Part Two of How a Lost Turtle Led to a Miraculous Love Story of Pet Reincarnation

We pick up the story where we left off two weeks ago with a missing animal family member, an aching heart and far more questions than answers.

If you have ever had a pet go missing, and especially if their disappearance was never satisfactorily resolved, the continuation of this two-parter podcast episode is just for you.

Animal communication adds so much depth to the journey because it allows for the missing animal to share their why as well as their possible whereabouts. And sometimes, what a pet has to say may be downright shocking.

In the conclusion of the story, I share with you how what I once believed to be an irretrievable loss all at once transformed into a miraculous story come full-circle.

Mentioned in this article:
Io box turtle: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm--vYGv0Dt6kzPy33d3iv_qXL7mQofBF

Get your free pet reincarnation guide: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/petreincarnation 👀

Chapters

• 0:12 Finding a New Box Turtle Companion
• 13:00 Life Lessons From Box Turtle Companions
• 20:33 Reuniting With a Soul Pet

Transcript

Shannon Cutts: 0:12

Welcome to let's Talk to Animals. My name is Shannon Cutts. I'm an animal sensitive and intuitive, a Reiki master practitioner and an animal communication teacher with animallovelanguages. com. And, more importantly, for our purposes here today, I am serving as your friendly neighborhood hostess for the Let's Talk to Animals podcast, the podcast all species can enjoy together. And I am back. If you listened to part one two weeks ago, you are no doubt here. You're back here again to find out what happened next. And if you are listening to this episode and you haven't listened to part one, you may want to go back and listen to that.

Shannon Cutts: 0:58

So when we left off two weeks ago, Bruce had escaped and effectively rewilded himself. He had let me know that he was ready to try again to live as a wild adult box turtle, and I had had no real option other than to accept. Not only did my heart want for him what he wanted for himself, but my life had transformed and changed so dramatically during the period of time when he escaped that I was no longer living in the area. My days were no longer really my own. I was caring for my mom and I was trying to learn the new skill of animal communication. I was transitioning careers, dealing with losing a number of loves who had been very, very close to me, all at once just trying to pick up the pieces of my own life and figure out what the heck. So if you've ever gone through something like that kind of a dark night of the soul experience, I'm sure that you can relate to how chaotic and confusing it often feels. So I had just kind of accepted for lack of a better word that my time caring for the magic that is Bruce the Box Turtle was done. There really wasn't. I couldn't bring him back, I didn't know where he'd gone, he didn't want to come back and I didn't have the time to care for another animal anyway. That was just the reality of what was unfolding in my life at that moment in time. And about four months after I moved in with Mom, she was out walking one day, and my mom has lived in the same neighborhood for almost as long as I've been alive, so that would be around five decades to date.

Shannon Cutts: 2:56

She knows everyone and everyone knows her and, more importantly, they know her dog, Flash Gordon. He's a standard wire-haired dachshund. He loves to eat, he's very friendly and he lays down anytime that she stops to talk to someone. So he's pretty famous in the neighborhood. I even go out sometimes and I walk and people don't know who I am because I don't go out all that much. I work from home and my animals are in the backyard, so that's really where I am when I'm outside at home. But when I walk Flash, a lot of times I will have people stop and they will say, hi, Flash Gordon. And then they'll just drive on or bike on or walk on. They won't even talk to me.

Shannon Cutts: 3:32

Once I had a neighbor stop and ask me who I was, because they were aware of who Flash Gordon was and they were afraid that I was trying to steal him because they did not see my mom anywhere. So just suffice it to say he's a neighborhood celebrity. So, anyway, mom was out walking and she started chatting with a neighbor, as she has the habit of doing, and this neighbor said your daughter has turtles, doesn't she? My mom said yes, she does. She has a tortoise named Malti. And the neighbor said well, my next door neighbor just told me he just had a clutch of baby turtles. Well, when mom came home and told me that I was all over her to call this neighbor up and make his acquaintance and find out more about the baby turtles.

