What Sheep Think About the Weather: How to Listen to What Animals Are Trying to Say

by Amelia Thomas

It started with a hummingbird dive-bombing Amelia Thomas over her morning coffee, and a pair of piglets who just wouldn't stay put. Soon Amelia, journalist and new farmer, begins to question the communications of the creatures all around her. Are they all just animals reacting instinctually to the world around them—or are they trying to communicate something deeper?

Driven by lifelong curiosity, Amelia embarks on a journey to uncover what animals truly seek to say to humans. On the way, along with groundbreaking chimps and circumspect octopuses, she'll meet an extraordinary cast of experts, from animal behaviorists and anthrozoologists to trackers and psychologists, and even explore the surprising insights of pet psychics, A.I. researchers, and animal mindfulness practitioners. Each perspective offers a new layer of understanding about the subtle, complex ways animals connect with us—and will deepen our appreciation for every creature with whom we share our planet.

In What Sheep Think About the Weather, Amelia chronicles her sometimes difficult discoveries with humor, heart, and awe. More than just a memoir, this book is a call to listen—not only to the animals we love but to the untamed world around us. What if the answers to some of humanity's greatest questions have been whispered to us all along?

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Nature, Animals

Audible Audio

Expected publication November 4, 2025

Reviews

[Farda Hus · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars.

This was such a calm, thoughtful read. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did, but there’s something really soothing about the way Amelia Thomas observes animals. It made me think about how much we underestimate them. (especially sheep in this book)

The writing was jumpy for my taste though, one moment you're in a cozy farm story, then suddenly there's a quote or a random study, then back to a conversation. It felt a little all over the place. Honestly, it made me a bit sleepy at times.

But, I learned many fun facts. My favorite? Sheep yawn when other sheep yawn. Just like us humans. I don’t know why that delighted me so much, but it did.

Note : Thank you Sourcebooks for giving me this ARC.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

My early Shelf Awareness review and interview.

[Nixu · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely stunning book. It does such a good job at introducing thoughts about communicating with animals. I went into it a little worried about whether I'd understand any scientific language in this novel, instead I found Amelia Thomas's writing style very humourful and accessible to any reader. Despite that, her writing is also very deep and meaningful. I may have cried at some points through the novel, especially towards the end.

Some of what's in this novel, I've learned through my own research and curiosity of nature (always been a nature nerd, I mean...I apparently knew all the Latin names for birds of prey in my home country by age 4) however there are theories and experiments here that I'd love to learn and give a try.

I think what I like most about this novel is how many different perspectives Amelia Thomas has in this book. for a non-fiction book, it expresses a great variety of opinions and that's what makes this book feel rich with authenticity.

Once again, this book is a great one. I'd happily read from Amelia Thomas again.

Thank you to Netgalley and publishers and the author for giving me this ARC in exchange for review.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-traveled writer ponders how we communicate (or fail to) with animals. She talks with scientists, researchers, trackers, and "professional animal communicators." She observes and communicates with her own menagerie of horses, pigs, dogs, and even earwigs. And she Googles a lot. It's a well-written and well-narrated account of the author's increasing awareness of the lives of animals from an amateur naturalists' perspective. Entertaining and interesting.
My thanks to the author, publisher, @TantorMedia, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook #WhatSheepThinkAbouttheWeather for review purposes. Publication date: 4 November 2025.

[Ryan Dickinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enlightening, enlightening!

This really was an amazing and what's the word, enlightening read?

It just made me want to live in a log cabin somewhere in Colorado, with some land and adopted animals, being at one with nature and my surroundings. I know, proper hippie style.

The book itself is an engaging, humourous, intelligent and well written one that had me engrossed all the way through, going back and back re-reading passages; I've never highlighted so many lines in a book before.

It infuses philosophy, science, anecdotes and spirituality all in a brilliantly harmonious way.

There are a myriad of experts that the author talks to, from animal communication, animal trackers and various animal species. You'll never look at earwigs the same!

From reading this we'll obviously learn a lot about our fellow inhabitants on the planet, but just as importantly, about ourselves and how we (can/should) communicate with our partners, friends, family and strangers. We need to take the time to listen to them as much as we need to do so with animals.

