Someone remembering past life as a house cat, confirming with human owner details

from a reddit user:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/hfik4b/i_remember_being_an_animal_how_is_this_possible/

I remember being an animal. How is this possible?

Question

I was a house cat. I still remember a few snippets of my previous life - I can remember the spot I liked to eat, a small glimpse of my owner, and the moment I died. When I became a human, I was close to my owner - I was able to verify that my memories were legitimate. Apparently, my cat self experienced kidney problems and had to be euthanized because I was no longer able to eat. I was even able to remember some fragments of the time in between lives, although some of it has no doubt been forgotten.

The reality of the world I found myself in has led me to ask a few questions about this experience.

1. Aside from a brief few seconds as a baby, my memory started to be continuous in roughly October 1999. Back then, I realized that I couldn't remember anything other than the day I was experiencing, the brief memory as a baby, parts of my cat life, and the time "in-between". According to my owner, my cat body was long dead before my human self was born. With this in mind, was my mindstream always inside my human body since birth, or did I possess someone?

2. How did some of my cat memory survive? If my cat body was dead before my human body was being formed, this must mean that the cat's ability to possess memory was dead too. How could it be, then, that I have those cat memories in my head?

3. Where are the other animal -> human individuals? Early on, I questioned others about their past lives, thinking it was common at first. When I realized it was not, I read stories about people remembering past lives as other humans, but there was never one about an animal life. Am I really that alone?

4. I read that habits can influence where you end up in the next life. I very much want to try and retain some memory of my current or past life for the next one. If I think about my strongest memories moments before death, is there a better chance that those memories will survive? I don't know if my cat self was actively trying to pass memories on - maybe I just got lucky that I could remember something.