Can you communicate with hermit ?

I went on a Barnes and Noble shopping spree and I got a book called Conversations With Animals. It's a true story of how to communicate with animals. She does it by exchanging images with the animal. She would ask a question and make the animal understand by picturing things in her brain and then the animal would eventually (it may take some time unless the animal is super friendly) will communicate back with images, scents, or taste. I tried this with Sherbert and Crusty (my hermit ) but nothing much happened. I just caught a scent of what smelled like a freshly molted crab (with Sherbert) and popcorn with Crusty (but that might have been my own imagination. Sherbert may be freshly molted but she doesn't really smell like anything when I sniff her. Do you think the communication could have worked? In the book she mainly does it with dogs and cats, but once she mentioned an iguana. Hermit are really smart, so hopefully it's possible.