Taming a cat cultivates human patience, but it also develops a cat’s bravery. When I tamed Miss Mabel, our feral cat turned house-beast, I was in awe of how many times she overcame terror and fear to forge a friendship with me. It is not something I take for granted, and I have learned a lot from her.
Episode Highlights
0:53 I didn’t want to have another pet again after the loss of a cat that was my best friend – but here shows up a scrappy little cat in our yard who is starving
4:22 It’s a long waiting game to tame any wild animal, so I sat in the cold many hours while she warmed up to the idea of free meals of tuna offered by the tree
5:30 There is a slow build of trust between us as I begin to add touching her back to offering the food
7:09 One day the neighbor’s dog comes over while I’m feeding Mabel and I find my chance to demonstrate my feelings of protection and secure our friendship
10:04 The relationship advances when I attempt to feed our feral friend inside of my house instead of on the porch
11:15 Making mistakes with indoor feeding resulted in associations of fear and terror regarding our front door. How to overcome this and re-establish our trust?
12:51 My plan to capture Miss Mabel so I could bring her to the vet felt a bit wishful and deceitful but actually worked!
13:50 We catch up with the vet to find out how her overnight care went and confirm that Mabel is in fact a completely wild creature, though fortunately a sweet-natured one
15:16 I spend a night on the couch watching Howl’s Moving Castle to comfort her after her surgery and reestablish our bond
17:00 We did not have an immediate understanding of where and how to use litterboxes. This was stressful for both parties
17:35 We are amazed that Mabel doesn’t seem to want to go back outside once she recovered from her ordeal
18:27 Mabel’s full transformation took place when Derek and I became parents and she took it upon herself to become a fulltime Nanny Cat to our daughter
20:40 Becoming friends changed each other
21:22 She had friends other than us before she joined our family, including an opossum who wanted to make herself welcome to our home and food too!
23:21 We all have this ability to impact others, to choose them and to be chosen. Forging friendships across species is brave and for us, so worthwhile
Welcome to the full Spectrum Feeling Podcast. I'm your host, Blaze Schwaller, life coach and former tattoo artist. I help people heal their past, speak their truth to those they love, and learn how to feel ALL their emotions, so that they can live lives they love no matter what comes up. Join me here every week for conversations on how to live an imperfect but fully engaged life that embraces all the feels, so you can stretch into your best life while enjoying the you that's here now.