Along with this it made me realise how I take my environment for granted, how I don't appreciate what I have on my own doorstep/garden, be it the birds in the hedgerow, the foxes playing loudly at night or the spiders by the front door. It made me take a breath, be silent and watch and listen to everything anyplace I might be.

A highly recommended book that I'll be going back to. And I hope this book will make people take stock of how important animals are to our environmental and wellbeing.

(Thanks to NetGalley for the book)

[Cara Achterberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed the way I think about animals. It's also changing how I interact with them. Thomas' very memoiristic exploration of the science of listening (and communicating) with animals is a beautiful read -- thoughtful, funny, and inspiring. It made me curious to find out about the lives of my own animals, but also of the animals I encounter in my backyard and all around me. I hope this book finds an audience far and wide -- we all need to think about what animals think.
Thanks to Net Galley and the author for the opportunity to read and review.

[Jackie McGinnis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved What Sheep Think About the Weather, and I can’t wait to read it again and to discover more writing from Amelia Thomas. She takes us through a full year of her exploration in communicating with animals (hint: it takes a lot of listening). Using her journalism experience, she talks to numerous experts, presenting her findings about the science of listening to your animals, the practice of listening, and the art of listening. Having just bought a farm, Thomas also shares her experiments communicating with her own animals—horses, pigs, dogs, and even the local bugs, birds, and giggling raspberries.

I have always wanted to read the weather in my bones, to understand the trees, and to know what the animals are saying. Thomas jam-packs this book with stories, interviews, and all kinds of fun facts. I loved spending time with each section and can’t wait to revisit it. I can’t recommend this enough!

Thank you to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for the eARC!

[Amy]

I’m not sure what to think about this book. The author’s premise is wonderment on if animals react instinctively to the world around them or if they are trying to communicate something deeper. To this end, she meets and assortment of animal experts, animal trackers, psychologists, and pet psychics to gather various perspectives and try to determine what animals think. The book is written as part research, part memoir of the author's experiences and what she learns. As such, it’s written in the first person perspective which lends itself to the directness of the topic. Those with an interest in animals or psychology should enjoy this read.

This review is based on an advanced reader copy provided by the publisher.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for an advanced copy of this new book that is an exploration of what possibly the animals we are surrounded by, both tame and wild, are trying to share with us, and how by paying attention we can help ourselves and help our animals come to be better understanding, and better life experience.

I would like to be a vegetarian for reason that like my youngest nephew likes to so often say, I am a friend of the animals. I've always felt more simpatico with animals, pets and wild, something that probably started with my first real friend Duffy. Duffy was a one-year-old Kerry Blue Terrier who was with my parents before I showed up, and who on meeting this stinky, whiny little brat in a car seat placed on the floor, decided that I was now his responsibility. Duffy sat next to me while grandparents, relatives and friends all looked at me, all one week old, and never really left my side in the ten years we had together. I knew when Duffy was hungry, had to go to the bathroom, bored, or sometimes even a little sad. And Duffy knew me. Sitting in my room when school was bothering me, protecting me, and making life livable. This empathy is something I have always had with animals, humans not so much. I thought I knew about animals, this book has shown me how much there is too know, and how life changing it can be to understand. What Sheep Think About the Weather: How to Listen to What Animals Are Trying to Say by Amelia Thomas is a book about an author who wants to know more about the animals she shares her farm with, the science of communication, and getting past what we assume, and how this can enrich our lives in many ways.

Amelia Thomas has seen much of the world as a writer and journalist, but her new life in Canada on a working farm introduced her to new ways of thinking about the natural world. Surrounded by piglets who acted like brats, making a enemy of a hummingbird, and with horses, cows, dogs and cats Thomas began to wonder what she was missing, what they were trying to share. From bugs in the house, to foxes bedding down with ponies, much of what Thomas knew about animals seemed to be wrong. So being a journalist, Thomas began to investigate. Zooming with teachers and researchers, taking part in local classes, like tracking and horse classes, Thomas began to learn that communication with animals is constantly evolving in ways she never thought. Psychic channeling with horses over zoom, a trainer who seems to help humans as much as animals to tell their story. Thomas looks at studies, talks to experts and her own animals, in ways that change her for the better, and sometimes in very sad ways.

