Understanding what my Animal Companion says

[The black raven]

I plan on playing a Spell-less Ranger, thus no Speak with animals for me.

How can I understand what my Animal Companion is trying to tell me ? How can it warn me about the ambush ahead or give me a counter-opinion on my Knowledge roll (possible with Int 3) ?

I see nothing in Wild Empathy or Handle Animal covering it.

What am I missing here ?

[Caineach]

Presumably, with handle animal you could learn to understand warning signals that it gives, though there are no explicit rules for this. If you have seen the show Dog Whisperer, he does this a lot and pre-emptively stops the animal from becoming aggressive by correcting it at the early stage. You should be able to use it to read body language of an animal.

Since it has an intelligence of 3, you could teach it some form of language for both of you to "speak" that is based off of non-verbal cues. A rank in linguistics for both of you to make up a new language.

Bluff can be used to transmit non-verbal communications like theives cant.

[Imnotbob]

The black raven wrote:

I plan on playing a Spell-less Ranger, thus no Speak with animals for me.

How can I understand what my Animal Companion is trying to tell me ? How can it warn me about the ambush ahead or give me a counter-opinion on my Knowledge roll (possible with Int 3) ?

I see nothing in Wild Empathy or Handle Animal covering it.

What am I missing here ?

I would use Wild Empathy and some RP.

*Woof* *Woof*

"What's that? Little Timmy is trapped in the well!?"

*Woof* *Woof*

"Right, take me to him"

[Magicdealer]

Animal training.

animal smells creatures up ahead and takes on a pointing stance.

You know there's something up ahead.

Once you start pushing the intelligence up, there are magical items that allow you *or your animal companion* to understand what's going on (helm of comprehend languages, or the like.

Alternatively, pg 52 Skills:
Animal companions with an Intelligence of 3 or higher can purchase ranks in any skill. Pick up a few linguistics to nab some extra languages like common. That allows the creature to read and speak the languages :p Worst case, he writes in the dirt :p

[Cartigan]

Teach it to sign if it is an ape.

[KenderKin]

play a gnome and cast speak w/animals 1/day

Alternately train the dog similar to this joke.....

This man wanted to buy a hunting dog. He heard of this guy who had a dog for sale, so he went to check it out. They get the dog out to the woods and the owner snaps his fingers and says "GO!"

The dog takes off, comes back a few minutes later, and barks once. The man asked the owner "What does that mean?"

The owner says "Well, he barked once, that means he saw one rabbit." The guy says "OK, let's see it again."

The owner snaps his fingers and says "GO!" The dog takes off, comes back a few minutes later, and barks twice. The guy asks "OK, what does that mean?"

The owner says "Well, he barked twice, that means he saw two rabbits."

The guy says "OK, one more time and he's sold." The owner snaps his fingers, the dog takes off, comes back carrying a stick and starts to hump his owners leg.

The guy says "WHAT! does that mean?

The owner says "Well, that means he just saw more f*in' rabbits than you can shake a stick at!"