OldBlackCat, first want to say, Hi There and Welcome to the Forum!
Just personally from a wide variety of experiences with all kinds of wildlife including grizzlies thru the years of wandering and living in the wilds here in Wyoming and the American West, do personally bigtime disagree with Michael Newton. In my personal encounters have soooo come to see as so many of the different animals as actually being teachers to me in my life. And that we are NOT the only intelligent life on this planet! In fact I will question are we even the most intelligent or perhaps are we among the dumbest life on this planet? This I say comes from just what I have observed in life and from my wilderness wanderings. I have thought many a time that we humans very well might have to get over ourselves as a species. Now lots of the old Indigenous Peoples like the Native Americans considered all life and species as equal!
Now I would say that yes we come back as a human, a cat as a cat, and a grizzly as a grizzly. But are they really less intelligent and less evolved including spiritually then us? I do not know. And I will say that I personally do not know how it all works. But I do know that in my wilderness wanderings with what I observe, it just amazes me bigtime! And that how much of the other life that I share life with when in those wilds, just how they have become such teachers and companions to me in this life I will say.