Animal Communication: Is It Hype, or a Legitimate Side Hustle?

To learn how animal communication sessions typically work—particularly when they’re conducted remotely—Side Hustles spoke with Ottawa-based animal communicator Jennifer Stannard, who balances her practice with her full-time role as a Health and Safety Advisor at Indigenous Services Canada, and Lindsey Latham, a full-time remote animal communicator based in North Carolina.

Stannard’s approach

For Stannard, a typical session begins well before logging on to a video call. About 30 minutes before each session, Stannard said she mentally reaches out and “connects” with the animal to introduce herself, outline the owner’s questions, and invite the animal to share whatever it chooses.

Once on the actual call, Stannard relays what she believes the pet told her to the client to initiate what she characterized as a three-way discussion. Afterward, she may recommend holistic steps, such as energy alignment, as a complementary addition to veterinary care.

Latham’s approach

Latham views herself as a real-time interpreter for pets and owners. Before a session, she asks for a photo of the pet to establish a connection.

Latham considers Reiki—an alternative form of energy healing—the foundation of her practice. She uses the technique to create what she describes as a protective, healing space for both herself and the animal.

Latham said she communicates primarily through clairaudience, which she defines as intuitive messages translated into auditory thoughts, and told us she hears animals respond telepathically in English.

During sessions, Latham says she relays each client’s questions to the pet and translates their responses on the fly. She also provides full session recordings so that clients—especially those connecting with a deceased pet—can process their emotions at their own pace.

Stannard currently charges $88 for a 30-minute session, while Latham charges $220 for a 30- to 40-minute session. That’s on the higher end of US market rates.

Both scale their rates for longer appointments and have separate pricing for other holistic services.

For comparison, below are the “standard” (average) animal communication rates in 2026 in the US, as reported by PetWorks: 1

• 30–45 minute session: $75–$125
• 60-minute session: $100–$175
• Extended or multi-pet sessions: $150–$250

Stannard said that communicators should set their initial rates based on their experience, training, and range of services. As they gain experience, they should periodically review and adjust their rates.

Latham offered another perspective and advised against looking at competitors’ pricing. She told us she believes a communicator’s rates should be tied strictly to the emotional labor involved in their work.

She actually considers looking at other practitioners’ pricing unethical, arguing that an authentic, intuitive practice shouldn’t be measured against someone else’s. This approach is fairly unusual in the gig economy, in which pricing often relies on market research.

Instead, Latham advises aspiring communicators to start with low rates while honing their skills and building experience. She started by offering $1 readings and $25 lost-pet support services on Etsy before gradually increasing her fees as her track record and number of client reviews grew.

Where do animal communicators find clients?

Latham told us she relies almost entirely on established third-party platforms, such as PetWorks, to connect with prospective clients.

She explained that while these usually charge service fees, they offer verified reviews and social proof, which is essential for dealing with the intense public scrutiny and skepticism that surrounds her line of work.

Newcomers also often use social media platforms to gain visibility and establish an audience, Stannard told us. Once you start generating revenue, you can then reinvest your earnings into your own website or other paid marketing tools.

Not everyone believes that animal communication is a legitimate field, but those who do feel very strongly about it. Both Stannard and Latham told us that animal communication is a universal human capacity that anyone can cultivate through practice, not an exclusive talent reserved for a select few.

“Everyone is capable of doing this,” Latham said. However, she added that aspiring communicators need to be willing to do the inner work necessary to quiet the conscious mind and access intuitive information.

Stannard agreed. She told us that turning your innate potential into a professional service requires “extensive practice” that goes beyond taking a quick introductory course.

She said that it takes time for aspiring practitioners to master navigating ethical boundaries, respecting animal consent, and adapting to the different ways she believes animals convey information—whether that’s through verbal telepathy, mental images, raw emotions, or a “direct sense of knowing.”

How Stannard and Latham got started

Stannard told us she’s had a lifelong connection with animals, but didn’t notice it until 2015 when she sensed her missing cat.

In the following years, she studied energy healing methods (including Integrated Energy Therapy), attending spiritual events, taking channeling courses, and obtaining an animal communication certification from Udemy.

She said that while these approaches provided knowledge and structure, most of her skills were self-taught and built through hands-on practice.

Latham, who has a background as a human psychic and transitioned into animal work when her mother asked her to speak with her aging horses, also said that gaining real-world experience is much more effective than taking formal courses.

“You are always going to be your best teacher,” Latham said. She added that newcomers should be wary of anyone trying to sell specialized animal communication certifications or licenses because formal credentials, in her opinion, aren’t needed in this industry.

Animal communication is controversial, and the mainstream scientific position is that there’s no evidence human beings and animals can have any kind of psychic connection.

“From a scientific perspective, nothing is actually happening that can legitimately be called psychic or telepathic,” Dr. Brennen McKenzie, a veterinarian with 25 years of clinical experience, told Side Hustles.

McKenzie went on to note that decades of research into psychic phenomena have found no evidence that they are real. This matches the conclusion of a research analysis published by McGill University’s Office for Science and Society.

Marjie Alonso, former executive director of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC), concurred. “While we understand that belief-based practices inspire passion and conviction in some people, there is no scientifically verified evidence that these methods are based on anything more than faith,” she told The Guardian.

Why people believe animal communication works

While the scientific community is set against the existence of telepathic animal communication, there is clearly enough consumer demand for it to support a market. Often, people get convinced when practitioners reveal specific details about a pet that seem nearly impossible to guess.

