Barb Mallon, 40, is known as a mom by day and a psychic medium by night. Over the phone or in person at her office in Chantilly, she conducts psychic medium readings, spiritual consultations, and on occasion helps with missing persons and ghostly phenomena. But what some might not know is that she can do pets too — all kinds of animals, alive or deceased — but she primarily deals with dogs, cats, birds and horses.
Think of her as the local version of Sonya Fitzpatrick on Animal Planet's "The Pet Psychic," but Barb isn't limited to animal communication issues; she also deals with pets in the sweet hereafter.
“CLIENTS ARE normally surprised when they see me — it’s as if they think I’m going to walk in with a long black cape, dangly hoop earrings, a crystal ball and set up a fortune-telling table,” says Barb wearing jeans and a gray top in the Starbucks off Stone Road, as her husband Mike entertains their 5-year-old son nearby. “Many have told me that they are relieved I’m normal.”
At the recent Super Pet Expo held at the Chantilly Expo Center, Barb gave presentations on “Pets and the Afterlife" in the main arena and she ran a 10x10-foot booth offering 15-minute private reading sessions by appointment. She was booked solid, seeing more than 45 individuals and giving readings for over 120 animals since most clients request multiple readings during their session.
"Many times, after a loved one passes, whether human or animal, those left behind harbor guilt, have many questions, or just want to know that the deceased is OK," explains Susan Vesey, one of Barb’s clients in Hackensack, NJ, who lost three cats and a parrot, named OJ, Sammy, Sugar, and Rocky, in a fire.
"Having someone like Barb to help ease one's grief and any other emotions you are going through. It's not the same as picking up the phone to hear their voices, but to know they are still with you and still love you after they've passed helps quite a bit."
Barb is a certified psychic with the American Association of Professional Psychics, but she's also a full time mother of three, living with her husband, Mike, in London Towne. Next year when their two youngest children, ages 5 and 8, are both attending school, she’ll have more time to devote to her psychic medium reading. But she will always be a mom first, she insists.
Before beginning a reading, Barb briefly explains how animals communicate with symbols, flashes, scenes and emotions, which she tries to interpret. She asks clients to answer yes or no and tells them "not [to] volunteer information while answering. The less I know the better," she says. "I love hearing stories [about why something makes sense], but not until after I give [the reading] to the client from the animal."
In the cases of deceased pets, clients provide a photo of each pet they want to connect with. Barb first gives "evidential" information (specific to the client's pet), identifying the loved one for the client. This can be a remarkable trait about the animal or a unique situation or feeling from the animal's experience.
"THE BIGGEST THING — and what I love most [about readings] — is being the "telephone" between the physical world and the non-physical world, that is, gaining information — evidential and specific — so they know it's their pet or human communicating with them," says Barb.
When Charlene Matta, 42, of Columbia, Tenn., came to the Expo, she was admittedly skeptical: "I figured [Barb] would throw out some generic information and look for reactions or input from us [during the reading]." But Matta admits after the session that "there is no way it could have been vague generalizations."
Matta provided Barb with a photo of Lady, a chocolate colored malamute/Doberman mix who died of stomach cancer in 2004. Barb described "something in her sides, pushing into her stomach," remembers Matta, corresponding to the illness Lady suffered. Barb also told Matta that Lady didn't like the "iron" taste of the pills — she knew that she had to take them, but she didn't like the taste of them. This message shocked Matta who recalls failed attempts to hide the pills in treats and hot-dogs leading to having to forcibly put the pills in Lady's throat.
With another of Matta's dogs, a toy poodle named Teka who died of heart disease in 1991, Barb made a comment about seeing McDonald's cheeseburgers, "[it was] something special to Teka and something she looked forward to doing," remembers Matta. And it turned out that Teka had obsession with McDonald's cheeseburgers. "My father started taking Teka everyday to McDonald's for plain hamburgers, then it was plain cheeseburgers ... she wouldn't eat anything else!"
During her appointment, Candice Kobetz, 32, of Berryville, Va., gave Barb a photo of a chestnut thoroughbred gelding named Brass who had died in June of 1996. Brass’s show name had been “Top Brass,” and Kobetz recalls being a 17-year-old “horse-crazy teenager” who would go out of her way to care for her horse.
The year before Kobetz went off to college in 1990, Brass went lame. The vet put the horse through a nerve blocking procedure, which involved numerous injections into the horse’s legs, in order to find the lameness. At that time Kobetz realized that she wouldn’t be able to ride him anymore: “That day changed everything. My world revolved around showing that horse. Everything revolved around that one day.”
AT THE EXPO, Kobetz gave Barb a photo of Brass. Barb sat up against the back of the chair, “looking as if she was talking to someone behind her, if that makes sense,” remembers Kobetz. And then, to her shock, Barb told her that Brass acknowledges the time when the needles were put in his legs.
Kobetz recalls crying as Barb relayed Brass's acknowledgment that Kobetz had been an “extra careful” rider and that he too had really liked their partnership. “It’s like tears of peace,” says Kobetz. “The horse meant a lot to me, and it’s nice to know I meant a lot to the horse too.”
Barb believes that anyone can connect to spirits in some degree although it comes to some more naturally than others. And as one might expect, she deals with many skeptics. But that’s something she encourages. "Everyone should be skeptical, however, not close-minded," she says. "There's such a difference."
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Barb Mallon can be reached at www.barbmallon.com or call 703-830-5607. She charges $125 per a full length 60-minute reading and $75 for a 30-minute reading. Clients can contact multiple individuals, animal or human, during their session. She also holds bi-weekly spirit nights for $20 for 10-12 participants each.