When a Pet Reincarnates

If you are a pet owner and you love animals, then you already understand how devastating it is when a pet reaches the end of their life and crosses over. There is no gentle way to explain it, because it is brutal in a very real and very deep way. Pets are not just animals that live in your house. They are family, and they are woven into your daily life in ways you often do not even realize until they are gone.

You take care of them every day. You buy them treats, beds, toys, and food, and you learn all of their little preferences along the way. They end up with a favorite toy, and that toy suddenly becomes important to you simply because it belongs to them. You talk to them, you build routines with them, and you share your space and energy with them. Then one day, because their lives are much shorter than ours, they leave, and the absence they leave behind is immediate and overwhelming.

Even if you have other pets, the loss still hits hard. The other animals in the home grieve as well, and you can see it in their behavior. They search, they withdraw, and they seem confused, because that was their friend and their family too. They mourn just like we do, even though it looks different, and anyone who has lived with animals can recognize that grief when they see it.

I have always had pets, and I have always loved animals, and because of that, I have also always lost them. Every time it happens, it hurts, and every time I cry, no matter how many times I have been through it before. That pain never fully goes away, and it never becomes easier just because you have experienced it before.

A lot of people get a new pet very quickly after losing one, and I have done that myself. I did it because I had many pets throughout my life, and as they aged, loss became something that happened more often. Sometimes getting another animal helps fill the empty space, but sometimes it also means that the grief never fully has a chance to move through you.

One of the hardest losses for me was my cat Baby, who was absolutely precious to me. One day he stopped eating, and he kept coming to me, and looking back, I should have known something was wrong, but I did not. After a couple of days of him not eating, I took him to the vet, fully expecting to come home with him that day. Instead, they found a mass, and while it was technically operable, the surgery would have cost $10,000, and they were already viewing him as an older cat because he was twelve.

If I had that money, I would have paid it without hesitation. There is no doubt in my mind about that.

I went home and cried, and at that time I had several cats who were all around the same age. As they grew older, they started passing one after another, simply because it was their time. Eventually, it was just Baby and Sadie left together. When Baby died, Sadie slept almost the entire day, and she did not know yet that he was gone. When she finally woke up and realized he was missing, so she began looking for him. She saw me and realized Baby wasn't coming home and then she disappeared within the apartment for three days, clearly mourning the loss of the companion she had lived her whole life with.

Four days later, I got another cat, even though I had not given myself enough time to grieve. That cat is Chase, and I still have him today. He did help fill the empty space in the house, but the truth is that I had not fully healed from losing Baby. Sadie was still with me, and she became the older presence in the home as the other cats I got slowly grew around her.

Sadie was a unique cat with a strong personality, because she enjoyed affection but only on her own terms, and she would let you know very clearly when you crossed a line by hitting you with claws out. No forewarning, just scratch. She was aware, opinionated, and very much her own being. Today, I lost her due to old age.

She had stopped eating five days ago, she was disoriented and confused, and I was hoping she would pass at home. I did not want her placed in a carrier, driven through the cold, and surrounded by unfamiliar people in a strange place. I wanted her to pass peacefully in her own home, because that felt like the most loving thing I could do for her.

She had a different plan.

She was already actively dying when I took her to the vet today, and the vet I took her to was the same one I had taken Baby to years earlier. It was the same building, the same room, and even the same couches were still there. I refused to sit on the couch I had sat on when I lost Baby, even though four years had passed since that day.

Sadie was so weak that she laid on the floor, because she did not want to be held. While they were calming her, she passed, and I knew the exact moment her soul left her body. I felt it clearly, and I said out loud that she was no longer in there anymore.

I know animal spirits, and I meditate, and I connect in ways that allow me to feel when that transition happens. When animals cross over, they often follow you home, and later I found her here with me. She kept telling me that she was free, that she felt better, and that I should not be upset, and I believe her.

What I did not understand at first was why she made me go through that experience again, and why it had to happen in that same place. She told me that I never fully processed the loss of Baby, and that I moved forward without ever really facing that pain. Today she forced me to face that pain so it could finally be released.

