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November 12 - November 30, 2019
cats don’t share mice, and most cats don’t want to share their food dish. So space your dishes out accordingly. Your house cat has a nice-sized personal space bubble that needs to be respected.
My favorite solution is a “slow down bowl.” These have barriers or ridges that cats have to work around to get their food. You can make your own by feeding your cat from a plate with a few clean rocks she has to work around.
They are food and resource motivated, not human-praise motivated. It’s not just routine and rhythm. You cannot get cats to do what you want if they’re not a little bit hungry. When I first started filming My Cat from Hell, the network folks observed my “food challenge” methods and asked me, “Aren’t you just bribing the cat?” Hell yes, I’m bribing the cat! And that’s okay.
Preventing Pickiness The first thing you need to do is take a look at your feeding situation. If your cat has dry food sitting out 24/7, do you think she is going to be that motivated to try something new? Is she being picky or is she just not hungry? This gets back to why cats need meals. They need to be a little hungry to try something new. Whisker stress: Many cats do not like the feeling of their whiskers touching the side of the bowl. Feed cats from shallow bowls or small plates. Texture: Some cats are particular about pâté, chunks, slices, and even the shape of dry food or treats.
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There is simply no reason to bathe your cat. In fact, unless your cat has been skunked or has soiled himself, he will never need a bath (with the exception of the hairless breeds, who, because of their unnatural state of hairlessness, need to have a bath once a week). Cats spend all that time grooming to cover themselves with their scent, a Raw Cat staple and a source of serious mojo, and then a human steps in and bathes them, erasing their ID. Some cats can be wiped down with a baby wipe if they are older and don’t groom much, or are obese and can’t clean themselves well. Otherwise, step away
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Consider this: our own cats would naturally have a territory of about six or seven city blocks. By keeping them indoors and by living in higher densities, we are shrinking that territory down. The outward world is getting smaller while their inward Raw world remains the same.
In many cases, what humans experience as “nuisance” behavior is a necessity for their cats. Scratching on things like end tables and sofas is a good example. But for cats, scratching is not a luxury (or a pathology). Repeat after me: scratching is not a luxury for cats. It’s how they stretch their back and chest muscles, how they exercise and de-stress, and how they shed loose nail sheaths. But scratching serves two even more important and Mojo-rific functions for your cat: Scratch marks are proof of ownership. Scratching allows cats to mingle their scent with ours (and one another’s).
although cats want their own turf to scratch and mark, they might still want to scratch other areas . . . areas that smell like . . . you. Cats love to scratch couches and chairs that you use for a few reasons, the key one being: just like they create a “group scent” with other cats they live with, they probably want to do the same with the other mammals in the home . . . especially the big, hairless ones who provide them with food and love. Your cat is trying to comingle her scent with yours to show the ultimate in cat sharing: co-ownership of territory.
Cats usually have four key preferences that you need to know about: Location Now that you know that scratching equals ownership, think about where your cat likes to scratch. Cats will mark things that are socially significant to them, whether that is a door frame, your couch, or a rug. This is where you need to be willing to compromise. When you hide a scratching post in the back office that no one ever spends time in, you are ensuring a lack of Mojo and a destroyed sofa. And because scratching equals ownership, you need multiple scratching posts, throughout the home. Texture Cats want a
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Ambush Zones and Dead Ends are areas of conflict that are often created by aspects of the space, such as furniture placement, architectural elements, or even clutter. Ambush zones can occur near resources that only have one entrance/exit, such as a hooded litterbox, or a litterbox placed at the end of a hallway or behind the washing machine. Ambush zones allow one cat to block others from coming or going, causing “traffic jams.” Be sure to identify and eliminate ambush zones and dead ends to promote traffic flow.
Escape Routes prevent cats from being cornered. You can provide escape routes by offering an uncovered litterbox or by making sure all cubbies or shelves have multiple exit points.
Here are a few things to avoid when designing your Cat Superhighway: Narrow Lanes—When lanes on your highway are too narrow and cats can’t easily pass each other, this can mean cat traffic “gridlock” . . . which can often mean trouble. Shoot for a minimum lane width of eight or nine inches (so two cats can easily pass), or arrange for a nearby exit ramp or alternative route. Areas Where You Can’t Reach Your Cat—Avoid constructing your Superhighway so “super” that you can’t get to your cat in case of an emergency, or even a vet visit. You will need to be able to reach her at all times. This
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look around your home for prime windows for creating Cat TV, and add things outside those windows to attract natural prey such as birds and insects. Think: a bird in a birdbath, bees visiting flowers, squirrels at a feeder. Make the window a destination location with a cat tree, perch, or cat bed that invites your cat to sit and binge-watch Cat TV to his heart’s content.
