Why, farmer and entrepreneur Jeff Buckingham wanted to know, was Chester the rescued rooster so hostile to people, when cooperation would win him such praise and affection? I set out to answer that question from the perspective of this beautiful red bird that lives on a San Luis Obispo farm.

I’m an Animal Communication Specialist utilizing telepathic communication to resolve behavioral and emotional problems between animals and humans. Working with this unpredictable and aggressive rooster, I would get the chance to demonstrate for myself one of the principles I teach in my How to Talk to Animals Class at Cuesta College: that animals can surprise you with their messages.

Over several weeks, I communicated respectfully with the regal rooster, asking for his cooperation. He was good for the most part, but there was at least one episode, when he attacked a visitor, that was a real problem. I counseled Chester about how cowardly it was to attack from behind in particular, or when the lady of the house had her arms full of groceries. I let him know these were his caretakers.

Eventually Chester showed that he had been encouraged to fight other birds. He was turned off to people due to painful prodding on his chest with wooden sticks. Chester defined his relationship with humans as combative and thought that’s what people wanted.

The attack on Jeff’s visitor took us to a new level. I counseled Jeff that Chester needed a time-out in a cage to reconsider his behavior and his contract with his new group of humans. Jeff caged the bird for his time-out and I tuned-in to him telepathically, reiterating how we wanted him to behave. But what I sensed was surprising. He felt calm, cool and cared for! He liked the cage and said it meant to him that he was safe, served, and protected. Just to make sure that what I was getting was accurate, I viewed him remotely outside the cage to compare the two feelings; I felt vulnerable, unprotected, and defensive. The comparison between being inside and outside the cage was clear.

Now that Chester felt better, he turned his attention toward the acquisition of a few chicken girlfriends, and Jeff made plans to build him his own coop.

Sometimes when we take our human values, like that of freedom, and put them onto our animal friends, it doesn’t fit. An animal communicator must stay clear and 100% present in order to hear what each animal has to communicate. Usually, what they want, or don’t want, is far clearer than we want to admit. Whether an animal is comfortable in a crate, needs to go outside, be restrained, or any other similar circumstance is an individual matter. It takes tuning into your own intuition or using a helper like an animal communicator to find out what your own animal friends prefer.

Suzan Vaughn is a Pet and People Psychic Counselor specializing in inter-species telepathic communication. She holds a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Communication, and is the author of Dispatches from the Ark: Pages from a Pet Psychic's Notebook. Find out more at www.telepathictalk.com.