Gentle Energy with Val at BARC Shelter

Val is a beautiful cat at BARC Shelter, who I have been working with even more attention, focus and sensitivity, as she can flip from being affectionate to swiping and scratching. I feel she wants the attention so badly, but can get over-stimulated with too much contact.
I am working with her very gently, and with short sessions, to help her become more and more accustomed to the experience of pleasant contact, stopping before she gets to the point of overstimulation, when she is likely to scratch someone
Before I start to work with Val, it is very important for me to center myself, as she will pick up on my energy. So I focus on grounding myself, and beginning to let Reiki energy flow through my body. Before I move towards Val to touch her, I stand outside her cage with my body sideways to the cage (much less threatening position than straight-on) and begin to send her Reiki energy from there. She will usually either go lie on her bed or come up to the front of the cage and settle there.
The two pictures below are from a session in which she settled right at the front of the cage. After she settled there, I reached through the bars of the cage and did little raccoon TTouches around the base of the ear, which is a very calming place to work as it connects with the triple heater meridian, which has to do with respiration, digestion, and distribution of energy through the body. I kept giving her breaks as I did this, to avoid her getting over-stimulated and so I could pay attention to her body language to see what would be best to do next. By this I mean that I did the TTouch circles for a few seconds up to a minute or so, following my intuition, give about a half minute break or longer, then start again. She settled into these TTouches very well, but I didn't want to push it so after a bit I gave her another break and tried something else.


The next thing I did was some TTouches on her forehead using the back of the tip of a finger or two. There's no official name for this TTouch, but I was doing the clockwise circle and a quarter movement with perhaps just my fingernail, or at other times a bit more of the back surface of my finger. The forehead can also be a very calming area to work for many cats.
I was using very light pressure, as is usual with cats, as they are so sensitive, just enough to move the skin around in a circle and a quarter. She calmed quite a lot as I did this, relaxing and closing her eyes. After a few minutes, I gave her a longer break, then later in the day went back to work with her again.

A few days after I took these pictures, I had another very interesting session with her, which surprised me even further. This time after I sent her Reiki energy for a few minutes, she settled on her bed in the back of the cage.

I opened the cage, still with my body sideways to the cage, and began to do TTouches on Val's forehead with the back of my fingers. But this time, to calm her (and, I think, to calm myself), I found myself softly and slowly saying "b-r-e-a-t-h-e". As I did this, I felt a calm bubble of energy around us, "b-r-e-a-t-h-e", and Val's eyes began to close. She looked very relaxed in this moment. We stayed in this floating feeling with the TTouches and occasionally saying "b-r-e-a-t-h-e" again for a while, hard to know whether it was five minutes, ten minutes. But as one of our TTouch sayings goes, "It's moments, not minutes" that matter. So when I felt it was enough, I told her how good she was, thanked her, and then backed away to let her rest.

I realize that I was taking a risk putting my arm and hand inside her cage, and but sometimes I just have to follow my heart and go forward when I feel it is right. It is important though to remember that when you do that, you need to acknowledge that you are taking a risk and are responsible for that.

That being said, I am very excited to start to see a shift in Val's behavior with me and hopefully soon with other people, and would love to see a shift the way people see Val (because of her past behavior). I keep visualizing her in a positive way. Look forward to seeing you soon, Val!

Less is More with Val

Val is a beautiful grey tabby who I've been working with at BARC Shelter in Brooklyn. She has been returned a couple of times. She can be very affectionate, but in the middle of being affectionate she can suddenly flip and scratch a person very hard.

I have dealt with quite a few cats that have tendencies in this direction, and it is most helpful to work with them just a very little bit at a time, with frequent breaks. Usually after quietly and diligently working in this way, the cat can little by little have contact for longer periods of time, but it is always important to stay in the moment with them and watch their body language and to stop and give them a break the minute you even start to see a movement which shows they are getting overstimulated (tail twitching, head pulling back, eyes getting big, etc).

To be on the very safe side, I have been primarily working with Val through the bars of her cage. I wait for her to come to me, then do a few slow zigzag TTouches, chimp TTouches or llama TTouches as she rubs against the bars of the cage, or some raccoon TTouches on her head when her head is close to the bars. The chimp and llama TTouches use the back surfaces of the fingers, so those are less stimulating types of TTouches.

I have also been offering her Reiki from just outside her cage, and this is extremely calming to her . Often I will start out by doing this, as this can help to get her in a calmer mode, but other times I start out with some TTouches. I follow my intuition as to what feels right at that time. It is so important not to get stuck in any one approach with an animal, but to really be in the moment with them and get a sense of what feels right for them.

I keep the contact very short with Val for now. I just do a few TTouches, wait a minute for her to come back to me, then try a little more, then maybe stop and just send her Reiki for a little bit, maybe speaking to her very gently. I have found she is especially responsive to little raccoon TTouches on her forehead area. This is an area that I have often found to be extremely calming for cats who are ramped up or nervous. And little by little she has started to recognize these TTouches on her head, and will lay down and settle into them more and more, so I have been able to work with her in this way for longer and longer periods (reaching my fingers through the bars of the cage to do this).

Most recently, I have been opening her cage very slightly, doing a few TTouches with her there, then closing the cage again, always keeping this period short, just a few seconds at a time for now.

I have been making Bach Flower remedies for her, and the remedies seem to be helping. At the moment, to be on the safe side, only a limited number of other experienced people are working with her, including long-time BARC volunteer Betty, who recently took a TTouch workshop with Edie Jane (which I assisted). Betty has been having good sessions with Val using a long-handled paintbrush to make contact with her.

Another thing which I think is of vast importance is positive visualization. If an animal has exhibited aggressive behavior, sometimes it is hard for people to get out of their head the negative pictures that they have about the animal. So it is really important to start putting in your head images of the animal behaving in a positive way - of the animal being calm, of the animal responding positively to touch, maybe pushing their head into your hand, etc.

So here's to you Val, sending you much love and light, and look forward to seeing you soon.