Animals That Have Chosen Me

I just got an e-mail from another member here and it sparked me to write about it and some of my experiences.

I have always had a close relationship with animals. The earliest memory I have is when I tried to save a baby mouse when my father caught it's mother in a mousetrap. I felt so bad for that tiny mouse. I got a box and put some soft cloth in it to lay in. At the young age of just 12 I didn't know how to take care of such a very young animal, I just knew that I had to try to save it. So I put some warm milk on a cotton ball--it's the only thing that my mom had in the house, and tried to get it to suckle on it for nourishment. Needless to say that didn't work and the tiny infant mouse died. I did bury it in the box in the back of our yard though.

Animals of all kinds tend to come to me. I have not figured that out yet. Those who come to my house growling and acting mean--they are just scared and I understand that. I do give them their space, but at the same time I tell them from my mind to theirs and also in voice that they come to a peaceful place and that I will take care of their needs, whatever they may be. I had one dog who escaped with it's companion up the street from me, only I didn't know that they were that close to me. The other dog managed to get back in the fence but this girl had no idea and she got all confused and lost. Most of them that come to me are that way--lost or hungry or asking for some kind of help. Anyway she growled at me and showed her teeth and I just talked to her in a clam voice at the same time sending messages to her that everything was going to be fine and that I would find her human again. I put out my hand for her to sniff it. It took her a minute or two and then she licked my hand. I got her out of the tight corner that she was in and onto the deck. She needed to allow me to do that so that I could look at her tags and call her human. Strangest thing happened after that----she allowed me to brush her. It was a warm day and you know how those tufts of fur try to leave the coats of dogs. While waiting for the human to come back as she was at work I was able to brush her coat to a shiny state. Boy was she happy when her human showed up.

During a dreary September day I noticed a dog running around the three houses that were on my corner. He was just wandering looking like he was lost. I got some cat food and put it in a dish. I only had cats at the time and I was trying to get the dog to come over to my house so that I could see if he had tags or not and find his human. I finally got his to come and when I saw him up close it saddened me because this dog was severely underweight, his fur was all rough and it looked like he was lost for months. I had to feed him by hand. There is a time where an animal will give up when it has reached it's last bit of strength and stop eating and just lay down and die. This is where this dog was. He ate up all the food and then took off. Just about then the heavens let loose and it rained so hard I had no choice but to go inside and hope for the best for this poor dog. He ran around to the back of our house under the deck, which is 8 feet off the ground and is part of the warp around deck we once had. That back part had a roof over it. I tried to wait until the rain at least slowed down enough that I could actually see where I was going and not slip down the hill. It didn't for a long time and it was almost dark. So I got soaked just stepping out my front door. I managed to get down to the back and coax him to come up where it was dry I then put up the child gate (someone had given it to us and we have used it for all kind of things and not for any children unless you want to call animals children. Animals are very much like children. They are very innocent until someone does nasty things to them and they themselves become nasty. It's not the fault of the animal but of the human's. It doesn't happen to some of the animals, they just withdraw, again just like a child who has been abused. These animals seek out those who they know will help them and have compassion for them and their situations. These animals link to our very soul and come to us.

Now I love dogs and was raised with two beautiful Collies. I wasn't around cats at all. A few years after I was married I did get a kitten. It wasn't a good experience and he was adopted out to someone else. He was a mis-understood kitten who chose to do the very thing my mother said that he was not to do--climb her shear curtains. That was the end of this kitten, but I fell in love with him and his kind of animal right then. I understood that he wanted to play and that I wasn't given the chance to train him and raise him up. Well it was some time before I got another feline.

I have had cats that loved me and I have had cats that loved me and left. There was one cat named Norm and he wasn't fixed. He was a good cat who loved to lay in the sun under the dining room table. He found a new home when one of the White Persian that used to sit on the fence behind us wooed him over. We never seen him again! Then we had Brandy. She loved to sleep above my head on my pillow at night. She had three kittens and decided to move on and we watched her walk down the street, kittens in tow and she never came back either. Not until we moved to a one acre lot on the back side of a farm did we get more cats. We started out with Pixie and she had a litter of kittens. We found homes for all but two of them. Oh and one of them had to have some assistance being born. We named him Bambi. He was to become the most loving and good cat. The other cat was beautiful! He had long grey and white fur. His name was Toby, but he like to spray everything and when he sprayed me--he found a new home! We had two other cats,that joined us then too. We had to give them new homes when we moved to sunny Florida! We took Bambi and our dog Cindy didn't make it to come with us. She would have loved it down there!

