know it's for their own good. When talking to them, I need to find out what's going on, what the issues are. Some don't like being indoors all day. Some don't like being shut out all day. A talkative dog or cat tells me a lot more. With naturally quiet animals, I work a little harder to get them to talk.”

If a pet complains of being abused, “I try to educate the owners not to do that,” Rosina said. “Violence to animals is counterproductive.” Yet “as with children, sometimes a little smack works”.

Maybe an owner accuses a dog of biting him. But the dog says the human hit him first. “Then I try to sort it out.”

Secrets Blabbed

Some pets lack discretion. “They tell me a lot about the owners and what goes on everyday.” They may reveal humans’ deep secrets:
-- “Mummy has too many clothes. She likes to go shopping and bring home lots of bags.”
-- Someone loves to sing, but sounds horrendous.
-- “The lady (domestic helper) working here talked on the machine (telephone) all day.”
-- Or “Daddy has a bad temper and always shouts.”

Cautiously, Rosina decides what to tell the pet's guardians. “How much information I give depends on the situation,” she said. “I filter some details and may need to be very diplomatic.

“Sometimes people give me a list of questions to ask, and I ignore it because that's the owner's perception, not from the animal. I even sent one stressed lady out for a massage to calm her down. Then I worked with the dog.

“The problems may be straightforward. Perhaps the animal resembles a strong-willed child unwilling to listen or be told what to do. It's a negotiation as we try to sort things out.”

“Puppy-mill farms are a big issue,” Rosina said. “I find dogs with behavior problems that normally don't belong to their breeds. People breed aggressive or sick animals, so I end up meeting the troubled offspring.”

Usually Rosina responds to calls for help from people. Using telepathy, clever pets could summon her too. “Sometimes they do,” she said.

Do animals always tell the truth? “No, some are honest, and some aren't,” Rosina said. “They may lie to protect themselves or their owners, but sometimes they do it out of mischief.”

Learning Animal Talk

Rosina offers training sessions and seminars so that other people can improve their “animal talk”. Despite “centuries of disuse”, human telepathic ability can revive.

Animals want to communicate. “They constantly use body language, telepathy and vocalization to try sending us messages,” Rosina said. “But human telepathic skills went dormant long ago as we came to depend on spoken and written words. During evolution, we started to work with tools, getting so busy making weapons and hunting that the telepathy part of our brains closed down. Nature always closes what we don't use, so most humans fail to properly receive the animals' messages.” The very instant when particular people begin to revive their telepathic possibilities and “tune in” to animals, there's suddenly “a two-way conversation”.

Being an animal communicator isn't quite the oddity it once was – partly due to the dozens of students Rosina has trained. The more people who are equipped to help solve the problems between people and animals the better, she said. “The more animal communicators out there, the greater the chance that people won't abandon pets or give up at the first sign of something going wrong.”

People should care about animals and understand they have feelings and emotions like humans do. “I use my workshops as platforms for animal welfare,” Rosina said. “That's my biggest thing. We need to take responsibility for how we behave toward our brothers and sisters in the animal kingdom. At the moment, people don't do that.”

Persistently Liking Pomeranians

Rosina's own pets all are Pomeranians, her favorite dog breed, most of them elderly and adopted from animal shelters. They remind her of cunning, beautiful foxes. Usually she has three-to-eight dogs as her “babies” and ideal escapism from the problems of other animals.

Reflecting how much Rosina treasures her pets, she names them after gemstones, for example as Lady Selenite, Sir Malachite and Sir Smokey Quartz. “The names feel right for them,” she said. “Giving them very positive names reinforces who they are. These dogs came from rescue situations. Now they're proud dogs who look good. They're very precious.”

Rosina's husband, David Burrows, works as a veterinarian. “My husband is very supportive (of her work),” she said. “I'm lucky. I first met him in the basement of the Vegetarian Society on Marlow Road in London. That's when I came ‘out of the closet’ as an animal communicator. My husband's closely connected to animals too so he didn't think it was strange.”

First a Black Cat, Then Disbelievers

One of Rosina's strongest childhood memories focuses on the first time she chatted so easily with an animal. On a cold day in 1950s London, little Rosina, about six years old, hunched by a fireplace wishing she could travel to a warmer place. Suddenly she received a telepathic message from her companion, a black cat: “I'd like to come too.”

“My auntie had a café near the Arsenal football ground,” Rosina said. “Since I was too young to help in the café when the football was on, I sat at the back with the cat near the fire. In those days, a nice coal fire was very comforting, warming and nice. Then I realized the cat was talking to me.”

Most adults then in Rosina's life refused to believe such conversations happened. “I was told, ‘Don't be silly. You can't talk to animals.’ At home, they tried to brush the issue aside. At school, I never really told anyone.”

Some family members still refuse to believe. “My 92-year-old mother just learned to use the Internet,” Rosina said. “She Googled my name, saw a video and said to me, ‘That was interesting, but don't tell anyone.’ I also have a cousin who's not animal friendly and thinks I must have come from the moon.

“I took a lot of ridicule until quite a late age. As a little girl, I used to go away and cry a lot.  Even when I started to work in Hong Kong, people weren't into animal communication. Things have changed a lot. Now it's more accepted and mainstream. People who love animals have opened up to it.”

Despite Rosina's talents, she confesses to shortcomings too. “My husband checks the spelling on my Website because I'm dyslexic,” she said. “He's never happy when I do a first draft.”

She also cringes from most animal-related TV shows. “I can't watch even Lassie,” she said. “I'm always frightened the animals may get hurt. When acting, they're busy thinking about what they have to do. So I know when Lassie needs to cross a river and I'll think, ‘Oh, she could get hurt.’ ”

Yet she approves of Hollywood's far-fetched depiction of animal talk in certain movies. “I enjoyed Dr Dolittle,” she said. “I wish that animal communication really worked like that. It would be so easy. At least that movie makes people realize that animals can talk, that they have feelings and emotions.”

Rosina never doubts the magnitude and value of her work. “As more people come to value and understand animals, fewer animals will be abandoned or suffer other cruelty,” she said.

If some people insist on scoffing at what Rosina says and does, she chooses to ignore them. “I don't go where people are negative because they drain me of energy and I don't need that,” she said. “It's not my priority to convince anyone. That's pointless. Eventually people come around in their own time.

“Talking to animals has a down side, a fun side and an in-between part with problem-animals maybe I can help. The most fun is to meet an animal who just loves the world, thinks everything's a bowl of cherries and that ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ are great.”

“For me, working with animals means working from my heart, and that's the best place to work.”

More of Rosina's Observations About Dogs (and Cats)

-- They don't tell time by clocks. Instead “they use approximation times, based on day or night”. They recognize if it's early, mid-day or late, if it's time to eat, walk, sleep or other activities. “They're very consistent and good at their timing.”

-- Unless told by humans, they don't know their precise ages. They use estimates and think of themselves as young, middle-aged or old.