Shannon Cutts: 4:25

And what was so interesting is that even while mom was in rehab and even while I was in such transition moving out of my home, moving all my stuff, renovating mom's home so that I could move in with her I've kind of got a little mother-in-law, I've got the mother-in-law suite here at mom's house, and a few turtles came through. They just crossed my path, turtles that needed rescuing, turtles that were in areas they shouldn't have been and were in harm's way. And because everything was in such flux with my life, with my situation, with mom's health, with our home, I was not able to provide a home for any of these tortoises or turtles. And I really wanted to, but it just wasn't the right time. And so something in me just always felt that there was one more family member that was supposed to come and join us.

Shannon Cutts: 5:23

And when I heard about this nest of baby turtles, something in me said I think I need to meet these turtles. I think this might be the one I've been waiting for. So finally my mom gets on the phone with the neighbor. It turns out that he has a clutch of baby box turtles. And I thought to myself you've got to be joking Like you can't make this stuff up. And it was so funny because this, this gentleman said to my mom oh, your daughter wants a turtle. How old is your daughter Thinking? I'm probably like five or 10 or 15, maybe at the oldest, and my mom says she's 52, 50. I think I was 51 at the time. He said well, I'm not gonna be able to meet with you until a week from today and you can come over and and hang out with them. He did not say he was giving me a turtle, he just said we can come over and see them. Well, it turns out he is very invested in box turtle rescue. Now I probably should pause for a moment.

Shannon Cutts: 6:31

Those of you who may be wondering well, why didn't you just go and buy a box turtle if you wanted a box turtle for a pet? And oh, that's a, that's a touchy question. That's a touchy subject. Box turtles are. It's not legal to breed them for sale here in Texas and in many areas they are a very vulnerable population. And every turtle that's taken out of the wild which is usually how box turtles enter the pet trade Well, every turtle that's gone from the wild diminishes the number of box turtles that are available to find one another and breed, and because box turtles are unique in many ways in that they don't emit any kind of scent pheromones, to find one another, the only way that they can locate one another to breed is by sight. So population density really matters when it comes to survival of the wild box turtle population, and so I was just not going to purchase.

Shannon Cutts: 7:32

Yes, there are places you can go online to purchase all kinds of vulnerable, threatened and outright endangered turtle and tortoise species, but I wasn't going to do that. I wanted to rescue someone species but I wasn't going to do that. I wanted to rescue someone and I felt like, going through my intuitive and animal communication studies and practice, I felt like I would be guided, but I was just kind of feeling my way through this. If you've ever had a situation or a relationship unfold in your life and you're like something about this feels right, but I don't have a lot of data or evidence to support that, you can probably relate to this story. So eventually we went over to the neighbor and he turned out to be someone who was really really big in box turtle rescue, and he was very involved, is very involved, with one of the big box turtle rescue groups.

Shannon Cutts: 8:23

And so turtles that are habituated to humans through wild, illegal capture and pet keeping, so to speak, and then they either escape or they're released, or eventually they become unreleasable back into the wild and so they have to go somewhere. A lot of times these turtles have been injured, they've been hit by cars, they've been attacked by predators, they've encountered poisons or toxins or physical dangers, and they need rehabilitation, they need care, they need medication, they need patching up organizations that tend to these sorts of things. And, as it turns out, a couple of the box turtles that this sweet man and his family had rescued and were caring for well, one of the females was pregnant, I mentioned it's not legal to breed box turtles for the pet trade, but if turtles do what turtles do and they have eggs, well then you just have even more box turtles to care for. And that's exactly what had happened, and I had communicated with the clutch just on the off chance, since he hadn't told us he was giving us a turtle. I just communicated the evening before we were going to meet them. Really all week, if I'm being honest with you every night. And I just said I'm looking for a box turtle who's willing to be a captive companion animal, who's willing to be an ambassador animal for their species. I also asked for a female if possible, because I wanted to be able to allow the turtle to live free range in the backyard alongside Malty, my tortoise, and Malty wouldn't tolerate another male. I had watched her almost bite Bruce's nose off once when he got too close, so I wanted to make sure that they would be compatible. So this is what I requested.

