Cats tell fibs and dogs are too polite

They can be so insistent on telling him something that they keep him awake at night, he says, tears of laughter rolling down his cheeks.

The 70-year-old has been visiting New Zealand from the United States since 1989, mostly talking to horses, but also lost dogs and a cat or two, although he prefers not to deal with felines.

Horses are his favourite because they are straight talkers. Dogs can be too politically correct because they do not like to hurt people's feelings, while cats are fibbers and will say anything to get their way.

"I don't talk to plants because I don't have the patience," he says.

All animals speak to him in English no matter what country they are in, and have distinctive voices, he claims.

"They wake me up a lot in the middle of the night to tell me I missed something (during an examination). It's terrible. They keep me up until I get up and write it down," he says.

A plastic horse, kidneys and bladder included, sits on the living-room table of the Rolleston house where he is staying with an old friend.

He uses it to examine horses all over the world by phone and find out what ails them.

Sometimes it is something physical like a sore foot or a stomach ulcer, but other times they are unhappy with their jockey or with the horse sharing its field.

He says he has examined up to 400 horses over the past year, charging about $90 per animal or about $275 an hour.

Brought up in Virginia, he lives most of the year in the United States but has found a second home in New Zealand, where he has built up a stable of regular clients.

By using instruments such as a pendulum or divining rods, he claims to be able to find water, move underground streams and detect negative energy lines.

An American Indian taught him how to look through an animal's eyes- a skill that allows him to check a horse's vision and find lost pets, he says.

"Most people are very sceptical at first and they should be. It really is something that's difficult to believe until you see it."

Northern says one of the most interesting conversations he has had with animals was in the Phoenix Zoo, where he chatted to a couple of elephants.

One of them had inexplicably started to be very wary of people. When he asked what was wrong, it transpired the elephant was angry at its keepers for taking away her "red stuff". The keepers had recently stopped her daily supply of watermelon thinking the elephant did not like it, but she had been "hoarding the stuff" and wanted it back, he says.

Northern has passed on his skills to others around the South Island, including the son of Rolleston horse-owner Michael Ward.

Craig Ward, 22, says he never believed it was true until a conversation Northern had with his father while he was in the US.

He told the family their horse that was racing in Australia had colic, and when they rang to check, it turned out to be true.

"I was a sceptic, I don't deny that. It's all crazy stuff, but it has worked," he says. "We have told the vets, but they don't believe. They don't want to know."

North Canterbury veterinarian Annabel Smith said she had never met an "animal communicator", but did know people who seemed to have a special rapport or bond with animals.

- © Fairfax NZ News