This is something animals do, because they are deeply intuitive and connected in ways that humans often are not. They understand us emotionally and spiritually, and they know what we have healed and what we have avoided. Sometimes they mirror our struggles, and sometimes they even take on physical conditions as a way of reflecting what we are dealing with ourselves to show us what needs to be healed.

Animals are incredibly connected to the spiritual world, and even people who are intuitive often do not come close to the level of awareness that animals naturally carry. One of the most important things animals have taught me is that they can reincarnate quickly and back into the same family. Humans rarely do this within the same family line, but animals do it often, and I have seen it repeatedly throughout my life.

When I was a kid, we had a very unusual cream-colored cat named Fluffy, and after she died, another cream-colored kitten was born from another cat we had. This happened again and again over the years, with the same coloring, the same personality, and the same presence, making it very clear that it was the same soul returning in a new body. All of them were named Fluffy and they all were that same cream color.

As I grew older and began communicating with spiritual beings, I asked about pets and what happens to them when they die, and I was told that animals can choose to come back into your life if they want to. They simply take on a new body, and this happens quite often. Many people miss it because grief makes it hard to see what is right in front of them. Their new pet acting like their old pet.

When Baby died, I wanted him back immediately, and because he had already been a reincarnation of my cat Spaz, I knew how to recognize him. I had Spaz for 13 years before he died and he had a very specific habit of pressing his nose to mine. He would boop his nose to my nose all the time, so when he died I told him that if he came back, he had to do that to me or I would not know it was him.

Weeks later, I was told there was a litter of kittens, and I could go see them and pick one if I wanted. I asked if there was a black one and they said there was. I drove way up to Maine to see these brand new kittens. I had to see if one of them was my Spaz. I held the tiny black one who could barely move, because he was 2 weeks old. As I am holding him he placed his paws on my face, wiggled his little head back and pressed his nose directly to mine, making it clear to me that he was in fact my Spaz. That kitten was Baby.

After Baby died when he was 12, I became impatient with the reincarnation process, and I pushed the process instead of waiting like my guides wanted me to. Four days after Baby died I got Chase, but I knew he wasn't Baby, but he was another cat we had lost. After a couple of months I went looking for Baby and found another cat who looked exactly like Baby. I thought this was him so I called him Little Baby. After some time I realized he wasn't acting right, he didn't act like my Baby did. I knew something was off. About a year later, another kitten came into my life. We named him Ambrose, and he would repeatedly press his nose to mine in the same way Spaz did and Baby did. I thought it was weird, but it took me a good 2 years before I realized Ambrose acts exactly like Baby.

I talked to my spirit guides to find out what was going on and they said, "We told you that you needed to be patient and you weren't, so Baby got mixed up in the reincarnation process and now a bit of his soul is in Little Baby and the majority is in Ambrose."

What I want you to understand is that pets can come back into your life in a new body! They teach us through their lives, through their deaths, and sometimes through their return. They help us heal, they show us where we are stuck, and they love us unconditionally, which leaves a permanent mark on our life.

If you have lost a pet, that bond does not disappear. Often they stay close to you when they are in the spirit world, but sometimes they return to you, in a new body and sometimes they move on and don't return back to you. If you lost a pet, look at your current pet and see if there are similarities, behaviors that mimic the pet you lost, or if they act like the other pet. Don't force it or make it fit, just trust your intuition and know that animals have the ability to reincarnate back to you.

Just be sure to grieve properly, know that you are not alone, there are hotlines you can call if you are grieving for the loss of your pet. But I can honestly tell you, with all of this pain from losing Sadie today, I could never imagine my life without my pets.

About Me

My name is Holly Janes, and I’m the founder of MediSoul Wellness. My work is focused on teaching people who they are on a soul level and why they are here, so they can heal, grow, and complete what they came to do in this lifetime. Through guided meditation, energy work, and spiritual education, I help people clear what holds them back and move closer to their soul’s true home.