Princess - The Cat Who Came Back: Boundaries

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.

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Sunday, August 21, 2011

Boundaries

You may have seen the first-meeting video of Bella and Gabriel ('Googie').

In my role as the caretaker and surrogate 'mom' to the cats, it is crucial that I set the boundaries between them.

Especially in their first up-close meeting. Googie has been with me since he was a kitten, and he is 3 years old now. He understands a lot, including the word "I'm sorry". (Just watch some of his videos, i.e. the one where he's about to pounce on Princess but stops when I call him "not nice".)

And so, in order to set the tone to both cats, it was very important to step in at the precise, critical moment, and let Bella know in no uncertain terms that it was not okay to attack. And so she retreated. (Bella is very smart too.)

Timing is everything with setting boundaries. You need to nip it in the bud, you have to catch the behavior at the precise moment that it is expressed.

And it worked. You will notice that it worked, to the extent that the cats: 1) did not attack each other; and, 2) did not threaten with the guttural howling. They did however, set their own boundaries.

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