Cindy was given to us by a couple who moved into a development that didn't allow fences and they didn't have time to walk their prized possession everyday like they knew they should. She had papers, but we just wanted a family dog at the time and didn't get the papers for her. We were eventually get money together to get her spayed. We never did get the money and it was too late anyway. A very large dog corralled her and tried to mate with her and she hemorrhaged. I knew that I had some kind of connection with animals then. I just don't know when it started or when I realized it if I had it all along. She was at the top of the stairs just laying there an she would look up at me every now and then and I sat there with her. I hugged her and she licked me. I somehow knew she wanted to go and I thought it was her time too, so I said to her that she can leave her body anytime that she is ready----and at that very moment after I got those words out she died. Some may say that it was God or that I was just so upset, but I KNEW that she was waiting for permission from me to leave. She needed to know that the girls and everyone else would be OK if she left.

We had many cats and dogs while we lived in Florida and they just seemed to show up at our house. It wasn't until we went through a divorce and we moved away from Florida that Bambi got real sick and had to be euthanized. THAT was the hardest thing I have ever had to do and will not do it ever again. Through that though is when I knew I had a real gift and connection to animals that would never leave me and only get stronger throughout the rest of my life.

When they administered the drugs into his body as I held him, he jumped. Now I have asked others who had been there with their animals where they were being put down and non of them had this experience of the animal jumping or jolting. It was then I felt Icesicles go through my body. It felt as though they were ripping through me. Then I looked up at the top corner of the room and there he was--his spirit and he told me that he would be back. To this day I have searched him out to see when he was or in what form that he would be back....and nothing so far.

I also had another cat that we had at the same time we had him and her name was Snit. Oh she was the best cat anyone could have. She was well mannered, listened well and just was so different from any other cats that I have ever had. We didn't get her as a kitten, but we saved her life from two children that should never have had any animals let alone a cat. She was about 6 months old--maybe a tad bit younger when we saved her. She had been with us through all the moves we made and houses and land and every situation you could imagine. She was our black cat. She was 18 years old when she died, just March 30, 2008. She was not in good health and the Vet's and I were trying everything we could think of to help her out. It was the night that we came home from attending my Uncle's funeral. I slept for about 3 hours and then awaken by Snit's coughing and gagging. I knew it was her time then, but ignored it. I tired to give her more antibiotics and nasal decongestants, but she just wanted to go. I believe that when my husband put her down on the floor she walked a few steps right out of her body and into the back yard. I picked her up and we held her together and she expired in the way they expire with the heavy last loud sigh. As she was doing that I told my husband that she was dying. Oh, I cried for a long time but at the same time I knew she wasn't in pain and she didn't know she walked right out of her body. She thinks she is still playing in the woods and running up trees and such. I can usually sense when they are around. Bambi was around at the time she left and so was her son, Pendragon and her other son Chico, who died in a fire. I haven't felt anything from them since her passing. Although it might be too early yet. I didn't feel Bambi's presence until I moved to this house on a forested mountain.

On this mountain since we have moved back into the cabin and making it a house, I have had many animals stop by for a short visit and some have come to stay. Buster was a stray cat. He wouldn't even let me glance at him before he would dart off in another direction. Funny one day he came close enough to me and let me stroke his back. Now I know my gifts are real and I know he was waiting and he came to me and he knew that I would take good care of him. He never groomed himself, and he never looked totally up at you. Buster became his name because he looked like some kind of gangster in the 20's. Oh and YES animals know what you are thinking and they know what you are saying! After the very first stroke he changed and he began to groom himself. He stayed around her for two years and I became an animal advocate for the cats that come to me. Spay and neutering was the only thing that I could come up with. So learning about the Law of Attraction I simply asked that we have enough funds to do this to all the cats that come to me.

Mommy-Kitty came to me last year. This was an unusual experience. She came to me and kept meowing at me until I followed her. Now I had never seen her before in my life. So I followed her and it was lightly raining and a bit chilly. She lead me to the neighbors house on the corner. From under a small shed came 2 kittens. The cutest things you ever saw. I told her and I kid you not, that for me to help her and her kittens that she would have to bring them to me. That night she brought 2 of them. They weren't too hard to catch as Mommy Kitty had them nurse from her so that I could pick them up unawares. So I got a large dog crate and put them in it. The next night she brought me 2 more. They were a bit more difficult to catch as they saw me and ran. I got them though after a few hours of waiting for the right time and they weren't paying attention to me but to mommy. I thought two would b easy to get homes for, but four that would be a bit more difficult and these rascals were almost totally feral. I thought that was it, but she had another surprise! She brought me a 5th kitten and he was VERY difficult to catch because he ran and jumped through the lattice on our deck and ran up into a tree. Man can they run and climb so fast!! He really got way up into the tree and we had to sit and wait for hours before we could catch him. It took months to get them used to human touch. I ended up keeping one because someone reneged on them being able to keep it. He had the mannerisms of Bambi too so I didn't mind keeping him. His name is Charlie.

