What Is My Dog Really Trying to Tell Me About Food?
What comes through in a session isn't the final word — it's an invitation to look closer.
The very first question I ever asked my dog, back when I was just beginning to study animal communication, was what was his favorite food.
The answer arrived like a cartoon. Dog bowls, stacking up, one after another, faster than I could count them. I laughed out loud. Of course. That was Stanley. Lots!
In the moment, it was funny and delightful. Afterward, though, I was a little disappointed, not getting a more clear-cut answer. But what I'd actually stumbled into wasn't an answer about food at all — it was the start of a relationship. Listening to him. Listening to what I sensed, setting it against what I knew, sitting with it before any of it made sense.
I get some version of the food question more than others during an animal communication session: what should my dog eat? What does my cat want? They're picky. They've stopped eating. Underneath all of it: I just want them to have the best possible life. As an animal communicator, it sounds like the simplest question I get asked. It's rarely simple, and sometimes not about the food.
Discernment
Over Stanley's seventeen years, I became something of an expert on dog food, whether I wanted to or not — food allergies, colitis, pancreatitis, HGE. Standard grocery store kibble that caused gas that would clear a room. Prescription diets that coincided with colitis and seizures. Grain-free kibble cooked at the right temperature to avoid toxins. Then grain-free and raw nuggets, which he did beautifully on for years. Until he didn't. I didn't have the answer, but I was committed to his well-being — I just needed to search and try. I could have written a book, or been a contributor to Dog Food Advisor. Or, if only then I'd known about animal communication.
But all of that research, all that trial and error, has to get set aside every time I sit down with another animal. What worked for him won't necessarily work for someone else's — every animal's needs are their own. It doesn't turn off on its own, though. And if I'm honest, this particular question hits differently than most. It's the one place where my own history is standing right there in the room with me. I feel it arrive. Some sessions, I have to work to make sure that charge doesn't answer the question for me.
This is the part of the work that's called discernment: sitting with what I know and what I sense, long enough to tell which parts are mine and which parts are theirs. As an animal communicator, when the line gets blurry, I let you know.
A Thread to Pull
When I ask an animal what food they like, the answer isn't always direct — sometimes they don't know, and the answer may require you to explore, too.
A client once told me her senior dog had ongoing diarrhea. What came through, clearly, was beef. She was skeptical — his food didn't have beef in it, and she practiced holistic medicine herself. I sensed it, but let it go. Later, she realized the treats she'd been giving him all along did have beef. She removed them. The digestive upset stopped.
I didn't hand her a diagnosis. I handed her a thread to pull. She's the one who found where it led.
Even the communication that feels clear isn't always the full picture. In a different session, a dog's owner wanted me to ask what he wanted to eat — he was being picky. She also mentioned he'd had ongoing ear and skin irritation, almost in passing. She hadn't connected the two. When I asked about his food, chicken lit up. She confirmed he ate chicken. My first instinct was to wonder — does he like chicken, or is chicken the problem? On its own, the impression could have meant either. It only became useful once I set it next to what she'd just told me: the itching, the recurring ear infections. Together, they pointed to a thread worth pulling. Alone, either piece could have misled me.
And sometimes the question isn't really about food at all. A kitten, new to her home, wasn't drinking from her water fountain. Her owner wanted to know why. What came through wasn't about thirst or preference — she saw the fountain as a toy. She hadn't been in her environment long enough yet to understand it as something else. No amount of asking why she wasn't drinking would have found that. It was what she was still making sense of.
What the Nutritionist Couldn't Hear
There's one thing I'll say plainly here, for anyone navigating food issues with their animal — allergies, senior wellbeing, or other concern. Not as something that came through in a session, but as something I know from experience — get a pet nutritionist. It was the single best investment I made in Stanley's quality of life in his senior years. I wish it had come to me sooner — it made a noticeable difference in him.
My vet was the one who suggested it, and I valued her honesty — she told me plainly this wasn't her area of expertise either. We were going to learn it together, as a team. When the nutritionist gave me Stanley's first recipe built around his history, it included grains. I asked them both directly: you understand he's been grain-free for over ten years? Are you genuinely comfortable with this? They both said yes. Even though it went against everything I thought I knew, I felt I could trust that.
I started cooking his meals myself, following what the nutritionist had given us. My kitchen looked like a small storm had passed through it — every counter covered in pots and measuring cups. It took a while to find a rhythm: the right quantities, a technique that didn't take all afternoon. I used ice cube trays sized for his nuggets, and started freezing them in batches, so I always had a backup on hand. If someone else was watching Stanley, they knew there was food waiting in the freezer.
For a while, it worked. His symptoms started to ease. Then, one day, another bout of colitis.
That was the moment I had to sit down and really listen. Not from years immersed in the question of what to feed him. Not from what someone else said. As a clairvoyant. I kept returning to the barley. That's the whole tension in this work: what I know versus what I sense. That day, I trusted it. After I removed the barley, the colitis stopped, and Stanley had the best possible life he could have.
What They Need From You
Another dog's owner brought up the food question. Her dog had ongoing itching — a thread worth pulling on its own. But the more interesting part came when I asked what he liked. He said he didn't have a preference — he liked it when she changed his food. It meant she was paying attention to him. That led to learning she hadn't changed his food in a while, potentially contributing to the issue. He also wanted to be noticed.
That's the thing I hear most from animals, in one form or another: just being present with them. Connection with you is what they are here for — and food is often where it shows up. I asked another dog once what his favorite time of day was with his person. Immediately: when she's standing at the counter eating a sandwich. It wasn't really about the food. It was her talking to him and that she was there.
Cooking for Stanley became a ritual during his last year. Every week, he was right there beside me the whole time, waiting, licking the bowl clean when I was done. Some weeks, when I wasn't fast enough, he'd scratch his paw against the freezer door, asking for more before I'd even finished. That time spent cooking became its own kind of bonding, one I didn't expect. Looking back, it became one of many favorite memories worth keeping — me, giving him exactly what he loved most in this life, in the years I had left with him.
Love. Lots of food.
If you've been sitting with a food question of your own, I'd be glad to listen for what your animal has to say. Book a session.
Lesley Ames is a certified animal communicator, pet psychic and psychic medium based in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. She volunteers at her local animal shelter and works with living animals, animals who have passed, and the people who love them. You can find her at lesleyames.com.