Meet pet psychic Marla Steele
You've heard of palm readers. You've heard of those who claim they can
contact your loved ones after they've passed away. Well, hold on to your
leash because you're about to take a walk on the wild side with pet
psychic Marla Steele.
A self-proclaimed pet psychic, Steele grew up in Scottsdale and now
travels between Arizona and California.
PETsMART believes in Steele enough to bring her into its Valley stores,
where a $20 donation to charity gets pet owners a reading with "The
Animal Communicator." One recent Saturday appearance drew dozens of pets
and their parents. (Or is that dozens of people and their pets?)
With her hands on Jovi, a Great Dane, Steele tells his owner, "He's
asking for a bit of adjustment and massage ... ."
The family of an arthritic beagle all began nodding when Steele, with no
prompting, told them, "The other thing he's showing me is him pulling
himself along with his front end."
Then there's Pam Heule, who wanted to know why little Chloe, a Yorkshire
terrier, is so nervous. During the reading, Steel said, "When she was a
baby, I'm getting something about her being dropped and falling. So, I
don't know if you know about that, but that has a little to do with why
she's a little bit nervous."
As it turns out, Steele hit the nail right on the head.
"Yes!" exclaimed Heule. "She fell and broke all four metacarpals and
dislocated her shoulder."
Heule was stunned.
"I don't know this lady," she said of Steele. "I've never spoken to her.
How would she know that? That was bizarre right there. I just called
this morning for an appointment."
And Steele doesn't just work with dogs. We took her to a home in North
Scottsdale where Kiki Cavuoto fosters injured and sick animals.
About Stella, a parrot who plucks the feathers off her chest, Steele
said, "The other home where she was living was really neurotic, she
says, and she's feeding off the energy of the people in the house."
As for Dragon the snake, "She'd like to cruise around on the floor,"
Steel said. "I get an image, I don't know if you let her do this, but I
get an image of her going around in the grooves of the tile."
Then there's the mother cat abandoned with her four kittens. "She's
bummed she can't teach them to hunt," Steele said. "They're not ready to
eat that food yet, but that's something that she'd like to be able to do
is hunt and show them how to hunt."
Steele says she "tunes in" to each animal's energy, and she's sure the
thoughts, emotions and words come from the animals, themselves.
"Once I've connected with them, I'm not sure how information's gonna
come," she explained. "I may see a picture. I may hear a certain word or
phrase.
"Usually what happens, I feel pain in my body where they're having pain.
I'll be talking and all of a sudden I'm not even aware of it, my hand
will go like this," she says as she rubs her side "and all of a sudden,
I realize I'm rubbing myself and 'Oh!' I feel pain, the animal feels
pain here -- it just happens so fast."
Steele said she's had the ability to communication with animals for
years and believes we all have the ability to talk to animals.
"We all talk to our pets all the time," she said. "You know most of us
talk like they're our children. But actually hearing their thoughts,
that's what I do. I just kind of bridge that communication gap."
Pet owners are certainly believers. Today at 10 p.m., a professional
skeptic, Mike Stackpole, weighs in on what he says are the secrets of
the psychics and gives us his take on "The Animal Communicator."
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