Like many people, Mandy Chen, owner of Doji, a Formosan Mountain Dog, and Flower and Jumpy, two orange short-haired cats, had her doubts when she first heard of the service.

Back in 2021, Chen came across a YouTube video raving about an animal communicator named Naya, which prompted her to look into that practitioner’s work. Upon reading many positive online reviews, Chen decided to book a session to see what the fuss was all about.

In Chen’s first session (which was held over a video call), Naya reportedly said that Jumpy told her he was having trouble peeing. As it turned out, Jumpy had, in fact, recently been seen by a vet for a urethral obstruction.

Chen told us she hadn’t disclosed any of this information beforehand. Naya’s only request for her was to provide recent front-facing photos of her pets, and to tell the animals the day before that someone would be speaking with them.

The mainstream scientific explanation for animal communication

According to McKenzie, what happens in these sessions is “often a combination of psychological experiences and biases.”

Like human psychics, animal communicators may use techniques called cold reading and hot reading, he said.

• Cold reading: According to McKenzie, this is when someone “fishes for information using a series of guesses and vague statements” to create the impression that they possess psychic abilities. Clients tend to ignore wrong guesses and focus on correct ones. This is known as confirmation bias.
• Hot reading: This happens when someone gathers information about a client ahead of time and presents it during the session as if it were a psychic revelation, McKenzie said. Photos, for instance, can offer clues for interpretation, such as the pet’s breed, age, or physical condition. 2

We asked Chen if there was anything Naya said that felt inaccurate, and she told us the only thing she remembered was that some supposedly agreed-upon behavioral improvements didn’t materialize.

For example, when discussing Flower’s resistance to nail trims, Naya relayed a compromise from the cat: trim one claw at a time in exchange for a treat.

Flower played along once before refusing to cooperate again.

A similar agreement with Jumpy regarding balcony safety fell flat. Despite Naya reporting that Jumpy promised to stay off the railing, he leaped onto it the moment he was let outside.

In McKenzie’s view, offering animal communication services is unethical, period.

“It’s simply wrong to mislead people, whether through deliberate lying or your own delusions,” he said, adding that it’s wrong to charge clients for a service claiming to speak for animals whose interests “should be represented honestly.”

According to McKenzie, owners sometimes weigh their communicator’s claims about a pet’s health preferences more heavily than veterinary guidance, which can be dangerous.

He told us he has seen owners hesitate to euthanize pets who are clearly suffering because a communicator said their pet wants to keep fighting. “This only makes the decision harder and prolongs the animal’s suffering,” he said.

Conversely, he’s also seen owners decide to euthanize pets with curable medical conditions because a communicator told them their pet is “ready to go.”

Moreover, pet owners experiencing anticipatory grief or mourning a loss are particularly vulnerable. McKenzie emphasized that communicators aren’t qualified psychologists or grief counselors and said they could do psychological damage to clients “regardless of their intentions or beliefs.”

How animal communicators can act ethically

Stannard agreed with McKenzie that communicators should never intervene in medical decisions. “We don’t diagnose illnesses or overstep into veterinary or behavioral roles,” she said.

Latham told us she does address pet behavioral issues, but draws a strict line at offering actual medical advice. “Clients don’t come to me to diagnose medical problems,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

Stannard added that ethical practitioners never try to push or chase reluctant clients. Rather, she said, they’ll respect where an owner is emotionally and step back if a session isn’t the right fit.

“You’re there to facilitate communication, not to impose your own agenda or prove something,” she said.

Similarly, Latham said she never accepts cases she isn’t confident she can handle, such as locating an animal that’s been missing for years (Latham also offers lost-pet support services).

Latham told us she also draws a firm line against requests driven by malicious intent, such as attempting to use a reading to steal someone else’s pet or settle domestic disputes.

Regardless of whether animal communication actually works—something that animal communicators and veterinary professionals simply aren’t likely to agree on—is it actually possible to make a living as a practitioner?

There’s clearly a market for this type of service. As of August 2026, there were nearly 200 people who billed themselves as animal communicators or pet psychics on PetWorks alone. The most active and successful workers had hundreds of reviews and charged upwards of $100 for their sessions.

That doesn’t mean this side hustle is a way to get rich quick. Although most communicators on PetWorks had at least one customer review, the majority had just a handful (under 10).

In animal communication, just like in more mainstream freelance fields, it takes time and effort to build up a solid client base.

Stannard and Latham’s stories

According to both Stannard and Latham, whether animal communication can support someone depends on how quickly they can build a client base and how much work they can handle.

“There’s a limit to how much emotional and energetic work a practitioner can handle while staying effective,” Stannard said, adding that it takes time to build a client base.

For Stannard, pacing herself has been essential to avoiding burnout. Although she’s approaching retirement from her government job and plans to dedicate more time to animal communication, she told us she’s still careful not to overextend her energy.

As a single mother, Latham said she’s able to rely solely on her practice to support herself and her six-year-old comfortably. However, she agrees it’s important to regulate the amount of work you accept. She can manage at most 3–4 communication sessions per day and no more than 3 lost-pet location reports per week.

“It is energetically exhausting,” Latham said about her practice. “It really is. I wish it wasn’t, but it is.”

Is this a worthwhile side hustle?

Building a sustainable animal communication business, according to practitioners who have been there and done that, depends not just on market demand but also on understanding your own physical and emotional capacity.

As for whether you believe that animal communication works and whether this business is one you’re comfortable getting into, that’s a personal decision. This is a field that practitioners believe passionately in and most mainstream researchers reject; how you feel about that is up to you.