MARYAM FARESH
Thursday, 23 February 2017 23:11
Maryam Faresh is an animal communicator and the author of “What about Daisy?” She has also sat on the board of Iran’s first animal rescue organization.
DDD: Tell us a little bit about what you do…
MF: I’m an animal communicator and a psychic so I do psychic readings for people and communicate with animals. I connect with their spirit just as I connect with a human being’s spirit because we all have spirits so they communicate with me just as a person would.
So the dog could be missing, deceased or just in the next room, right?
Yes. It’s funny, though. Missing dogs are harder for me to communicate with sometimes because I’ve found that once they’re lost their fear is so strong that it’s very hard to connect. But if they’re close by and they’re in familiar territory and they’re not too scared then I can communicate with them.
When did you realize you had this psychic ability?
I knew I had this psychic ability as far back as I can remember speaking. I was predicting back at a very young age so it’s all I’ve ever known.
Does one have to be born with this skill or can one harvest it?
I think everyone in their life at one point has said “Ooh, I just got a bad feeling” and then something happened. Or I just had a bad feeling about that person or you have a dream — all of that is psychic ability and it’s like a muscle so the more you work it the stronger it gets.
What are some of your psychic connections with dogs? When you communicate with a dog what do you learn?
I have learned that dogs think, they feel, they express, they notice more than we think they do. They are inquisitive. Because they don’t have ego the way we do there is a sense of absolute unconditional commitment and love but that doesn’t mean that they don’t sometimes get frustrated or need help or feel sad or lonely or all of those things. And so every time I communicate with an animal — as with a human — it’s a completely different experience.
I can tell a lot just from looking at my dog’s eyes. So with some dogs, do you see what they’re thinking through their facial expressions? Or do you hear voices? Or both?
Some psychics will hear voices, some psychics will feel it in their bodies, some psychics will see visions and some of us do all three. And for me I’ve done all three, it depends on the situation. But when I say that we communicate or hear voices – I guess the best way to describe it is when someone whispers in your ear and what you feel – it’s something that is not your own. Like if you’re with someone and they have a tragic loss and you cry with them. You know it’s not your pain, it’s their pain. You cry for them.
How long ago did you get Daisy?
We rescued her at three months old. She’s seven or eight now.
Daisy was born deaf and blind and I love animals but I don’t think I could have done that. What made you decide that you could handle it?
First of all it’s important to know that we rescued Daisy before special needs were kind of in style. Now the special needs dogs on FB are usually the first rescued. I had a premonition so I felt her before we met her. And I had said to my husband, I feel like there’s a dog coming and it’s gonna be a dog that was in really bad shape. I didn’t know if it was emotionally or physically but something was wrong with this dog. I said I could just feel this dog coming to us and that next weekend we went to get our dog Olivia food and there was a sign up with Daisy’s picture and it said “Blind Dog, Possibly Deaf. Needs a Home.” And my husband thought, “Oh crap.” He knew that that was my premonition. But to be honest, what made me feel like we could do it was – at first it may have been ego – thinking I can communicate with animals, so I can do this, right? But I’m also very spirit guided so when I receive a premonition like that it’s my job. If I’m told I need to assist someone, then I need to assist. It’s not something you turn down. And I understand that. The work required was way beyond animal communication, obviously. But there were a few things that were triggered and made me know it was my responsibility to take her on.
Because dogs rely on their noses so much were you able to train her in a specific way with smells?
No. Our first approach was absolute chaos and no one knew how to help and trainers didn’t know. She was pacing, she was circling she was bumping into everything. The first thing we did was baby-proof the house so she wouldn’t get hurt. Then we found a sanctuary that cared for special needs dogs and they said to be careful with Daisy because blind/deaf dogs can become very aggressive if you don’t manage them correctly. Well, that was sort of their warning. And so I started doing research on humans that are deaf/blind and then we had a trainer come in to teach us some basic commands where we taught Dasiy how to sit by pulling up on her collar and how to stay by tapping her nose. But the anxiety and the pacing and the lack of potty training no one could grasp. And it’s funny because you mentioned her nose, and her nose kinda messed us up a lot in the beginning because we would take her outside to go to the bathroom and her scent was obviously so strong and there was so much to smell that the distraction was just off the charts. It took us almost two years to potty train and she’s still not, to be honest, 100%. She’s probably 97%. We found that we had to take her to cement, the same cemented area with no scent so that she could get used to peeing and going to the bathroom there without being distracted. So her scent and nose kinda worked against us, in that respect. And because she was still learning as a puppy she moved towards whatever she smelled. And it wasn’t until many years later that we met Cesar Milan and Cesar showed us how to teach her to not go towards that scent. Just because you smell it doesn’t mean you need to go for it.
How did Cesar teach you to have her not go towards every scent?
Well basically he held food in front of her and when she’d go for it he’d hold her back until she realized “Nope. You don’t go until I say go.”
Do you still have Olivia?
Oh yes. She’s thirteen.
I know that you refer to Olivia as “Daisy’s Seeing-Eye Dog”. How does she assist Daisy?
Well Daisy right out of the gate would attached herself to Olivia’s body and follow her through the house. She stays close to Olivia so when she feels Olivia bark she barks with her. She follows Olivia’s lead as far as nervousness, too. If we’re going somewhere new, if Olivia’s excited Daisy responds off of Olivia. When we first walked them at the beginning they were side by side. But now Daisy’s very independent and very confident. Olivia still intercepts other dogs because other dogs don’t always respond well to Daisy.
How does Daisy do if you’re walking her and she comes across a dog she’s never met before?
She gets defensive. She’ll bark right away. If the other dog is very large and calm she’ll eventually come to. She’s only made a couple other friends. Maybe like two friends in her lifetime, besides Olivia. If the other dogs are a little bit nervous or anxious or excitable, forget it. She’ll try and protect herself. So now I cross the street if I see other dogs or I wait for them to pass because I don’t want her to feel out of control.
Have your husband’s psychic abilities increased since you’ve been together?
He might beg to differ but yes. He couldn’t be more opposite than me but definitely his intuition has improved. He doesn’t hear the way I do and see the way I do to that extreme but he now understands it and listens. And I trust it when it comes through.
You sat on the board of Iran’s first rescue organization. How are dogs treated differently in Iran as opposed to America?
There are a lot of Middle Eastern women and men who are incredibly compassionate and understand the beauty of animals in general. But unfortunately it’s very deep-rooted in their culture and religion that dogs are considered dirty. So they don’t help them, they don’t feed them. That’s why the animal shelter is so important and has over 200 dogs because now they have a safe place to go. And there’s more people trying to round these animals up to save them from abuse or being killed unnecessarily or kicked or beaten so they can be put in the sanctuary and just live out their lives.
Thank you, Maryam!
Follow Maryam on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/WhatAboutDaisy/
To book a reading for your pet on her podcast “The Psychic and the Trainer” please email:
To learn more about Daisy and to purchase one of her children’s book please visit her website: (Proceeds donated to rescue organizations)
Official Site: What about Daisy? | The official site of the children’s book What about Daisy?
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