I hear the comment all the time that it must be so difficult to be a vet, as our patients can’t speak and tell us what is going on. I understand how people could think that, but animals do manage to get their message through loud and clear ― if you only know how to read them.

I’m talking about body language, and it’s amazing how fluent you can become in this silent communication technique.

Body language is something I have been able to read all my life, long before becoming a vet. This ability is very likely one of the reasons I was drawn to the profession.

In my youth, I won national acclaim in the UK for horse handling, which is all done on the ground and involves a dialogue between your body language and the horse’s which I found fascinating.

In pursuit of these skills, I worked at various riding establishments around the world from Australia and New Zealand to the USA and Canada, which all approached horsemanship in different ways.

I learnt round pen techniques, western and English riding, training wild horses and working with dogs and horses as a team to achieve a shared goal. I have leant on this knowledge throughout my career.

I have never seen what I do as a way of controlling animals, but more working with them; communicating in a way that they can hear me, and I can hear them, working together and helping each other.

At this point in my life, I find the conversations I have with body language as easy to decipher as verbal communication, sometimes easier.

Animals are for the most part, very open with their communication. If they feel pain, they will show you where it is.

If they are scared it is written all over them and hits me like a wave. Animals are very truthful with their language, if they like you, they like you, and they pick up very quickly on your feelings and emotions.

It’s why a pet will always seem to be around when you’re feeling sad or unwell. They have an amazing ability to know just how we feel. They are reading our body language.

One unexpected result of my lifelong study of body language is that it works with people too.

I am always interested when a verbal conversation I’m having with someone doesn’t match their body language.

People hide their inner feelings for all sorts of reasons, but they can’t hide their non-verbal communication, it’s literally written all over them.

Maybe we are more like our animal cousins than we think.

• Lucy Richardson graduated from Edinburgh University in 2005. She started CedarTree Vets in August 2012 with her husband, Mark. They live at the practice with their two children, Ray and Stella, and their dog, two cats and two guinea pigs. She is also the FEI national head veterinarian for Bermuda