I get good messages from turtles, and warnings. Their pictures are very clear. Doris Straka
Like most businesspeople, Doris Straka trades on her talent, but it is clear she isn’t in it for the money.
“The animals don’t have enough voice,” said the Kirtland resident — and animal communicator — who has travelled far and wide to help a diverse group of critters explain why they do what they do or where they hurt.
Sitting in a screened-in porch by her house on Chardon Road, Straka, in her late 60s, has been communicating with reptiles, birds and mammals since she can first remember.
Cherokee Heritage
Her first conversation was with a turtle when she was 2, but the first time she was able to help a suffering butterfly really sticks in her mind, she said.
“I went inside and told my grandmother the butterfly had a tummy ache,” Straka recalled.
Her Cherokee grandmother poured water and honey in a bottle cap and sent her out to feed the insect. Once it had its fill, it flew away, no longer starving for nectar, she said.
Although the rest of her heritage is Scotch-Irish and English, she said her grandmother recognized her as a “seer,” one who can talk to animals, ghosts and spirits.
Native Americans have more respect for the talent, which Straka believes is natural to many young children.
She describes her communication as telepathic, revolving around mental images she receives from her clients. The connection between Straka and the animals seldom fails her and, if there is a health issue, she is able to advise the animal’s human on what to suggest to the vet, farrier or animal chiropractor.
Northeast Ohio, loaded with pets and horses, is rich with conversation for Straka.
She drives her grasshopper, with “Animal Communicator” on the bug shield, to Northfield Race Track where she helps trainers find out why their racehorses are having issues.
Scared Filly to Champion
Sissy, a two-year-old standardbred filly, is the star in one of her favorite stories.
Tim, a trainer, asked Straka why the young horse was freaking out in the barn aisle, Straka said. Her eyes were huge and she was trembling, obviously scared to death.
“She told me ‘I want to do it so bad and it’s awful!'” she recalls, referring to the horse wanting to race, but hating the process of getting ready.
Finally Straka discovered that, the day before, the trainers — currently lounging on tack trucks and smirking at her– had thrown the high-strung filly to the ground and sat on her head to get the harness on her for the first time.
And they were ready to do it again when the stable’s winning gelding, Homer, went by the barn harnessed to a sulky. Straka saw Sissy’s interest in the other horse.
“Let me try. We can do this,” Straka said. “She really wants to do what Homer’s doing.”
As she calmed Sissy and slowly described the harness and the process to the filly, the crowd faded away.
She and Tim were able to attach the harness, piece by piece, Straka said. Sissy even lowered her head for the headset that Straka told her was an Easter bonnet.
“I just put it on her like it happened every day,” she said, adding Sissy became the most winning trotter in the stable, going on to win the Little Brown Jug in New Jersey, one of the most prestigious races in the U.S.
Tim called Straka on the phone after the race and let Sissy talk to her.
“‘We done it, we done it!'” Sissy communicated Straka.
Straka wasn’t surprised to get a call from a horse — she first discovered she could help animals, long-distance, when she was 14, she said.
A Turtle’s POV
Seeing the world from a turtle’s point of view is common for Straka, who claims the turtle as her totem animal.
From her first reassuring message from a large snapping turtle when she was 2 to present day memos from her rescued box turtle, she has found it is a bad idea to ignore the turtle-sent images.
“I get good messages from turtles and warnings. Their pictures are very clear,” Straka said.
She collected her resident box turtle, Ida George, out west. Her shell had holes from bird talons and her spine was cracked when Straka scooped her out of the path of oncoming traffic.
Straka told Ida George she needed a vet and the turtle agreed.
“She came home in a Krispy Kreme box,” she recalls, adding she has free range of the house.
Horses and dogs are her most common conversationalists, but she knew a snake named Summer, a feline who believed its name was Damned Cat and a gray Amazon parrot who was suicidal because it needed more cuddling from its new owner.
Then there was the depressed hedgehog sulking in the corner of its aquarium. When called upon to discover why the previously cheerful pet was unhappy, Straka learned from the hedgehog the living room furniture had been rearranged, blocking his view of the television set.
That episode ended happily for all parties, she said.
Sometimes solutions are painful. An animal is so sick or injured it has to be “released” or put down, which is a mercy, Straka said.
“Sadly, many animals are put down for human convenience,” she said.
Finding the Spiritual Chip
Straka counseled re-homing a German shepherd who didn’t totally fulfill its owner’s expectations as a replacement for his predecessor, although he looked the same.
The human called to say he’d come to the end of his tether because he didn’t have the same connection with the new dog.
“We found him a different dog that’s crazy for him,” she recalled, adding the feeling is mutual.
She calls that human-animal connection a “chip.”
“There’s not always that ‘chip,'” she said, where the animal has a chip of the human’s soul and he or she has a chip of the animal’s spirit.
It is a natural, wonderful symbiotic relationship that requires an open mind and heart on both sides.
“You can’t make one do it,” she said.
Straka believes most people are born with the ability to understand, to some degree, animal communication, but lose it to the social norm.
“We have educated ourselves a little bit past it,” she said.
It makes her ability more special and useful to many people and animals.
“It’s a labor of love,” Straka said.
Straka’s phone number in Kirtland is 440-256-1245.