Shannon Cutts: 10:22

And when we got over to Eric's to see his wonderful box turtle area, I saw a tiny box turtle already in a tiny little container like a little to-go container, if you can imagine that and I realized that he was giving us a turtle. This turtle was so tiny and so wild. We're so used to most of us puppies and kittens these are the species that are the most widespread and typically the most popular in the pet trade and these species, for the most part, if they are bred or rescued when very young, they come to us kind of pre-socialized to humans and even seeking out human company and human help and human love and human companionship and human care. Turtles are not like that. They are wild and they stay wild until their bread is buttered on the side of behaving otherwise, buttered on the side of behaving otherwise.

Shannon Cutts: 11:23

And so, essentially, when Ayo came to join our family, even though I had communicated and I had requested a turtle that wanted to be, or at least was willing to serve, in a public role as an ambassador on my social media, as the education animal for the box turtle as a whole implied in that, as a turtle that is outgoing and camera-friendly and willing to help folks fall in love with the species and become aware of their presence in our world, even though I had requested these things, what I got was a turtle who behaved exactly the way that Bruce behaved when I first rescued him. This turtle wanted nothing to do with me and was terrified, and I kind of chalked some of that up to babyhood. That is definitely a hatchling knee-jerk reaction. This turtle was about seven months old when he came to us and what was so funny about Io was I could not pick a name for this turtle. I didn't know gender, just like I didn't know gender when Miss Petal came home. All I had was Pearl's instructions that he was coming back as a ladybird and he was going to be called Petal, but I didn't have any DNA confirmation at the time that she came home with me. I did not know whether Io was a boy or a girl and because of how box turtles mature, you don't find out until they get to be three or four years old and they mature and they start to display those secondary behaviors, the mating behaviors.

Shannon Cutts: 13:00

So I was seeking kind of a gender neutral name and I just I remember lying in bed at night, awake, for hours just going through names in my head and finally one day I got tired of this because I probably had searched for hours and had looked at hundreds of names and finally I asked this little shell. I said what name do you like? And I heard this tiny little voice say I like IO. I said okay, io, it is. So IO proceeded to continue to avoid me and run and hide and I was just kind of like, oh, let me just wait, let me just wait. And so I'm waiting, and I'm waiting, and I'm waiting, and I'm waiting, and in the meantime we build this big, beautiful turtlearium in the backyard.

Shannon Cutts: 13:46

Io has always lived outdoors. This is what's best for box turtles, it's best for all turtles, but it's really the best way to avoid making any of the kinds of all too common care and husbandry mistakes the kind of mistakes I made with Malty when she was young that have resulted in a lifetime of managing certain conditions. So I didn't want that to happen with IO. So we built this big, beautiful, very secure, professional grade outdoor tritularium for IO and I would go in and we planted all these wonderful local native grasses and plants and I would feed life earthworms and mealworms and pillbugs and all the appropriate species and just made sure that she I thought it was a girl at the time she had everything, and still there was no real personality, there was no real trust. It was like I just didn't get a read on any personality and I thought, gosh, is this turtle ever going to warm up to me?

Shannon Cutts: 14:47

Well, that was in May of 2022 when Io came home, and it was really a couple of years of just hurry up and wait. There wasn't a lot of personality, there wasn't a lot of interaction. There was a lot of kind of a fear response. I didn't seem interested in anything except hiding and looking for anything that moved, essentially, and I just kind of said to myself well, I'm just going to do what I did with Bruce and just let Ayo know it's my honor to care for you. You don't ever have to choose to interact with me. You don't have to be an ambassador turtle. If you don't want to, just let me know and just trying to kind of make my peace with me. You don't have to be an ambassador turtle If you don't want to, just let me know and just trying to kind of make my peace with that. But it was not easy. I'm not going to lie. It wasn't easy after having such a charismatic friendship, really in a soul partnership, with Bruce.

