Diary of an Animal Communicator: Lost and Found

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Not all who wander are lost.

The Bengal cat we found on September 2, 2011 was reunited with his owner on the evening of September 14th. Many of our Cat Wisdom 101 readers thought he might become our cat # 6, and while the thought was tempting, I kept searching for his home. He’s a beautiful cat both inside and out, and I couldn’t imagine that someone wouldn’t move heaven and earth to find him. They didn’t, but a divine force intervened. This is my story of what happened.

Some people attract cats like bees to honey and my husband is one of them. Two weeks ago, a beautiful stray cat ventured on the porch of his office and wouldn’t leave him alone. The cat wore a breakaway collar without any ID and one of those toxic herbal flea collars http://www.nrdc.org/health/poisonsonpets/files/poisonsonpets.pdf All chemical flea collars have been proven to be toxic to both children and pets. The flea collar was my first red flag.

All intuitives pick up information using different senses. Some are clairvoyant and see images or visions. Some hear words, names or numbers. Psychometry is the ability to touch an object that has been used or worn by someone and gather information from its energetic “fingerprint”. Other intuitives can detect information by odors and others like myself are clairsentient; we feel information viscerally in our bodies with a twitch of pain, nausea in the gut, or a shiver up the spine. The body never lies. We all have the ability to know things without knowing. It’s where we get the expression “gut feeling”. Most intuitives use a combination of their senses and “just knowing”. I mostly use my gut feelings and visual images.

The first time I saw the cat later that evening, he was sneezing and I immediately felt queasy. I immediately removed the flea collar. You don’t need to be psychic to put obvious clues together. A heaviness in my gut persisted. We left some food and figured if he showed up the next day, we’d take him to the vet down the street and have him scanned for a micro-chip. Sure enough, the cat was waiting and my husband brought him the the vet and no surprise, no chip. The vet thought the cat was purebred Bengal with a simple cold not requiring antibiotics. She gave a dose of a homeopathic pill called pulsatilla for the congestion and cough. She said his symptoms would briefly get worse before getting better and recommended isolating him from our other cats until the nasal discharge cleared up in a week or two.

And so the no-name Bengal boy arrived home where I’d prepared his new temporary home with cozy perches, beds and toys in our kitchen and dining room. He wasted no time exploring his new digs while I contacted and left reports of a found Bengal cat to every local shelter, vet clinic, online newspaper and made a “found cat” flyer. It inspired me to write this article Top to Tips On Finding Lost Cats http://wp.me/p1A49c-nh.

Every shelter told me they had no room, not that I was about to ship him off to a shelter anyway. Before you could say, cat whisperer, B.B. or Bengal Boy as I called him, head-butted and kissed me, licked my fingers, curled up and purred beside me like a long-lost friend.

Unlike a famous pet psychic who claims that all cats are chatty and love to gossip, I beg to differ. Some cats take a while to warm up and communicate by telepathy. Some are blocked for whatever reason (usually fear) and refuse to engage. Telepathy is no magic trick but simply the transference of information from one person or animal to another. Humans can communicate verbally and non-verbally with language, touch, body language and intuition. Animals and specifically cats, can communicate on every level except by our language. Sure, we can say, “Fluffy, do you want to go out?” Fluffy will receive the information telepathically but can’t answer in English or any other language with, “Okay, and can we stop at Petco for some treats?”

They can meow and purr in a million different ways that we can interpret, but it’s not an exact science or precise as a dictionary. Cats use their entire body as a tool of communication. From their yoga-like postures, satellite-turning ears, fine-tuned whiskers, scent pads and tail signals they are a Stradivarius of communication, but again it’s a question of learning the nuances of cat behavior, which even among cat behaviorists are subject to interpretation.

As soon as B.B. settled and purred deeper into relaxation with some massage and Reiki (energy healing), I asked both verbally and nonverbally some basic questions: How are you feeling? What happened? Is there anything you want me to know? If you are interested in learning to communicate telepathically with your cat, I’d suggest beginning with learning to still your mind with meditation. Many of us are too stressed, distracted and ungrounded to access our intuition, but it’s always there underneath, like the calm sea under the waves.

