Honoring Early Animal Communicators: Jacquelin Smith

This series highlights the inspiring breakthroughs of early animal communicators, who began their professional careers over thirty years ago. I wrote this article after interviewing Jacquelin Smith for the “Featured Animal Communicator” column in Species Link, The Journal of Interspecies Telepathic Communication, Issue 60, Autumn 2005. Read the fascinating story of how the door to Jacquelin’s psychic abilities opened wide after a near death experience.

I remember communicating with Jacquelin Smith about mutual discoveries and experiences in the field of animal communication in the early 1980’s. After we talked awhile, we felt like sisters. We shared the bond of our communion, respect, and love for animals. We were both self-trained in animal communication, had the same last name, origins in the Midwest, and are close in age. While we have never met in person, I have felt a strong personal connection with Jacquelin and the fine quality of her work since I first connected with her.

Jacquelin grew up with dogs, alligators, turtles, snakes, and a friendly black crow. As a child, she experienced the unconditional love which animals so freely give us and felt the same love from trees and flowers. As a young woman, she wanted to be a veterinarian, but was told that girls can't enter that field.

Like many of us, the intuitive abilities she had as a child were not encouraged, and so they went underground for a number of years. Her intuitive abilities began to open more freely when she left home at seventeen and attended college.

Jacquelin began studying animal life and behavior in 1972. After receiving her B.A. degree, she worked as a licensed animal technician and dog trainer.


Near Death Experience
1977 was a pivotal year in Jacquelin’s life. She suffered a serious car accident and had a near death experience. Knocked unconscious in the car, she hovered as a spirit above her body. Many light beings surrounded Jacquelin, told her that it wasn't time for her to go home, and directed her back to her physical body.

This experience completely shifted Jacquelin’s path. After that, she could no longer work as an animal technician and she spent many months recovering from the accident.

While Jacquelin had a deep interest in metaphysics since she was eighteen years old, she now began to study it seriously in order to help herself heal. Many of her intuitive abilities then blossomed.

This near death experience opened Jacquelin in a bigger way to her psychic abilities and placed her on the path of working intuitively with people and animals. Several years later, she began offering psychic consulting services to people concerning personal issues.

Taught by the Animals
Jacquelin wondered how she could combine her love for animals with her intuitive abilities. She reasoned that if telepathic communication can exist person-to-person, why not person-to-animal and animal-to-person? At that time she wasn't aware of anyone doing this work or of any books in print about communicating with animals. So, she decided to visit a zoo with a friend.

Sitting by a gorilla exhibit, Jacquelin asked the gorilla to tell her something about himself. Immediately, she received images from the gorilla as if she was watching a movie. She saw a young gorilla in the wild romping with other gorillas. Then she saw his mother being killed. Then she saw him in a small cage and felt a rocking sensation in her own body.

The friend who accompanied Jacquelin that day worked at the zoo. Jacquelin asked him to find out about the background of the gorilla she communicated with. He told her that the gorilla had, in fact, been wild caught and was shipped to the zoo in a crate via a ship.

After this first experience, Jacquelin was off and running. She now knew nonverbal communication was real. So she started communicating with many animals of various species including cats, dogs, birds, dolphins, whales, bats, snakes, and lizards. The more she communicated with animals and other living forms, the more she knew that this was her passion and purpose.

Jacquelin realized that she had been communicating with animals when she was very young, but that those unsupported abilities had been shut off.

The animals taught her how to communicate with them. Then, they taught her how to teach other humans to listen to what they had to share. It was only after learning to trust her own animal communications that she found J. Allen Boone's book, Kinship with All Life, which validated what she had been developing for years.

Jacquelin offered professional animal consultations in 1979. Then she began giving animal communication workshops and lectures. At that time she was also working at a university office. Later that year, she took the big leap and began to work full time as an animal communicator.

Soul Recovery Specialty
Most of Jacquelin’s work is done over the phone, but she also has an office to see animals in person. While doing many consultations for behavior issues, animals in spirit, physical challenges, past lives, and tracking lost animals, some people consider her work with soul recovery unique.

Jacquelin perceives that when an animal experiences trauma, the animal can fracture energetically. When this happens, she gathers the “pieces” of an animal's soul or energy bodies that have fragmented due to trauma. Then she integrates the parts into their proper place so that the animal's mind, body, emotions, and soul are once again aligned and whole. Clients have witnessed wonderful and often immediate changes after she does this work.