Shannon Cutts: 16:42

Well, a couple of months ago, in August and early September, I went on a bucket list trip to Alaska and this is a trip I had been wanting to go on for years and after my dad passed and then my precious soul bird passed in January of 2023, and then Miss Petal came two months later to join the family I had just had about all of the disruption that I could stand and I wasn't putting things on a bucket list anymore. I had seen too many people pass away, too many relationships disintegrate in too short a period of time and I said forget the bucket list. If it's bucket list worthy, I'm doing it as soon as possible. And one of the things that I did is I had met friends when I was in Galapagos. One of those friends lived in Alaska, which was also on the bucket list. So I said we're going, let's go to Alaska and I went. I had a wonderful 10 day trip. It was absolutely magical. It was so much fun.

Shannon Cutts: 17:49

And when I got home from that trip I got really, really sick. I mean, I haven't been that sick since Pearl passed. What was so odd about it was that it was almost the same illness, the same symptoms. It wasn't quite as bad and I didn't test positive for COVID, but I had all of the same symptoms and the impact was just catastrophic and I couldn't recover and I was taking all these medications and all of these supplements and just kind of trying to rest and I wasn't able to work and I was just really, really sick.

Shannon Cutts: 18:28

And one night I had the idea to reach out to Bruce and to my childhood red-eared slider, water turtle Red, and ask them for help. They're part of my spirit team. Now. When our animals pass into spirit, they join our light team. I talk about that a lot more inside animal communication adventure what a light team looks like, and what a light team looks like for an animal communication student or graduate. The animals take the lead. They are our partners, empathic friends and teachers, our pets, and they take the lead. So I had the idea I was trying everything and nothing seemed to be getting me over that hump, to starting to heal.

Shannon Cutts: 19:10

And so I remember opening up a line of conversation with Bruce and Bruce telling me he had passed into spirit and I just remember feeling so sad. Here he was, he had finally achieved his healthy, strong, brave, wild box turtle life. And then he passes and what he shared with me was so profound. He said mom, why are you sad? I had the life I wanted to live at last, and you helped me achieve that. You got me strong and healthy and brave. And I used to send him instructions in my head. I would talk to him and I would say now remember, don't come out during the daylight and stare at humans because they're so interesting, or don't go in yards with dogs. That's how he had been found twice before. And I would give him all these instructions of what to do to stay out of harm's way and stay out of reach of humans, and so what he said to me was so profound. He said why are you sad? I had the best life and, mom, I met a lady turtle and we made eggs and I'm carrying on my line. I passed along my genes, I did everything, I saw the world and I was brave and strong, just like I always wanted to be. And I passed and I'm here and we'll always be connected.

Shannon Cutts: 20:33

And then I fell asleep and when I woke up the next morning I felt better. Couldn't really pinpoint why, but I just started to heal and I felt well enough to go out and spend a little time with IO. I kind of pulled back on doing that because I kind of felt like it just stressed IO out and I didn't want to stress IO out, so I just kind of would deliver the food. I was doing exactly what I would do with Bruce when he was scared I would just deliver the food and try to get out there as fast as possible. So I went out to deliver the food and just hang out, and I like to do what I call box turtle safety checks to make sure that everything is healthy in and around and under the shell.

Shannon Cutts: 21:15

And there was something different about Ayo. Ayo came running out to meet me. Ayo wanted his neck padded, which is something that Bruce didn't let me do for three and a half years. His head and neck, you can just pad it very lightly. He wanted me to do that and he wanted to explore like he wanted to climb on me. It was so remarkably different. It was like suddenly, overnight, it felt like this turtle had grown a personality, and not only a personality, but a personality that I recognized.

