Couple Spreads Gospel of Angelic Pets

Maybe it’s the millennium. It seems everywhere you look there are angels--in the movies, on television, atop the bestseller list.

And now a Minneapolis couple says they may show up in lowlier settings--curled at the foot of your bed, perched on your garden fence or digging up the neighbor’s flower beds.

Allen and Linda Anderson, co-founders of a company they named Angel Animals, travel the country to let others know the animals in our lives are here to teach us spiritual lessons.

The Andersons don’t consider themselves animal activists in the usual sense. Getting on a soapbox is not their thing.

But their gentler approach of simply sharing stories of how animals teach their keepers the qualities of unconditional love, gratitude, joy, courage and patience has hit a nerve with pet owners.

“Animals are messengers. They come into people’s lives, they have a spiritual purpose for being there, and so often they’re giving you the message that you’re loved and that miracles are possible,” Linda said.

Sound like New Age fluff?

Not to the many who jam the phones when the Andersons do a radio show, who attend their workshops, visit their Web site or receive their company newsletter, eager to tell their own stories of canine kindness or feline affection.

A sampling of angel animal stories:

Janine Ose of Orlando, Fla., tells how her dog, Mosa, helped her cope with severe back and neck injuries she suffered in a car crash. Mosa “taught herself” to sit behind Ose to support her while she got dressed, and lingered nearby when she showered to help her climb out of the bathtub. Ose says her pets have taught her to “never take anything for granted.”

Judy McLaughlin of Glen Easton, W. Va., credits a bird--an African gray timneh--with helping her find the will to live after she was diagnosed with a condition doctors said would shorten her life span, cripple her, then make her bedridden.

The bird, Coa Coa, had been mistreated by previous owners and at first rejected McLaughlin’s love. But in time it began to trust her, and she found her depression lifting as a result of the interaction.

The experience inspired her to make her home a sanctuary for mistreated birds. She now has 13, among them a baby cockatoo with a deformed leg, a cantankerous blue-fronted Amazon and a cockatiel--all abandoned by previous owners.

Others have reported similar experiences with dozens of different animals, both domestic and wild, said Allen, 44, a former police officer in Atlanta.

“Animals truly help us create better lives for ourselves,” he said. “[People] forget how precious it is to come home and get on the floor and just let all the stress melt away by playing with a beloved dog or cat.”

Lifelong animal lovers, the Andersons came up with the idea of the company while walking their dog two years ago. They coined the name Angel Animals, defining angel as “messenger” from its Greek root.

They began to seek stories of people’s spiritual connection with pets by posting fliers in pet magazines, at pet food stores and on the Internet--and were deluged with them.

“We knew at that point we had to do something special with these stories,” Allen said.

Since then, their message has played on the airwaves and in the press on both sides of the Atlantic, including a feature article in the Sunday Times of London and BBC radio interviews. Their book--”Angel Animals, Exploring Our Spiritual Connection with Animals”--is scheduled for release this year by Dutton-Plume.

The company’s main source of revenue is newsletter subscriptions, $18 a year, and workshop fees of up to $20 or $30 per person, though workshops put on in schools are often free.

The Andersons say their goal is to raise awareness that animals are our spiritual partners in life and to reduce animal cruelty.

“One of the best things I ever hear someone tell me after they read an angel animal story . . . is when they say, ‘I’m looking at my animal companion a little differently now, [with] more respect,’ ” Allen said.

Linda, 52, a former publicist and playwright, attributes the success to a combination of factors, one being Americans’ love affair with pets. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 235 million pets live in 58 million American homes, with owners spending $20 billion a year on them.

The Andersons cite scientific support for some of their claims, such as a study that found that the one-year survival rate among heart-attack patients was considerably higher for those who owned a dog.

Pets have been known to make troubled teenagers open up more easily during therapy and to make prison inmates less violent. Some companies, such as San Rafael, Calif.-based Autodesk, say allowing workers to bring pets to work improves morale and productivity.

Boston-based psychologist Margot Lasher, author of “And the Animals Will Teach Us,” says the Andersons’ work is a validation of people who are deeply connected to their pets.

“Our culture didn’t take them seriously or trivialized their relationship to their animal companion,” she said. “It’s particularly validating for people with a religious or spiritual approach to their lives.”