I went into this book thinking this was more like a Mary Roach book, expecting a funny and yet informative book. This was a whole lot more. There is a bit of biography, a bit of what the world is like, and a lot of realism about being around animals. The book is funny, sad, informative, and a real page turner. Every page has facts, and also stories that might make one go, huh, or sniffle quite a bit. Some might not like the emphatic moments, communicating with a sick animal, some might even scoff. I found it really beautiful, and telling. I have had these moments with sick pets, my first dog, and my last dog especially. The science is very interesting and well told, as is the narrative, told over a year's time while Thomas gets used to the farm, and the farm to her. A very eventful period of time.

A book for animal lovers, and a book for people who are interested in not only communicating or trying to understand the animals in their lives. This is not a book that will make everything clear, but a book that make one pay attention in ways that are new, and rewarding. A book for animal lovers, but with a proviso, there is a little bit of sadness. I really enjoyed this book quite a bit, and still think about it, even though I finished it a few days ago. This was my first book by Amelia Thomas, certainly not the last.

[Lady Fancifull · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful blend of science and poetry affirming connections everywhere

I knew within moments this was going to be a 5 star read, and that sense never wavered. Thomas is a wonderful writer, a weaver of words and a subject which embraces body, soul, and spirit and ticks boxes in both left brain and right brain. One both life affirming and at times deeply painful

Nailing my colours to the mast here. I have pretty well always got cross at those who insist that those of us who resonate with a sense that non human animals have sophisticated emotions, mental agility and communication are just ‘anthropomorphising’ . Evolution works by slow increments, and if we can trace (as we can) the evolution of the eye as a complex structure incrementally from across many species back to the development of cells responsive to light in the vegetable kingdom, and even single celled organisms, then it seems an arrogance beyond belief to think that only Homo sapiens and perhaps the great apes possess complex emotions, reasoning capacity, or language.

Many of the serious challenges we as a species face have come about because of our readiness to ‘other’ and ascribe those not us as inferior and lacking in some way. We do this remarkably easily to our own species; we also do it to ‘dumb animals’. That language, that thinking, shows only our own dumbness.

Thomas delightfully unfurls all the developing (at last!) realisation that there appears to be ‘language’ is widespread. For example, the famous bee ‘waggle dance’ is undoubtedly language, of remarkable precision and sophistication.

We have sought to show the language skills of higher primates by demanding they learn and use our language – for example, in the famous case of Washoe. But, why were we not equally trying to learn chimp?

Reading the accounts Thomas details in this book, made me realise for the first time that the Washoe project was a cruel one. Fortunately scientists like Jane Goodall and others, approaching non-human animals with open mind and heart, have opened the doors to a less rigid, hierarchical way of looking at ourselves and the other species we share our home with. By ‘our home’ I don’t mean our individual homes, but Gaia.

Amelia Thomas, in this book, with humour, passion and humility very much engages both in ‘citizen science’ if you like, exploring communication with both the wild and domestic sharers of her physical space, and does wide ranging reading of scientific papers, and interviews all sorts of experts who have closely studied other species.

Don’t think though, that this will be a dry read. Thomas is someone with a great knowledge and appreciation of poetry, and a sparkling use of language. So the imaginative and the ‘aha’ moments which the arts can bring us, the felt sense of recognition of profound truth and ‘is-ness’ are brilliantly present here.

She invites us, and encourages us, to open our own abilities to listen to, hear and understand the language which may be being expressed all around us, from non-human beings.

This is not woo-woo stuff, it’s a profound expansion of a far better understanding of ‘the real world’

I was delighted to receive this as an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley. It will be one to make its way, as a wood book, to various open minded, open hearted friends as an adored and no doubt joyously devoured present

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the words that the author defines in this touching book is holistic, and it is a good description of it. Thomas speaks with everyone, human and animal, to try to look into interspecies communication. There are the ethologists, explaining what they’ve learned and the experiments and observations that gave them such insights. Trainers provide the practical point of view. Animal communicators dive into the spiritual aspect (I would have dismissed this part as woo-woo nonsense if not for my sister… one of the experiences described here happened to her several times in front of me and we’ve never been able to explain it rationally). But it is the non-human animals themselves that really speak. This book was so personal to me, it really spoke to my animal-loving soul. The author believes that each creature is an individual, with their own personality. I’ve long noticed how even the spiders that I evict from my house react differently to being briefly (and humanely) trapped, so it was nice to see that other people feel the same way. I’ve also had similar experiences with my hummingbird showing me his feeder was empty, so I know that many other animal lovers will see themselves reflected here. Thomas confesses how she’s afraid of science. She is not a scientist or a biologist, but she has the connections to speak with Temple Grandin, Irene Pepperberg or Alexandra Horowitz. She also shares everything she learned to be able to speak to animals. The highest compliment I can give her is that I’ve been trying. I don’t know if this is a good book but, to me, it’s an important one.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Elliott & Thompson.