Shannon Cutts: 21:52

And every day after that I would go outside and I would take Io out of his outdoor enclosure and we would spend time together, sometimes an hour, sometimes two hours. I would just sit on the ground and he would climb on me and he started to exhibit all of the same personality, little quirks, little things that really I knew as Bruce's. And then one day I noticed his eyes were turning red and while it's not a hundred percent, given, in most cases the box turtles that have colorful eyes are typically male. And Bruce had had red eyes and I started watching him and I started recognizing what I call the energetic signature of my Bruce. Shortly thereafter I saw the first secondary characteristics, the mating behaviors, and then got some visual confirmation of what we will call for the sake of this PG, kid-friendly channel, the crown jewels. And I knew that I was a boy and that was the moment I recognized that my Bruce had come back to me and he does all of the things and it was so quick.

Shannon Cutts: 23:11

If it had come on gradually, I think I might have had a little bit more reservation animal communication or no, because it's not like I've done some kind of random controlled study with 500 male versus female box turtles or that I have any awareness of whether this is typical box turtle behavior. Other than my Bruce, the only other box turtle I know of that behaves like this is Otis, the turtle from Garden State Tortoise, and they are just as much in the dark as I am about why their box turtle behaves like this. Bruce would climb on me, he would cuddle under my neck and under my chin. He would let me pat his soft head and neck skin. He would come up to me and want to touch my nose and even stand on his hind legs and I would support his little front paw so he could stand up on his hind legs. Io began exhibiting all of these behaviors within a period of a few days and his eyes turned red and I got visual confirmation that he is in fact male and I just I said I know this turtle, I know this energetic signature.

Shannon Cutts: 24:23

It's like we just know when somebody is part of our family, if you've ever had an experience of meeting somebody, maybe another human even for the first time, or a soul pet, and you just know them. And then there are other people that maybe you've known for years and you don't feel that close to them and you don't ever feel like you get past. Hey, how are you? Oh, I'm fine, how are you? It feels different with our soul family.

Shannon Cutts: 24:51

With all of my studies and all of the many communication sessions that I've done, I have learned that a big part of this is because, when our souls, regardless of species, make a contract to embody together for shared learning and growth, we practice in the soul space, in the spirit dimension, and we develop some cues so that when we're in our bodies we will recognize one another. And one of those cues is this feeling of instant connection that our left brain, rational, logical mind cannot understand or describe and it certainly cannot prove, but it also cannot disprove it, and that is a hallmark of someone. I call it the. We have met before experience because we have. We've met in the soul space, in the spirit dimension. We have created a soul agreement to serve and love and support one another and that is why when we meet in our bodies, even if our species bodies look very different, we recognize one another. And let me tell you, I recognized this soul who had suddenly blown in to my little turtle's body and I just had never felt before like Ayo had really a personality, anything I could really hang my hat on. That felt like Ayo, like I had no feelings that I really had any closeness with this turtle or really knew anything about this turtle. The interaction was minimal, a Io's desire to interact was minimal. But in these few days after I reached out to Bruce and he shared that he was in spirit and he had lived the life of his dreams and that he was grateful. And when I woke up that next morning, everything about my turtle Io had changed and I knew in every way that a human can know something, feel, sense, receive, comprehend, believe that my Bruce is back. So that is the amazing, miraculous, true story of how Bruce, my soul box turtle, returned to me in a new body as Io. So now I am living with two reincarnated pets and let me tell you one of the most fun things and I'll post some video links in the show notes so you can catch some of my Instagram or YouTube posts where Pearl and Io excuse me, where Petal and Io are interacting with one another. Well, they passed within a couple of years of each other.

Shannon Cutts: 27:33

And Bruce one of the hallmarks of Bruce's personality is his fascination with Pearl. He could not get enough of Pearl's company. He wanted to be near Pearl's cage. I would bring Pearl out in his small travel casa and we'd all sit together on the lawn and Bruce could spend the whole time with his paws braced against the cage bars just staring at Pearl. And Pearl was so annoyed by this behavior and he would bite at Bruce and he would try to taste his claws and he would kind of harass him. Right? Pearl was never scared of Bruce, he just was annoyed. It was like this irritating younger brother annoyance. If you've ever had a younger sibling who annoys you, you can probably relate to that Well. Watching Bruce and Pearl interact as Io and Petal is hysterically funny and eerie because it's the same exact dynamic of the annoying younger brother, even though this time Io is actually about a year older than Petal. But it's the same exact dynamic and that was kind of the linchpin, like the one that sealed the case, so to speak. I was like you gotta be joking me, that's craziness. So now I have Petal, pearl and Io, bruce, and we're all hanging out together again and it has been so much fun.

