A New Cat- Thoughts on Welcoming a New Animal into a Household

My daughter Lizzy has a new cat in her household, a rescue Maine Coon cat named Tobias. She also lives with an elderly cat named Morgan, a beloved calico. In the way of Green Hope Farm, no sooner had Lizzy welcomed Tobias to her household than a lot of you called and emailed to talk about your own process of blending cats into one household. I found myself calling Lizzy every few hours with tips from you.

I also had some thoughts on Flower Essences for her to offer her cats and ways to give the cats the information of the Flower Essences. The Animal Wellness Collection offers a lot of helpful Flower Essence support for easing the household blending process be it with cats, dogs or any other animal or person.

Back to the specifics of Lizzy’s household, elderly cats often react negatively to the introduction of a new cat, and this has been Morgan’s response to young Tobias. However, I am very optimistic about their relationship long term. Here at the farm, we have seen that with the help of Flower Essences, this initial fiery reaction almost always transforms into a softer welcoming of the new cat. We have seen that as the Flower Essences ease the animals’ concerns, the developing friendship between the older cat and the younger becomes a gift to everyone. The older cat feels younger and more playful again and often moves through its grief about earlier lost companions. And the relationship with the older cat helps the younger cat grow into a solid citizen of the household, more mature than he or she could have been without the example of the household elder statesmen.

Today, I thought I would discuss some of the Animal Wellness Collection Flower Essence mixes particularly relevant to introducing an animal to a new home. These are mixes that have helped with the blending process of new and old cats, dogs, and other animals in literally tens of thousands of households.

I have given an overview of how each remedy might be a help. Sometimes, I describe some of the strengths of a couple of the Flower Essence ingredients in the mix. My descriptions are woefully incomplete. Flower Essences are so much more than any description.

If I were to describe in words Beethoven’s ninth symphony it would fall so far short of the beauty of the actual music. As Flower Essences are music, this is true for them as well. My words never do justice to the beautiful healing music of Flower Essences. Please make your own acquaintance with these mixes to know their true glory!

New Beginnings– This is a good Flower Essence mix for both the newly arriving animal as well as all resident animals. In fact, it’s a good one for the people in the household to take when a new animal arrives in a household. A new animal in a household is a New Beginning for all.

New Beginnings is a softening mix that helps everyone feel better about the new animal’s arrival. Flower Essences in New Beginnings, including Morning Glory and Mutabilis Rose, help us to accomodate and welcome the change a new animal brings. Flower Essences in the mix, including Gall of the Earth and Red Mangrove, help us feel integrated during changes, safe enough to literally stay present. Flower Essences in the mix, including Red Rugosa Rose and Pale Pink Rose, help us roll with the changes and release worries. Flower Essences in the mix, including Tree Peony and Rose a Parfum de l’Hay, help us know there is enough love to expand the household to accommodate this new member.
Anxiety– Change invariably stirs up anxieties. For example, it’s not uncommon for old cats to hideout when a new cat arrives or fall into patterns of obsessive grooming, peeing in strange places, or other stress related coping mechanisms. This mix helps everyone feel more peaceful and calm during the transition period. It also helps animals release their stress and stress related coping mechanisms as well as find their emotional balance again.

Flower Essences in Anxiety, including Aspen, Scarlet Runner Bean, and Red Clover, help with fear responses. Other Essence ingredients, including Borage and Pink Tecoma, help everyone find a bead on good cheer and hope if they are depressed or overwhelmed by the changes. Essence ingredients, including Feverfew and Crab Apple, help break the grip of obsessive compulsive response behaviors. Essence ingredients, including Mustard and Pennyroyal, help release deep seated and nameless anxieties. Other Essence ingredients, including Trillium and Queen Anne’s Lace, offer help to find equilibrium and inner strength during turmoil. As with any description of one of our mixes, to list a few strengths of a few of the ingredient Essences feels vague and incomplete in contrast to the actual support the Essence mix offers. The Flower Essences in this mix contribute in so many directions and so many levels to ease our anxieties.

Abandonment & Abuse– Changes in a household of any kind almost always takes a rescue animal back in time to the trauma of being abandoned. The animal feels he is back in that earlier abandonment experience and reverts to his earlier coping mechanisms. This is a post traumatic stress reaction and almost all rescue animals will experience this pattern of response. For some, the earlier coping mechanisms may be hiding. For others, it may be aggressive behavior. There are so many responses and not all of them declare themselves as stress related patterns. For example, some cats get very passive. That was their survival response then and it returns to them in times of stress.

The key thing here is that this post traumatic stress response CAN be released and the animal can heal so that present day stress does NOT return them to a reliving of their earlier traumas. The Abandonment & Abuse remedy was developed to unwind the emotional scars rescue or traumatized animals experience and to free them from this post traumatic response. This remedy will help them to know they are safe and to know they are in their present life not back in the past.

