Sonya Fitzpatrick is an expert in communicating with animals, asMichael Dwyer discovers when she chats with his cats from a Dublinhotel

THE MOST basic rule of conducting an interview is that the journalist asks the questions. It's a different story when the interviewee is Sonya Fitzpatrick, but then here is a woman with a difference.

The sleeve of her new book, Cat Talk, describes Sonya as "an animal communicator". A modern-day, real-life Dr Dolittle, Sonya has the gift of being able to talk to the animals - even when they're not in the same room, or even on the same continent. Any cynical response to this information is entirely understandable, but wait.

I had barely entered her suite at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin last Friday, I was still standing and hadn't even taken off my coat, when she started. "You have two cats," she declared with supreme confidence. True.

"One is smaller than the other." True. "They are very different in colour." True. So far, so easy. These seem to be the kind of obvious generalisations that one could expect from a fortune-teller or Tarot card reader, so the scepticism remains unabated. It's when we finally settle down in our chairs that it all becomes stran-ger than fiction. I had been forewarned about this by Alan Betson, who had taken photographs of Sonya for this article before I arrived at the hotel, and he was amazed at what she could tell him about his dogs.

Sonya closes her eyes and gets down to serious communication with my two cats, Fred, a tortoiseshell, and the golden-coated Ginger, who are two miles away in their southside home. To avoid confusion, I should point out here that Fred is female and Ginger is male; Fred was so named because she was so tiny when we adopted her as a three-week-old kitten that even the vet thought she was male.

Sonya starts communicating with Fred. "She's asking me why you removed that covering under where their food and water trays are. She wants to know when you're putting it back." Er, yes, well, that plastic sheeting needed to be changed, so a newspaper is acting as a temporary substitute. "She would like it back as soon as possible." Yes, ma'am.

Sonya has a mental word with Ginger. "Now there is something wooden which he likes a lot, and he doesn't know what you've done with it. Where is it? He would love to have it back where it was. So would she."

Ah, that would be their scratching post, which was getting to look dishevelled and was therefore removed from the bathroom last weekend when guests were coming round. "They both feel very strongly about this," Sonya says with an air of gentle admonishment. "It's very important to them." Take it as a given, Sonya, it's coming back.

"Their favourite time of the day is when you sit out in the garden. You do it around the same time every day, they're telling me, and they just love to sit out there with you."

True again. At the end of a day's work I like to sit in the garden and read and do crosswords, and Fred and Ginger always come squeaking after me.

And so it goes. Sonya is talking to Fred again. "She's wondering if you are going away this weekend. She had this feeling all week that you are going somewhere."

Yes, I had planned to go to New York on Friday, the day I met Sonya, and my plans only changed a few days earlier. "They don't like it when you go away," Sonya adds. "They love you very much and they always like to have you in the home with them. They know that you love them, too."

So they should, I thought. They have been pampered every day since they were taken in as kittens from the back garden where they were born in August 1993. Fred and Ginger were the only survivors from a litter of five, and they looked so frail and helpless that the only human response was to take them inside. Fred had cat flu and was already blind in one eye, and the dedicated staff at the Animal Welfare Veterinary Hospital in Charlemont Street had given her a 50/50 chance of survival, at best.

So, for the first few months, I surprised myself by becoming her surrogate mother, feeding her Cow & Gate baby milk through a syringe into her mouth several times a day - or more accurately, whenever she squeaked persistently and demanded it. This labour of love has been repaid thousands of times over in the warm affection that Fred and Ginger have shown me, firmly contradicting the myth that all cats are selfish creatures who only care for themselves.

Sonya enjoys hearing this potted biography of Fred and Ginger. She has spent her life communicating with animals, ever since she was a child growing up on a farm in the English village of Hartwell in Northamptonshire.

"I could speak to animals," she says matter-of-factly. "I thought everyone could. It never occurred to me that I was different."

As a child, she had acute hearing problems - and did not know she was deaf until much later in life, she says.

"By that time I had become an expert lip-reader and had unconsciously honed all my other senses in a way that, I'm convinced, helped me to communicate with animals. I loved their world more than mine, and I still do. I came to see my hearing problem as something of a gift, as it heightened those other senses."

She worked as a fashion model and later moved to the US with her husband and three children, where she opened an etiquette studio in Houston, Texas. A New York client who was aware of Sonya's empathy with animals called her to discuss problems she was having with her dog. After Sonya communicated from Houston with the dog, the problems ceased, and the client invited Sonya for a weekend at her holiday home on Fire Island. The client had spread the word and Sonya was booked out for three days of consultations with animals and their human companions, as Sonya calls us - she never uses the term "pet owner".

One of those human companions on the island was a literary agent, who prompted Sonya to write her first book, What the Animals Tell Me - and a new career opened up. She now has a website, a series of videos on caring for and communicating with animals, and her own US television show, Animal Planet.

"When I have a studio full of animals - about 50 of them every time with their human companions - people are amazed that they all can be so calm," she says. "I tell the animals what's going on in the studio and to feel calm because we're transmitting out that calm to the audience. I can have them in the studio for four hours and it's remarkable how calm they remain."

IN Cat Talk, Sonya explains how anyone may communicate with their cats by concentrating on specific thoughts and connecting with them. "To begin the journey into the cat's world, you will not be using verbal language," she says. "You will be using the same techniques you use when speaking, but you will hear the words in your head. In the silence that ensues, listen, sense, imagine, and feel what's happening around you.

"Clear your mind of all other distractions and you will gradually become aware of an inner stillness. Let this develop naturally. Do not attempt to hurry the process. The more tranquil and relaxed your body and mind are, the more successful you will be in tuning into your feline's thoughts."

Sonya then demonstrates an exercise in communicating with a cat and getting him or her to enter a serene state of relaxation.

As I was reading that chapter, Fred came and sat on the floor next to my chair. I began to experiment with Sonya's demonstration - concentrating, communicating serene thoughts to Fred. Hold on, I thought. Am I going a little crazy here? It seemed like I was getting nowhere when Fred, instead of relaxing on the floor, made a leap on to the table next to me. But then she lay down, curled up and looked perfectly serene as her purring got louder, indicating how happy she was. I was talking to the animals, and it was working!

"My ability to speak to felines is one that we can all cultivate," says Sonya. "What I do is not magic, although many of my clients see it that way. The most valuable tools needed are imagination, trust, and the understanding that we are much more than just human forms."

Now I'm a believer.

Cat Talk by Sonya Fitzpatrick is published by Sidgwick & Jackson at £9.99 sterling. Try also www.sonyafitzpatrick.com