I felt a heavy, wheezy feeling in my chest and knew it was what BB was feeling physically, but also a sadness of a cat who wasn’t having his emotional needs met. He wouldn’t tell me his name but said Max. I saw an image of where he freely escaped from: a back door of a cream colored-house. He told me he could see cars and buses drive past his house. He said he’d traveled in cars with a man and liked roaming the neighborhood. I asked who put the flea collar on. He said, a big dark-haired man and he was happy I’d taken both collars off. All those details proved correct in the end but didn’t lead me any closer to finding his home at that point.

All our cats sniffed at the locked door with great curiosity about our guest and everyone except Merlin tried to dash in every time I’d go in which was at least a dozen times a day. I wanted to spend as much time as I could and while two rooms weren’t a huge space, it beat being a small stainless steel cage.

To spend more time with BB, I hauled down the cushion from my dressing room love seat, pillows and blanket for a makeshift bed in the dining room. Every evening, he loved our snuggle time under the covers and was miffed when I left him in the dark at bedtime. “As soon as your sniffles stop, you can join us in the rest of the house.” I said it mantra-like numerous times a day.

The symptoms worsened as the vet said they would and then he improved. Slightly. But my words to him about his sniffles stopping no longer rang true. I felt his sniffles weren’t going to disappear in a week like the vet said. Plus, I felt the sneezing and sniffles didn’t start just before we found him. Another warning bell went off. It reminded me of the time Ling Ling went to a vet and got a clean bill of health but her symptoms remained. Our vet, Dr. Goldstein diagnosed her with a uri and gave her antibiotics. She feeling fine now. I’m not a vet or a medical intuitive, but I know when something doesn’t feel right. BB needed something, but what?

I played with him everyday but the exertion of leaping after imaginary prey caused an asthmatic-like cough. Mostly, he was getting bored from being in isolation. I sensed he was used to a much larger space with lots of activity, and most of all wanted to go outdoors. What to do? I felt torn again from not being able to spend as much time with our other cats and exhausted with care taking, coddling, door monitoring, observing his kitty litter contents for clues while going about my usual life. He wasn’t drinking or eating enough for my liking and the vet said he on the thin side for a Bengal.

No noise, loud voices or clatter in the kitchen unnerved him. I sensed he was used to noise and being underfoot. Perhaps spouses who yelled a lot or children, but couldn’t get an image of any. The only human who dominated my vision was a man. Perhaps a man dominated his household where BB lived without enough love, or at least not the kind of attention he needed. I sensed it was a home of executive types who work long hours and are used to delegating. You can’t delegate love. Most of all, I felt BB needed to be enveloped in love. Cats need to be told they’re loved in words and actions. Any left-brained, rational types can stop reading now. This might be too woo woo for you, but love is proven to heal and this is what I did.

When Ling Ling was ill and forlorn from being abandoned once too often, I came up with the idea of sending her Love Clouds. I breathed deeply into my belly several times until I felt relaxed. Then, I imagined a big pink cloud of pure love in my heart. With each slow inhalation the cloud puffed up larger and when it felt so full of love it might burst, I exhaled slowly and sent the love cloud to her heart, where it expanded and surrounded her entire body. As I exhaled, I said I love you silently. Some cats feel it right away. Others need a few rounds, but I’ve never seen a cat not respond. BB slow blinked in appreciation and purred and every day our bond grew closer.

The heaviness of 9/11 loomed and with it, the anniverserial grief of losing my cat, Coco the previous year on September 14^th. Nine days after BB arrived, there was no word from anyone looking for him. I asked if he missed anyone or his old home, and he was decidedly blasé. He said he’d be happy to live here if he could go outside. The day after 9/11 dawned sunny and warm. I decided a little sun might cheer him up from being in cramped quarters and brought out Odin’s harness and leash.

“This is the only safe way to take you outside,” I said. Without hesitation he slipped into the harness and walked the grounds as if we’d done it a hundred times before. Domino noticed and wanted to make his acquaintance but he listened to me and kept a safe distance. Odin’s one eye almost popped out when he saw him walking by majestically. Gris Gris slinked by fascinated. Everyone kept a friendly and respectful distance and I felt encouraged. BB was clearly used to being around other cats and felt fine. If no owner claimed him, I was prepared to adopt him, even though six cats topped the edge of my comfort zone. BB settled by my chair, happily sunning himself as I read the paper and for the first time, I felt hope for his healing.

