Princess - The Cat Who Came Back: The Pack Leader

PRINCESS's STORY

"The Princess Diaries" began about fourteen years ago as emails to cat loving friends. They were stories about Princess's diary, a tabby cat who was born in 1989 when I rescued her. She was about four months old. She was in tune with everything I did or even think, she always amazed me so much, I just had to write about her. After nineteen years with me, she went to the Rainbow Bridge in August of 2008.

The house felt painfully empty after her passing. But I vowed never to replace her. In my heart, she was irreplaceable.

And then I started to see her in my dreams. Suddenly, I remembered one morning that I had seen her back in her healthy form and I was told "she is ready now". I was not sure what that really meant.

Just a couple of days later, I was led to a pet psychic by other people at an Expo event. It was an unplanned, spontaneous occurrence, I had not thought about visiting a pet psychic and did not even have a picture of her that they could use.

Princess' spirit came through the pet psychic who repeated those same words I had heard in the dream: "She is ready" .... to be born again.

How would I find her? How? She said it would be "like a Petsmart, one of those places".

I took it in stride. I still did not want to replace her with any other cat. One day, about 2 months later, I found myself suddenly making a turn off the main road into a Petco I never go to, away from my area. I felt compelled to go in even though I had no other cats to care for. I spotted an adoption fair poster in there... and I heard clearly in my heart and mind the thought that 'you've got to follow up on this - don't let it go'. I did.

I returned for the adoption fair and as I entered, I began to feel like I was in a trance.. I kept looking in cages but could not "feel it". Finally, I came to the end of the cage line and I stood motionless, staring at this tiny tabby baby sleeping on top of a larger orange fluffy kitten. She was less than 2 months old. As I stood there, contemplating my feelings, the orange kitten stood up and came to the front of the cage, reaching out to me with his paw... He let out a meow at me as he saw me take a few steps away, mulling this sight over in my mind. I turned to see this kitten holding out his paw at me, literally meowing for me to come back...

When Princess II came home with Gabriel, she was barely 2 months old. And she knew. She knew all the old tricks and phrases - and she wanted to show me exactly what she knew.

She was born in the same type of body, a tabby.

I could not tell while she was a tiny baby but she grew to have the same type of bow-legged look to her hind legs. She also carried the same fear. Princess was fearful of the scrunchy sound of plastic or paper bags all throughout her life with me, it may have been something that had happened to her in her first 4 months of life before I rescued her. She also had a herniated belly when I found her in 1989. Now this new kitten, as she grew, had a slight protruding feel on the same spot of her belly, although vets did not detect anything 'wrong' with it.

To this day, the new Princess is still fearful of scrunchy bag sounds while no other cat in the household is.

"It's time for beddie bye now", I said when she returned to the house as a two-month old - and on cue, she climbed up the stairs immediately and looked down at me from upstairs for my reaction. I was just floored ...this little kitten responded to a phrase she never heard of before. "Wanna get some 'nummy-num'?" - Yes! She ran to the bowls. This was her first time as a new kitten in the house.

It was a miracle - and we are still living it. It has been now been over 8 years later now since her new incarnation.

Copyright@2016 All Rights Reserved

Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Pack Leader

How do you know if you are seen as the 'pack leader' from your cat's point of view?

It used to be, Princess One used to always wait for me to start going downstairs first, each morning. She would then follow. And that was one sure way.

With these two, it's a different thing: They emulate everything I do.

They emulate my morning routine, and my evening routine. Both involve opening cabinets, which they watch me do. And so, once I settle in for the evening, for example, I will start hearing Gabriel banging the cabinet door as he tries to open it. And he will just leave it there, open.

In the morning, they watch me reach over for the toilet paper. I had to keep it in a special place because Princess is so observant, she'd go over to it and start to roll it off. So now I keep it closed up in the empty medicine cabinet of the 'cat bathroom'.. It's their room, and they know it. (For plumbing reasons, I'm using 'their room' for a while.)

So, as I walked in one morning, I found the medicine cabinet door open, and the toilet paper roll placed right on the sink - as an attempt to cover up the doo-doo. The point is, they saw me place the roll in there and take it out - and they emulated.

They will go eat when they see ME eat; they will follow me from room to room and lay down near me if I lay down. And they will jump up on the kitchen counter and explore because that's where I spend time working on cooking and cleaning dishes - so they try and emulate that by walking around there.

So yes, I'm definitely the 'pack leader' here... (Or so I think.. :).. )

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)