Ipek the Cat's Story: Home Is Wherever I Am

Having a pet disappear is deeply distressing. Heart-breakingly so. Every day, somebody somewhere is out searching for their missing pet, calling their name, leaving dishes with the animal's favorite treats, canvassing the neighbors and calling on lost pet experts like animal trackers and animal communicators. But is there more to the story than simply a lost pet when an animal goes missing? Animal communicator Shannon Cutts addresses lesser known aspects of lost pets in this post.

But then one day she just disappeared.

The pandemic was just gathering steam. Typical search options like knocking on doors, beating the bushes or posting lost pet flyers were largely off the menu for the foreseeable future.

Knowing Ipek's history as he did, Paz wasn't so worried about her ability to navigate the street life once more. But he was deeply concerned she may not have left by choice and may not have been able to find her way back to her home with him for any number of equally concerning reasons.

As a highly intuitive person, Paz's intuition was nudging him to set his worry aside. As a pet parent, Paz's head was urging him to worry more fervently. Then other much more pressing matters gobbled up his energy and attention and he had to let the matter drop.

By the time Paz's path crossed with mine, Ipek had been missing for more than two years. I was actually communicating with his two current feline family members, Yagmur and Gri, when the topic of Ipek's disappearance came up. He asked me if I could still tune in to try to locate her or at least give him some closure.

When I connected with Ipek, she immediately showed me what happened the day she went missing from her point of view. She was sunning out on the protected patio area as she often liked to do when all of a sudden something caught her attention. The something (bird? squirrel? lizard?) was moving quite swiftly. She followed it.

Suddenly, Ipek was off the patio and back out on the street again. The quick darting thing she had been following had disappeared. And all around her, she saw animals of every shape and size. Each was just going about their respective business, hunting, eating, resting, playing, defending, sleeping.

How had she forgotten all this? The grass delist like a fresh, soft and fragrant floor beneath her paws. Above her head, the blue sky with its fluffy clouds and warm sunshine formed a ready and quite picturesque roof. To her left and right, in front and behind, trees, shrubs and buildings formed sturdy walls.

To her, it felt like nothing less nor more than a larger home with more inhabitants and enough of what each required to meet everyone's needs.

In that moment, Ipek realized she had a choice. She had the best possible choice a cat could ever have. She had two homes to choose between. Ipek could return to her home with Paz. Or she could stay in this larger outside home as well.

When I shared Ipek's message with Paz, what he said next really didn't surprise me. He wrote back, "Thank you so much. This is immensely helpful and I really feel so much more closure than before about the situation. That actually is quite consistent with how I found her and how she left."

He then requested that I simply let Ipek know she is always, always welcome to return to her other home with him.

But here is the most interesting part!

Not long after Ipek went missing, Gri showed up. Gri (another lovely Turkish name that means "grey") was in much worse shape than Ipek had been when she first met Paz. In fact, the vet told Paz that if he hadn't taken Gri in when he did, the cat would likely not have survived.

Paz told me that he had often wondered if Gri and Ipek were communicating either before Ipek left or right after - and if perhaps Ipek told Gri where to go to find help.

The answer here, of course, is "yes."

Happily, I was also able to share with Paz the news that Ipek gifted me with several confirming points to indicate she is still alive, still healthy and still living nearby.

There is an unmistakable elegance to Ipek's true life story - one which we cannot validate in the usual rather inelegant way of the left brain intellect, but one which nevertheless has the resonance of truth.

Ipek's story teaches us - or her story has taught me at least! - the vital and urgent need to press down deeper than what meets the eye to seek the animal's perspective in any lost or missing pet situation. And I don't mean you shouldn't do absolutely every last thing in your power to locate them and bring them home. I have personally stood in those frantic pet parent shoes more than once and I haven't always been successful in bringing my loves back to me.

But one of my own animals, my box turtle Bruce, has a story that mirrors Ipek's. In the end, I too have found a kind of important closure in these four words.

Their life. Their choice.

Are you struggling through the sudden disappearance of a precious pet? Or are you suffering at the memory of an animal beloved whose whereabouts is still unknown? Do you need to know if a missing pet is still alive in body or has passed across the rainbow bridge? I can help.