By the following day, his symptoms miraculously lessened to the tiniest nasal drip and no sneezing. He enjoyed a long, bolder romp outdoors, eating grass and running as fast as I could to keep up with him. On Wednesday, everything changed. His symptoms returned but he desperately wanted to go outside. We visited Coco’s grave, this being the anniversary of her death and I laid flowers in her memory. I put out my intention to the spirit world that if it be BB’s destiny to be returned to his home, let it happen soon. BB’s mood shifted. He knew something I didn’t. He was hell-bent on walking to the front of the property to the street. In the summer the street is hidden from view by dense shrubbery and trees.

“Why do you want to go? Why? There’s cars and…” Bang, I got a flash of why. The street with cars reminded him of his street. If I’d let go of the leash I have no doubt he would have made a run for it. I brought him back inside. He sulked for the first time and I left the house for a few busy hours of errands. I felt weirdly tired and anxious and by the time, I’d agree to pick up my husband from his office, I was running late and exhausted. I always know when something is brewing because I can feel it in my body, but I don’t always know exactly what will happen.

I pulled up and see my husband speaking to a woman on the front porch of the office. He never waits for me outside, but if I hadn’t been late he wouldn’t have bumped into the woman who lives across the street. I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe everything happens for a reason. They happened to talk about cats. He happened to have a missing cat poster with him. She happened to think he looked like her neighbor’s missing cat. I crossed the busy two-lane street with her and knew before I saw the cream-colored house with the side door wide open, this was it. She introduced us a big, dark-haired man; whom I immediately recognized from the image BB had shared with me. My husband had a call and lagged behind, only to enter the house before fisticuffs broke out.

Even though I was 99% sure this was BB’s home, I had to be 100% sure and I asked the man (who shall remain nameless) to describe the cat’s collar. He said it was black with a tag. I said it was gray with no tag. No ID. He thought I was being accusatory and began yelling at me. He said the sniffles were chronic and that he’d taken X to the same vet we’d taken him to. I asked why he hadn’t looked for him. He claimed he had. I said if he’d called any local shelter or vet office, he would have had him back the next day.

His screaming escalated. His two young children ran outside. Another Bengal, wearing a flea collar, appeared at the doorway. I could almost hear her say; there he goes ballistic again. The only way to diffuse a volatile situation with someone with anger management issues is to step away. I stepped outside on the porch and my husband made arrangements for man to pick up BB or X (his real name) within the hour. I felt physically sick from the screaming attack, the lack of humanity, kindness or awareness. The street that BB ran across is a heavily trafficked two-lane road. The man said the cats wander all over and visit the neighbors all the time. “X is so friendly.”

My nerves were still jangled when we got home, but I forced myself to calm down. There was just enough time to have a quick talk with X.

“X”, I called out to him. No response. “But that’s your real name.” He looked defeated. I heard, I don’t like that name. He knew where I’d been. “Your daddy is coming to get you.” No response. The only message I could get through to him before daddy arrived was to stay away from the busy road.

I showed the man and his kids into the house. X was under whelmed. I led the man into the dining room. X made no effort to move from the blanket nest I’d made him. Call me crazy, but after reuniting a cat missing for almost two weeks, you’d think they’d be ecstatic to see him, ask questions from the person who took care of him 24/7 like, “How is he doing?” A thank-you would have been nice but smoke still wafted out of his ears. I’d also expect the cat to respond with some interest. Then again, why was I surprised: I had that man’s number. The man paid X’s vet bill before he unceremoniously stuffed X into a shiny plastic carrier without as much as a cozy towel inside. X cried in protest and betrayal. He’d made no sound when my husband had taken him to the vet or brought here. One of the kids, asked, “Why is he crying?”

The man said, “How would you like to be put in a carrier?” I had another answer, but my work was done. They disappeared out the door and out of my life, but not out of my heart.

I believe cats can teach us valuable lessons about life, death, love, and compassion. If we take the time to truly listen to them, they make us better human beings. X came into my life for a brief time to teach me about compassion and acceptance. X may have been happier living with me. Maybe I could have healed him, but he has a destiny elsewhere and I have to accept it. We can’t save every cat or bend other people to our beliefs. The man probably feels he’s the best pet parent for X and it’s not for me to judge.