What it means to listen: The pet communicator helping Singaporeans grieve, heal, and bond

Ask any cat owner in Singapore, and they’ll tell you: It’s been hard to read the news lately. In 2024 alone, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) recorded 961 reports of animal cruelty — a 12-year high.

Over 1,300 of the 2,190 animals harmed were cats. This year, the headlines have grown even more harrowing: community cats found disembowelled, their eyes gouged, their bodies discarded in void decks and parks.

A tragic milestone was passed when veterinary and volunteer groups reported yet another cat killed in Punggol in mid‑May, with wounds consistent with deliberate harm. These incidents go beyond isolated heartbreak — they’re a chilling sign that societal detachment from our most vulnerable companions is growing.

Against this unsettling backdrop, Singapore’s animal-welfare defenders — such as the SPCA and Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES) — have intensified their efforts not only in rescue and rehabilitation but also in community outreach and campaigning for stricter penalties. Volunteers patrol HDB estates, feed community cats, and advocate for legislative change.

Yet for many pet owners, the emotional tremors run deeper than policy. They’re left grappling with grief, guilt, and the slow ache of unresolved questions.

Enter Nicole Lai, founder of Paws and Crystals and a professional pet communicator. Her sessions — grounded in empathy, not spectacle — seek to help owners listen more closely to animals still by their side, or find resolution with those they’ve loved and lost.

In a climate where cruelty dominates the headlines, her practice offers something softer: the possibility of deeper human‑animal bonds, tender understanding, and quiet healing.

I’ll admit: I was sceptical. The idea of someone “tuning in” to my cat’s thoughts sounded, at best, poetic — and at worst, performative. But part of me was curious. Not because I believe in animal telepathy, but because I wanted to understand my cat better — something she deserves, and which I owe to myself as her caretaker.

Language beyond words

When I first met Nicole, an ex-veterinarian nurse, there was a gentle presence and a willingness to listen — to both me and Meiji, my almost-four-year-old female cat who’d been caught in ongoing conflict with our two younger cats.

Before our session began, she explained her process: “Animal communication is simply a two-way conversation,” she said. “It’s really nothing more than two new friends coming together for a consensual dialogue.”

She positions her work as intuitive — a skill she believes all sentient beings possess but have simply forgotten. “We’re born with this ability,” she explained. “It’s how infants first communicate with their mothers before language takes over. Animals never lose it — we just do.”

Her sessions begin with grounding: setting aside preconceptions, inviting the animal into her heartspace, and allowing a connection to form. “It’s based on mutual consent,” she says. “I never assume what the animal will say, even if it’s a returning client. Each one deserves to be seen as a blank slate, not a character we’ve written in our heads.”

Nicole had never met Meiji, nor did she know anything beyond her age and physical description. Still, within minutes, she described Meiji’s strained tolerance for her new housemates — one she found “goofy and annoying”, the other merely “tolerable”.

Meiji wasn’t lonely, she said, just tired of waiting her turn for our attention. What she craved wasn’t companionship — it was solitude, and undivided time with her humans.

The insights, while softly delivered, landed with unexpected clarity. Whether or not Nicole was truly relaying Meiji’s words, it was hard to deny that the emotional resonance felt real. And perhaps that, as I was beginning to understand, was where her work held meaning — in giving form to the quiet things we sense but rarely know how to say aloud.

The emotional truth of it

In our session, Nicole asked Meiji just three questions — and somehow managed to sketch out a personality that felt instantly familiar. Meiji, she said, was emotionally observant, slow to trust, and slightly exasperated by the chaos brought on by our younger cats.

“She doesn’t need to be liked by them,” Nicole said. “She’s not craving group playtime. She just wants peace, and one-on-one affection from you.”

It was a gentle affirmation of what we’d long suspected but hadn’t known how to express. Nicole described scenes she claimed were relayed by Meiji: a wooden shelf by a window, sunlight streaming in, and Meiji alone, calm and unbothered.

To this, she promptly clarified that not everything shared in a session is a direct translation. “Messages come in through symbols, feelings, and sometimes imagery,” she explained. “It’s not about being 100 per cent accurate — it’s about being open enough to explore further when something isn’t clear.”

When she receives a message that doesn’t quite land, she checks back in. “I’ll ask the animal to show me again, or express it differently.”

For Nicole, emotional truth often trumps factual certainty. “Everyone has their own perspective — including your pet. What’s real to them might not make sense to us at first,” she said. It’s why she encourages owners to trust their instincts. “Most pet guardians already know what their animals are trying to say. I just help interpret what they’ve already been sensing.”

If you strip away the mechanics — the symbols, the inner knowings, the moments that feel uncanny — what’s left is a woman trying to help people understand the animals they love.

Nicole is clear that she doesn’t claim to have all the answers. “I’m just a facilitator,” she says. “If I don’t know something, I’ll say so. And if someone needs help beyond what I can offer, I’ll refer them to the right professionals. My role isn’t to solve, but to hold space.”

That sense of responsibility becomes especially clear when sessions turn emotional. Many clients come to her carrying guilt or grief — often afraid they’ve done too little, or too much. “Sometimes, they just need someone to tell them they weren’t imagining that connection — that what they felt from their pet was real,” Nicole explains. “I’m not here to validate myself. I’m here to validate them.”

There’s a steadying quality in how she speaks about animals — as sentient beings with their own personalities, values, and preferences. “Before I became a communicator, I used to see them as fur babies. Now, I see them as partners. They reflect so much of who we are — and who we might still become.”

And in doing so, she helps create space for mutual understanding — even when the messages don’t come wrapped in human words.

Learning to listen

Nicole’s work centres around quiet moments of reflection between people and their pets. And in a time where our relationships with animals are increasingly tested, that quietness feels radical.

Her sessions offer something softer: the opportunity to pause, observe, and reframe how we relate to the beings who live alongside us. For pet owners navigating grief, guilt, or change, she opens a door to understanding through presence.

In Meiji’s case, the session didn’t offer any wild revelations. But it gave us something else: clarity. Nicole didn’t tell us what to do. She simply reflected what might be going unsaid; Meiji wasn’t unhappy, but overwhelmed. That she simply wants quiet, undivided time with the people she trusted most.

At one point, Nicole described Meiji as someone who wouldn’t ask loudly for what she needed — who might withdraw, wait, and hope we’d notice. It was, in many ways, a portrait not just of a cat, but of many of us. Hoping to be heard. Unsure how to ask.

Whether or not you believe in animal telepathy, there’s a quiet lesson in what Nicole facilitates — a kind of listening that requires us to slow down, set aside our assumptions, and recognise that communication doesn’t always arrive in words. Sometimes, it’s in the space between them.