With some remedies, animals can learn what they need to learn from the remedy in a few exposures or over the course of a few weeks. Because a rescue animal’s scars are so complicated and deep, this is a remedy that may take much longer to be fully integrated by the animal. While you may need only a small bottle of most of these remedies to share with your household during the introduction of a new cat, if any of the animals are rescue animals who have not worked with Abandonment & Abuse before, you might consider getting a large bottle of this remedy and giving it to the rescued animal or animals for many months. Each exposure to the remedy will help them to peel off and let go of a layer of trauma. As they heal, they begin to experience a new way to live with other animals. From a place of actually knowing they are safe in a post rescue life, they find a new ability to welcome a new cat into the household and a new ability to experience loving social community.

Animal Emergency Care, Recovery and Immune Support– Sometimes the new arrival of an animal in a household triggers such dramatic fight or flight reactions in the animals that they need these remedies to help them with adrenaline exhaustion and their post traumatic stress reaction. As you might guess, this is especially likely if the animals in your household are rescue animals. These remedies help with recovery from this kind of reaction by generally restoring the electrical system in the animal. I would offer Animal Emergency Care if the situation feels like a crisis in any way and offer Recovery and/or Immune Support as a way of restoring a physical sense of well being after everyone begins to settle down.

Outburst – If any of the animals are fighting or being aggressive, if the situation feels explosive or if anyone of the household is responding by peeing ouside the litter box or being destructive, this can be a useful remedy. It helps animals to find more benign ways to release their stress than through uncontrolled outbursts.

The Angels have a very expansive way of thinking about what an Outburst is and when to use this remedy. They suggest this remedy for all kinds of diverse situations including skin rashes or temper tantrums. So, if you are prompted to get this one for something that doesn’t exactly feel like a classic outburst, trust your intuition.

Flower Essences in Outburst, including Indian Pipe and Mary Queen of Scots Rose, promote an end to inner and outer conflict. Flower Essences in the mix including Orange and Orange Hawkweed smooth and settle erratic high voltage energies. The Snapdragon in the mix offers its very helpful release of aggressive mouth energies. Cleansing Flower Essences, including Bloodroot, Eggplant, and Dandelion, are balanced with calming, centering Flower Essences, including Wild Columbine, Dogberry, and Bunchberry.

Jealousy and Arbor Garden I once heard a mother of young children remark that she was puzzled that we all expected our children to share their toys with other children effortlessly. After all, she noted, did we really know a lot of adults that liked to share their toys? Yup, Jealousy is a useful remedy in this and a lot of other situations. For animals and humans alike it is not always easy to share our people or our home let alone our toys.

The Arbor Garden mix is an ingredient in Jealousy and a number of other mixes because it offers such a wonderful vibrational example of harmony, oneness and steady reassurance that there is enough love for all of us. Sometimes Jealousy feels just right for a blending situation. There may be one member in the household in particular that needs this information to ease up on their jealousy. Sometimes Arbor Garden feels like a good mix to have in its own right. Arbor Garden tends to relax everyone and help them feel that life is good. After losses, change, and other transitions, this can be such a balm of an Essence mix.

Grief & Loss– If there was a death in the household and this new animal is coming in to help the household recover from this loss, some in the household may find the new arrival takes them back to a strong experience of the lost person or animal. Grief is a long journey. This remedy supports us on every step of it.

Transition– Because a new arrival in a household can trigger a returned feeling of loss to older members of a household, it no longer surprises me when someone knows their household needs Transition when they get a new animal. While we developed this remedy as support for the dying process, we rapidly discovered the Angels wanted us to offer it in a lot of situations of change. There is a lot of death in birth and a lot of birth in death. This is an exceptional support for ALL moments of transition.

Flow Free– Could I write anything about Flower Essences without mentioning this mix? I doubt it. This is such a godsend for keeping a situation moving towards resolution and healing. If anything is stuck, if any patterns of response feels unable to shift, if in any way the household feels shut down, consider giving everyone Flow Free to encourage movement.

How to Give your Household the Flower Essences
When a new animal arrives in a household, spritzing the rooms in your home with Flower Essences in water is a wonderful way to give the information of the Flower Essences to the animals.

To do this, mix a dropper or so of each of the Flower Essences you want to use with up to a cup of water and put this mix in a plant mister or one of the spritzer bottles we sell. Then spritz all the rooms where the animals live with this water Flower Essence mix. This is a very non invasive, but very effective way, to give all animals as well as the people the information of the Flower Essences.

Why use this method?
When animals are stressed, they don’t always eat or drink according to their old routines. This means they may not receive the information of the Flower Essences if the Essences are put in their food or water. As things settle down, putting the Flower Essences in water or food becomes a more reliable way to proceed, but to begin with, spritzing insures that everyone gets this information in a very gentle way.

There are other great reasons to spritz. When a new animal arrives in a household, it can be very unclear exactly what is going on. For example, even if only one animal appears to be on the warpath, there often is a more complicated dynamic going on than this surface dynamic. Giving just the aggressor Outburst may not get to the bottom of the problem. In any household, the complexities of human and animal relationship grow exponentially with the arrival of each new animal or person.

If everyone gets the information provided by the Flower Essences, the animals as well as us humans all receive potentially helpful data. And just like our wise animal companions, our electrical systems know what Flower Essence information we need and know how to integrate this wisdom into our electrical systems. So when we spritz our households, all of us are getting support to make this the best new beginning possible for everyone.

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