Jacquelin combines traditional and holistic ways in resolving animals’ issues to get the best practical results. She uses Bach Flower Remedies, Tellington TTouch, Healing Hands™ Chakra and DNA balancing, and Soul Recovery Work. After communicating with the animal, she offers people suggestions and steps they can take to work toward resolving issues with their animals. Sometimes, she counsels people about how to better deal with their own attitudes and emotions that are involved with their animals' behavior. For example:

Tom called and asked if Jacquelin could communicate with his dog Roz about separation anxiety. Roz didn't want to let Tom out of her sight. Jacquelin found that Roz was dealing with big abandonment issues from puppyhood. She told Tom that Roz’ fear and anxiety level was very high whenever he left the house.

Jacquelin could also see that Roz’ energy bodies were misaligned and that she was fractured due to the trauma she had experienced. Roz had been in three different homes by the age of four. She had also been abused by several people.

Jacquelin communicated to Roz that this was going to be her home for the rest of her life, along with a number of other positive statements. She offered Tom practical ways to work with Roz on the physical level to desensitize the separation anxiety.

She also suggested that Tom use some Bach Flowers and Tellington TTouch to de-stress the dog and help shift her attitudes and energies. Jacquelin did soul recovery, which helped Roz to regain her wholeness and function in a more grounded, centered way.

Several weeks later, Tom let Jacquelin know that Roz was much more present and grounded. Her eyes were bright and she seemed much calmer and happier. Tom was able to leave the house most of the time without Roz freaking out.

Memorable Consultations
Jacquelin’s love for her work shows in this sample of experiences from her animal communication practice.

Carol called me about her dog, Java, who had a separation anxiety problem. Also one of his eyes was crossed. Java had been through severe trauma and had fragmented, so I did a soul recovery session with him. Literally, a minute or so after the first session, Carol squealed, "Java’s eyes are bright and normal now."

After completing the final session, Carol told me Java was a different dog. He was friendlier, confident and his bark was fuller. The separation anxiety was practically gone. It was heartwarming to see him whole and happy again.

Jane called me about a situation with her boyfriend and dog. "I've been dating Jim for about a year," Jane said. "He and my dog, Mindy, get along great. In fact, she often sits on Jim's lap. The other night at my house, Jim and I had a big disagreement. I was mad and didn't talk to him for awhile. Jim stood up to go get something in the kitchen, and twice Mindy tried to bite him. What's going on?”

I suggested to Jane that she sit down and talk with Jim to clear the air. I told her that Mindy was picking up her bottled-up feelings toward Jim.

Jane sat down and talked with Jim about what she was feeling. Within a short time, Mindy leaped onto Jim's lap, licked his face, and curled up into a ball to go to sleep.

Annette called me to communicate with her cat, Karl, who had just died while having his teeth cleaned. Karl communicated through me to Annette,

"I decided to leave the body now so I wouldn't have to suffer in a different way later on. We have experienced many lifetimes together. Because my death was sudden, I didn't know I had left my body for several days. My death was fast and painless. I jumped out of my body and onto the floor. Remember my bright eyes, for this will help us connect. If you think a thought to me, I will hear you. I am sending bushels of love. I leave you with the image of a multi-faceted diamond which reflects light in all its aspects.”

As I spoke this last sentence about the diamond, Annette started sobbing. Then she said, "All this is incredible. No one in the world knew about this, but before I buried Karl in a wooden box, I laid a diamond earring between his paws!”

Mary asked me if I could communicate with her new dog, Clara, whom she had brought home several days before contacting me. Mary already had another dog, Sandy, in the household. Clara was grabbing Sandy by the neck.

I communicated with Clara and explained to her that it was okay to feel scared in this new setting, but that it was not okay to grab Sandy. I told Clara that Sandy had been in this household for many years and was the head dog. I asked Clara to treat Sandy with respect and gave Mary practical ways to work with Clara.

Several days later Mary called and said it was like a miracle. Clara had listened to what I had communicated. She was now settling in and had stopped grabbing Sandy.

Sue called and asked me to communicate with her cat, Ming, who had transitioned into the light a few nights before. Ming said, I'll be back in six months and this time I'll be taking on the body of a little dog. Tell my person she'll find me in a place she wouldn't ordinarily go, and that I'll have a white star on my forehead. She'll know me when she looks into my eyes. We still have lessons to learn from lives we've shared.”

Sue doesn't usually go into pet stores. But six months later she happened to swing into one and was looking around, and there was a little dog with a white star on her forehead. Sue called me and said, "When I looked into her eyes, I knew it was Ming."

Nancy called to ask me why her dog, Leah, would limp for several days after having stayed with her mother. Whenever Nancy left town, a few days every month, Leah stayed with Nancy's mother. Nancy told me she had Mindy checked out by her veterinarian.

When I communicated with Leah, she showed me a picture of herself following Nancy's mother around, who walks with a limp. Leah was picking up on Mom's energy patterns.

Jacquelin‘s book, Animal Communication—Our Sacred Connection, is filled with the rich insights of her long and fruitful career in animal communication.