Dog daze

Bandit, our winsome, butterscotch-colored golden retriever, is like a lot of men I know: not very complicated and utterly focused on meeting his basic needs.

In Bandit’s case, this means eating as often as he can and getting his tummy rubbed even more frequently. (This, too, could apply to several men I know.)

But often things are not what they seem on the surface. Could more be going on in that perfectly formed, but fairly empty, head of Bandit’s? If he could talk–I wondered like millions of other dog lovers–would he say more to me than Move your rump, I’m falling off the bed here. And while you’re at it, how about rubbing that spot near my hindquarters?

Did Bandit have a richly textured, emotional landscape to which I was simply not privy?

There was, I soon discovered, a way to find out what Bandit was thinking. Dr. Richard Berman–a specialty advertiser by trade, a parapsychologist by calling–bills himself as Dallas’ Dr. Doolittle, a clairvoyant who specializes in animal psychic communication.

“There is a distinct and continuing communication between animals and their environment, including their masters,” Berman says in his promotional material. “In my sessions, animals talk about their likes and dislikes, about their surroundings, and about their master’s life and his or her family.”

Berman claims animals are even easier to read than people for him. “Animals don’t throw up blocks the way people do,” he says.

A few weeks ago, Berman gave a demonstration of his powers. He invited the public to bring their pets to Lotus Books and Gems in North Dallas, where he would conduct 10-minute sessions at $10 a pop.

I asked Bandit if he would be interested in going. I think what I heard him say was Sure, as long as I can get something to eat there.

About a dozen pets and their masters–dogs, cats and a very nasty bird–showed up to undergo one of Richard Berman’s sessions. As each pet took his turn, the rest of us patiently sat on couches in the bookstore’s back room, a serene space carpeted in blue with a white parachute tenting the ceiling, giving it the look and feel of a sultan’s seraglio.

Bandit’s turn soon came. “Look–he’s smiling, he likes me,” says Dr. Berman, an owlish-looking, elderly gentleman who was wearing two hearing aids and a herringbone sports jacket. (I didn’t want to burst his bubble; Bandit likes everyone.)

But before long, I learned I was in trouble. Bandit apparently had long-smoldering issues to discuss with the dog shrink. Big issues. What looked like the usual Bandit panting to me was apparently my dog opening up, getting in touch with his inner puppy, and spilling his guts to the doctor. (Fortunately, the morning’s Kibbles-and-Bits stayed in place.)

Pant, pant, pant.
“He’s talking about the other pet,” explains Dr. Berman, who, I swear, had gotten no hint from me we had other animals in the house.

Pant, pant, pant.
“He says he’s a little jealous.”
Pant, pant, pant, pant.

“He says the other pet is not a dog and he doesn’t know what you see in him.”

Bandit was talking about J.B., the rat. And frankly, I don’t know what we see in him either. The rat belongs to our daughter, but the pet shop people encouraged us to bond with him, so we all take turns holding him on occasion, apparently putting Bandit on an emotional rollercoaster.

How could we have known Bandit suffered from sibling rivalry that was scarring his fragile psyche? But what to do? We couldn’t get rid of the rat or our daughter would have fits–fits, I might add, that we would hear without the intervention of a parapsychologist. And repairing my daughter’s equally fragile psyche no doubt would cost more than $10 a session.

Dr. Berman said we needed to spend more time together. He suggested enrolling Bandit in a training course, in which I would participate as well. It would bring us closer together. Dr. Berman recommended a friend of his.

But Bandit wasn’t done dissing us. He complained that we don’t give him enough exercise. He wants to run free, catch a Frisbee, and swim, Berman says. “He likes to jump,” Berman says. “And he wouldn’t mind getting in the water in the right weather.”

Then the counseling turned to Bandit’s diet and his health. Bandit wants to get off the grocery store-bought stuff, Dr. Berman said. I explain that Bandit’s been a diet, because he had porked out recently. Then we found out he had a thyroid condition, and he has been on medication ever since.

Dr. Berman shook his head sadly. Dogs, like humans, don’t need drugs as much as we think. He suggests I take Bandit to see a holistic veterinarian who will treat him homeopathically.

I broach the next subject with Berman gingerly.
“We had Bandit neutered several years ago,” I say. “Has he forgiven us yet?”
“Oh, he says he doesn’t miss them,” Berman assures me.

But the question does give Bandit an opportunity to turn the discussion to issues related to me. Dr. Berman says Bandit is telling him that I have too many projects in my life and I need to pace myself. He suggests that I get to the water, and also that I might want to visit another friend, a naturopathic doctor, who will balance my body out.

“Sure, doc,” I think to myself, “right after Bandit and I are finished with the obedience course, and I return from the holistic vet.”

In between sessions, Dr. Berman tells me a little about himself. He first realized his paranormal abilities–his talents run the gamut, from reading minds and analyzing handwriting in any language to reading photographs–in 1960, soon after he became a Mason, he says. A woman, who noticed his Masonic pin, brought him a book on metaphysics. “I realized she was a messenger,” he says.

A few years later, he realized he had a particular connection with animals and they with him. He was suffering from a sore arm one day when his English bull labrador opened the door to his bedroom and lay his paw right on the sore spot and–voila, he was healed.

Since then, Berman has traveled extensively here and abroad, lecturing and doing seminars and private sessions. He says he co-founded the Texas Parapsychology Association and served as its first president.

Berman couldn’t dwell on himself too long. His patients were getting restless. He talked to Angel the cat, who told Berman she wanted another cat in the house, and to Bubbles the yorkie, who was worried about her owner’s self-esteem.

Then there was Coco-Germain, the severe macaw who bites. Her owner, Rebecca Overall, wanted to know why Coco was so mean.

“I feel it’s a relationship; somebody in your life is making you unhappy,” Berman says.

“That’s not what Coco told me,” says Rebecca, “but it’s true.”
“This person doesn’t want to come up to your spiritual level, and Coco feels this,” Berman continues.

Rebecca says she thought Coco had already made the reason she was cranky clear. Rebecca had originally picked out another bird as a pet, but the shop pulled a bait and switch and gave her Coco instead.

“She told me she’s upset, because she was not the chosen one,” says Rebecca.
Berman says the cause of Coco’s untoward behavior may be a combination of factors. He instructs Rebecca just to tell Coco to “get this nonsense out of your head.”

I left, Bandit in tow, wondering whether there was a larger message here. I think so. Be careful what you ask for. Your pet, if he knows Dr. Berman, might just tell you.