Shannon Cutts: 28:58

So if you've been listening to this episode, first of all, I hope you've enjoyed it. It definitely took a lot longer to share the story. I wasn't anticipating a two-parter when I started telling this story and sharing this story with you. But if you've been listening and you've been enjoying this and you've, at the same time, been feeling like, oh gosh, well, maybe that just happened to her because she's an animal communicator or she's more open, or she's more intuitive, or for whatever reason, that your left brain mind is making up and you're thinking that could never happen for me, I want you to know that in my experience, that is not accurate.

Shannon Cutts: 29:37

In fact, the longing to welcome a soul, pet and spirit back in a new body, to share a new set of adventures, that is typically the hallmark of your intuition, waking up and tapping you on the shoulder and saying your pet wants to come back or your pet is willing to come back. They're just waiting for you to ask, or they're waiting for you to tune in and begin following their clues. And, in my experience, it typically begins with this longing, this feeling of being incomplete, not having enough time together or not being able to experience all of the things that you always thought you would experience together. That can be a soul agreement continuing to unfold, letting you know that, yeah, matter of fact, you haven't experienced everything. There is more to this story. There's more to come, so I don't want you to feel like there's anything special or different about me.

Shannon Cutts: 30:41

The only thing that separates, perhaps, me from you is just the amount of time and money I have spent learning how to communicate with animals and unpacking my own journey for my own benefit and the benefit of the pet parent clients that I work with, who are in the process of calling their soul pets back to them through pet reincarnation. And it can happen for all of us. It can happen for you and your soul pet too. So I want to encourage you to take a listen to some of the episodes I've recorded that specifically focus on pet reincarnation and you will know which ones those episodes are because they mentioned pet reincarnation in the title of the episodes. You can just do a search and check out the episodes that pop up. And I also want to encourage you to reach out to me and let me know and perhaps consider scheduling a session so we can talk with your soul pet and get clarity either get clarification or confirmation of clues, signs, symbology, inner hunches or knowings you have already received, or we can ask your pet to share their signs, their clues with you.

Shannon Cutts: 31:56

So if this is something that's on your heart, these stories, the stories I shared about Petal Pearl, which you can also do a search on Petal and Pearl, and you can find the episodes I recorded to share that story in full. I shared it in just little parts in this dual episode, but you can listen to the whole story of that and also consider that if it's possible for me, if it's possible for the many pet parents who I have helped and who I am helping and supporting to call their pets back to them through pet reincarnation, it is absolutely possible for you too. So allow that to sit with you, allow that to percolate and see how your heart resonates and if it is a yes, if this is something that you are longing for, if this is on your bucket list of bucket lists to reunite with your soul pet in this lifetime in their new body, please do reach out to me. You can always reach me at animallovelanguagescom. Let me know and let's talk with your pet and find out how to start or continue that process of creating your own miracle story of joyful reunion. So it has absolutely been my honor and my joy to share this two-parter story with you. I hope it is something that you have found encouraging and heartwarming, especially if you are someone who is missing your pet and spirit or who is watching your pet age and wondering when it's your time to go. Will you be able to come back to me so we can talk a lot more about that?

Shannon Cutts: 33:58

If you've enjoyed this episode, please do leave a review on your favorite streaming platform. It means the world to me. It lets me know the content you want more of and, of course, it's the joy and the fun of connection, which is why I do it right. Otherwise, I'm just standing in a room talking to myself. So I'm sending you and your inner species, family, hearing and spirit, all of my love. I will be back in two weeks with a fresh new episode of let's Talk to Animals and for now, I send you all my best and all my love. Okay, bye for now.