This year I knew when Mommy Kitty got pregnant and by whom and I kept her up until now. Buster was neutered about 4 weeks ago and Mommy Kitty was 5 days ago. So no more kittens here! She gave me three this time. Two males and a female. They are going to be de-sexed next week and since I could not find them homes their homes will be in my woods. I shall be feeding them all their lives, but they will not have anymore unwanted litters. Mommy Kitty understands this and had no problems. Buster, well they almost put him down.

Buster always let me and my husband hold him and pet him and he loves to be brushed. He is a lap kitty too. He can't come into the house for a few reason, my girls would have him for dinner and he was born outside and doesn't like the closed in feeling he has when being indoors. He is used to having lots of room! So I take him and Charlie to the Vets to get Rabies Shots and neutered. Everything is fine until the Tech leaves Buster out of the crate----not the right move on her part. He was scared, never been to a Vet and never been in a small room and with someone he never met before. So I calmed him down and went home--about 1'2 hour drive. I get home and think everything is fine, then I get a call about an hour later informing me they were going to put Buster down because he bit the tech! Well after several calls and pleading because I knew he didn't have rabies, the decided to house Buster for the ten days quarantine. I was allowed t see him the first night and I said to him that I never thought that something lie this was ever going to happen. I also told him that it was not my intention to bring him in there to be killed. He was scared and I kept calming him down. I am glad that I did that then because the next night I was not allowed to touch him at all, but I could talk to him for 5 minutes! After that I wasn't allowed to see him again until I was to pick him up. Believe me, he knew what was going on. When I finally got him home and let him out of the carrier, he loved me up and down and sideways too! He was a very happy and grateful cat. I guess he knew that I would go to bat for him and stay with him thick and thin. Funny how he doesnt' leave the back deck unless he has to potty or I am out waling or doing something in the yard. Then he will come out and be right by mys side.

So I really think that animals know who will help them way before we do.

Please share your wonderful stories here too. We are all connected to each and everyone and animals too, it's just that some of us have a stronger pull and a special understanding and the animals sense that--in this physical world or in the spiritual one. Open your mind and your will see and hear them.

I got pictures of the Three kittens that will be staying in our backyard. Right now they are on my back deck in crates. Houdini and Mikey in one and Sheba in another. Houdini got his name because if there is a way to get out he will find it and he has three times. I now have their nesting box almost covered with Duck Tape! Mikey--a name he chose. He meowed once and I called him that and he meowed again when I called him that name again. So that stuck with him. He isn't too keen on human contact. Funny how he was born the same time and in the same litter with the same touching and feeding and stuff and he just is like scared to death of me touching him. That might change after he gets de-sexed on Monday. Sheba is a real sweetheart. She loves to be picked up and talked too and she is wanting to play on her own without her brothers. She still wants to nurse from her mother. They were born on March 28, so she shouldn't be wanting that, but she is special. Mommy Kitty still cleans them and washes them and plays with them. While they are out in the pen that I created for them she also wants them to jump over and follow her. I tell her that they can't do that just yet. Two more weeks and they should be ready to let go on their own. It will be sad because I get attached easily, but good for them because they keep poking their little heads out of the lattice work on our deck to see what is going on down there in those woods! I have let my dog Duke out with them in the pen a few times. They were afraid of him but sort of getting to know him now. I have to put Mommy Kitty in a crate though as she goes right after him with her claws. I understand she wants to protect them but at the same time they need to be used to him as he is outside most of the day. He isn't running loose though, he is on a 50 foot rope that reaches to most of the yard. I watch him and untangle him when he gets himself all tangled around the trees and other stuff. He always give a one woof bark when he wants in or he jumps on the front door. I will let him in when he wants to come in. Most times though he just goes and sleeps under the front ramp to the deck. It is cool under there. All the other cats that come around, and mine who are outside during the day, all get along fine. On occasion he will tree one, but he doesn't harm them. Sometimes he will chase a stray that he doesn't know out of the area--not just the yard because he thinks the whole forest is his yard! He has gotten loose a few times and has run all over the place just around here though. I had to go get him once because he was exchanging notes with another dog and had forgotten all about the cat he was chasing.

Oh and good news Spay Today will take all of three kittens at the same time! Great for them and for me. Wtih gas prices being so high now it is going to waste alot of gas taking my husband to work at 5 in the morning and coming home and not having to go out until 7 for a 1/2 hour trip to and a 1/2 hour trip back from the place I need to drop them off. Then I have to go pick my husband back up from work at 3:00 in the afternoon. I have to do it all over again on Tuesday to pick them back up in the morning. I would have had to do this on Friday and Saturday too if someone hadn't cancelled out. Things do hapen for a reason.

I will write more once I get a picture of the other cats in the area. I am also going to write stories about all the animals that I have had the blessing to know and help. Some will not have pictures though because I didn't have a digital camera with me at all those times. Oh and some animals are just not photogenic!