maybe this will help… i dont know.
i had a dog my parents got me must have been 1st grade? His name was MOOSE. Now, I was a weird kid, and i spent my childhood and young adulthood mainly reading, i didnt play outside much till i got into athletics when older. But, suffice to say i wasnt at all social as a kid, i was different, and… the dog was literally my best friend. The dog was a part of the family, he literally went everywhere with us. It would be an understatement to say i was close with Moose… and the whole family was devastated when he finally passed away almost 17 years old.
i didnt have a pet of my own at my own house, till i bought this old house, when i was in my late 20s after graduating college the second time around. I lived here a while before i met the neighbors teenage kid, and met the family dog they had. CHAMP. Now, champ was a friendly intelligent dog? but… he instantly took a real shine to me. It was uncanny, even the kids parents noted it.
champ started coming to MY house on his own, knocking on the screen door, and coming in and making himself at home. He chose to stay here for sometimes a couple days at a time. SOmetimes he wanted to go home when the neighbors callled him? sometimes the dog would just LOOK at me when we both heard them calling him? and if he laid his head down and ignored it? i let hin stay, LMAO.
Now, ai always DID notice his EYES looked exactly like MY dog as a kid… it was uncanny. I noticed he DID almost everything MY DOG did, and i mean all the little stuff too. It was WEIRD, and it even slightly un-nerved me. I just thought i still really missed MY dog from all those years ago, but, i could never shake the weird feeling that was MY dogs eyes in THAT dog… i know how that sounds, and, i am in no way mentally unbalanced in any other way like delusions or anything… it was just freaky.
one day, champ was just LOOKING in my eyes, like he was trying to tell me something. You know how dogs do that… anyways, on a whim? I talked to him and called him by MY DOGS name… he went INSANE, acted all happy, and ran around and did “all the stuff MY dog used to do” even more after that.
I started calling him “moose”, and he instantly answered to THAT name too. I started buying him all the favorite foods MY dog had liked… i mean, i couldnt find ANYthing to prove to myself? That MY DOG was somehow “inside” that dog, and i could just see it only in the personality, the actions, the emotions… and in the EYES.
I honestly questioned my own SANITY. I didnt SEEM to be going crazy in any other way. I didnt have any OTHER delusions of any kind. SO… i just “went with it”.
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i cant EXPLAIN IT… i cant JUSTIFY it… but, for all intents and purposes? it was as if my dog, dead long years… had somehow “came back” in this dogs body? and had… “found me”. It just took him about a year or so to convince me that… “hey! its ME! Wheres my blanket?”
we didnt have a LOT of time together that second time? but we had a couple/several years.
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so… THAT out of the way? I am no longer “absolutely sure” about things… and… well… when eventually i was close friends with a pet cat here? When he died young (4-1/2 years… kitty leukemia) i was equally devastated, that cat was my best friend like any other pet i ever had…. i eventually went “looking for mr fuzzy” who had DIED a little less than a year prior.
i searched high and low, just LOOKING for him… where would i find him? what CAT would he BE IN this time around? i just had to LOOK, at least THIS time around, i knew i was LOOKING for my cat, he was SOMEwhere…
sure enough? i eventually went to the shelter. I went thru EVERY cat there, I just couldnt “find him”… they even took me to the room upstairs where they had a zillion MORE cats they couldnt adopt out? nope… i was leaving, and on the way OUT? i realized the cage of baby kitties they had. I had seen them on the way in? all black kitties… on the way OUT though? i noticed ONE KITTY that was orange.
little buff boots like Mr fuzzy had. Ipulled out my cell phone? a picture of Mr fuzzy as a baby? it was him, it was like it was his own picture… i picked it up, and held it. After some time? it curled up in my arms just like mr fussy had done when i found him… then it out its paws on my cheeks, and gave me ONE nose lick. Just like Mr fuzzy would do.
the only thing was? Mr Fuzzy had come back as a GIRL cat this time, so… i named “him” Squeaky, since he was a girl this time around.
the cat did everything just like Mr Fuzzy did? everything… it was uncanny. I was very happy… then just like Mr fuzzy? looking like a female CLONE of him? Damn it, Squeaky died young (around 5 years old) of renal failure.
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i had another young cat here when Squeaky died, and that one just “moved up” and became the only cat here. We are CLOSE like with any other pet i ever had? but… its not like its “my cat inside” the eyes or anything, and, this cat does “everything differernt”…
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i love Takky (this one) as much as Mr Fuzzy and Squeaky? But… when TAKKY passes one day (shes past the 5 year “hex” of the other two that died young) i will be on the lookout for “3” different cats coming back to me. I just need to be observant to find one of them…
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I’m not real religious, in fact not much at all. I am a lifelong academic, and while not exactly an atheist? I am just… not very religious.
i just… well, i cant EXPLAIN it… it just “is”. A favorite pet can come back, in another pets body sometimes… they will “do” all the same things, uncanny, and you will “see” them in the eyes. I cant explain it… call me crazy if you want to. They know their NAME, and they like all the same foods and things they used to. They run around ECSTATIC when you finally “recognize them” and start to talk to them and treat them like they remember.
I… I cant explain it.