[Zeljka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received this book for reading and reviewing honestly.

I have to admit, even if I didn't get permission, I would have tried to read this book once it gets on the shelves. I was intrigued immediately by the blurb introduction that unwittingly spoke directly to me - Are animals trying to tell us something—and have we been too distracted to notice?
The book follows along the lines of that question, in three parts - the science, the practice, and the art of listening to the animals.

In the span of one year, the author uses its journalist's talent to apply all the research and interviews made on the topic, to practice on her own farm with her own animals together with her own family. While that sounds very vague, it is for the best not to say much about its contents because it would totally spoil the reader's journey through that quite unique memoir. You'll read on one hand the scientific views on the animals' consciousness and sensibility, and on the other hand very entertaining personal narrative and experiences that we can all relate to and try to apply ourselves.

It was very informative and interesting book I will definitely recommend to the others and read again myself.

[Kim McGee · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 - 4 stars
Part memoir and part study of animal/human communication this is for animal lovers, pet owners and all those humans who are just trying to understand the world around us a bit better. Amelia Thomas is a new farmer with pigs, dogs, chickens and at least one moody horse. Each chapter is a month in her first year where she and her family are getting to know their new surroundings and animal charges. In many chapters she delves deeper and interviews animal researchers and animal whisperers of many backgrounds to explore animals on land and sea. Heartfelt and bittersweet at times (like the chapter on her horse) it is jammed with information. I really enjoyed life on the farm and some of the more unusual encounters but found myself skimming over the more detailed studies.
It makes for interesting conversation and food for thought if you ever find yourself wanting to get away from the city and buy a farm. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

Thank you to netgalley and publishers for allowing me to read this ARC

First of all, what a thoughtful and considered read. What sheep think about the rain explores a year in Amelia’s life as a new farmer, and her journey to approaching farming a little differently. What if animals are trying to communicate with us in the only ways they know how? What if we are too rigid in our definitions of communication that we’ve not taken the time to truly watch how animals interact to “feel our common beingness”? I was immediately intrigued when I read the blurb, and though I wasn’t sure what to expect going into the book, I was amazed by the breadth of expert opinions covered in the book. This is one of those books that stays with you long after you’ve read it

[Mace · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title and cover alone is what caught my attention initially and I’m so glad I was able to read this. This part memoir, part research novel discusses the varying opinions surrounding animals and how they communicate. I loved hearing about the Prairie dogs and how affectionate they can be, as well as the author’s personal experiences with her horse towards the end of the novel. While some aspects of the book seemed to jump around a little bit, I still found this enjoyable and entertaining!

Side note - I loved the author narrating her own novel

Thank you to NetGalley, Publisher and Author for an arc copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

[Luv2TrvlLuvBks · Rating 2 out of 5]

This read just didn't resonate with me.

Other books of similar vibe like Susan Orleans' "On Animals", Ed Yong's "An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us" and Mary Roach's "Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law" set somewhat high expectations for this read. Did not find the writing style engaging and felt attention drifted multiple times.

This ARC was provided by the publisher, SOURCEBOOKS (non-fiction) | Sourcebooks, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Roo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very odd and fun read! I enjoyed seeing how Amelia Thomas went about studying and trying to understand the chaotic language of animals! Multiple perspectives, many many many different experts with various thought patterns, and some extensive curiosities.


In the end you will wonder....What are animals trying to tell us?

4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting book. Mix of memoir and life in England on a small holding, through to interesting account of communication with animals and lots of interviews with scientists and animal ‘experts’. Enjoyable read and I learnt a few things. Thank you to the author. Thank you to # NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.

[Liz Gee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm afraid this did not hold my interest, despite the intriguing title. Too much about the author and her family rather than the animal of the title.
Thanks to the publisher for a reviews copy.

[amy]

thank you elliott & thompson and netgalley for the arc!