Do you believe in magic? If you’ve seen a cat use a litterbox—following her instinct to bury waste in soft, loose material, and doing so in a plastic box—then you should experience a moment of awe.
As humans, when we come home, we sit on the couch, and we go to bed, which makes those places major human scent soakers. This compels cats to spend time in these areas, complementing our scent with theirs, thus making your bedroom and living room the most socially significant spaces in the home. And yes—those are the rooms where you may need to place litterboxes.
I recommend only unscented litter, with no deodorizers in the litter and no air fresheners right next to the box. In my experience, those strong, artificial fragrances, including scented litter, can drive your cat away.
In most cases, try starting with just an inch or two of litter and adjust from there. But the lesson here is that everything about litterboxes, down to the amount of litter in the box, needs to be a conscious choice on your part.
Ideally, the length of the litterbox should be at least 1.5 times the body length of your cat. He should be able to turn around, do plenty of digging, and find a clean place to go without coming face-to-face with the wall of the box.
Thou Shalt Not Cover I’m not a huge fan of hoods on boxes. The idea that a cat needs privacy when peeing or pooping is classic human projection; it’s what we want when we go to the bathroom, so you think it’s what your cat wants. Wrong. Cats who go outside often go out in the open. In front of a bush. In a driveway. In your garden. On the side of your house. Some cats might be fine with a lid, but lids can lead to ambush zones and dead ends, especially in a home with dogs, kids, or other cats.
scoop that litterbox every day.
Almost every source of cat behavior advice tells you that in order to prevent cats from returning to an area they have soiled, you must completely remove the urine odor. This is true. So why are we completely trying to obliterate the cat’s smell in their litterbox?
You might be thinking “But, it works. I squirt, and the cat jumps off the counter. Now when I just show him the bottle, he runs away.” But what is your cat actually learning? Is he learning that the counter is a bad place to be? No. He is learning that the counter is a bad place to be if you are present and holding the spray bottle. What’s worse is that he is learning to be afraid of you. He only reacts when he sees you holding the spray bottle, which makes you the originator of the unpleasant feeling.
Extinction Burst You have vowed to stop responding to your cat’s pillow trotting, which has become a nightly ritual. It’s been a rough few nights so far, but you’ve resolved not to cave in and pay attention to her. So you settle down into bed, and at 4:00 a.m., your cat begins her usual meowing. You grit your teeth and lie there, waiting for the meowing to stop. But it doesn’t. Instead, it seems worse than usual. And then your cat walks across your head and starts knocking things off your dresser. Now it’s 5:00 a.m., and you’re freaking out, thinking “I can’t take this. I’ll get up and feed
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One caveat: going for broke in one fell swoop—i.e., removing every single hiding spot in one day—will almost assuredly backfire, resulting in not only a shy cat but one who is now completely panicked. Make the process of blocking off the Unders a gradual one so your cat can adjust to her new “Unders-less” environment.
I fully believe that cats should live with other cats. Unfortunately, what you see many times on my show are worst-case scenarios of cats who would definitely rather not. But in general, cats are communal animals who have been victimized by the stereotype of being asocial, aloof loners. The Raw Cat lives in colonies, as we’ve seen with feral cats. They problem solve as members of a whole community. The only thing they do solo is hunt. That being said, there are some cats who really don’t mind being alone; it’s about individuals.
regardless of the environmental solutions I detailed, none of them replace quality time with you. Making the space for just a little play in the morning before you leave and some cuddle time at night makes a big difference in a cat’s day and goes a long way toward heading guilt off at the pass.
if you’ve got a double-digit cat at home, please don’t bring home a kitten. It’s usually a bad match, energy-wise, given how superenergetic and hyper kittens tend to be. Then, as they enter the teenage phase (at around six months), they take what they learn and push buttons to see what kind of response they’ll get. Older cats are usually not amused by this.
If you have the choice of bringing home two kittens or one, for the sake of the kittens, bring home two. Having a feline friend is better for them and better for you, and, as counterintuitive as it may seem, I guarantee they will be less work!
Last Resort Removal Option—In the event of a serious lockdown, when you can’t get the cats to budge even with sight blockers down, or if, despite your best efforts, a fight breaks out, a blanket can be a good friend. Just toss it over one of them, scoop him up, and remove him from the room. Another tool to have on hand is an empty soda can with pennies in it and tape across the opening. As opposed to using your voice, which will just add bad associations on top of an already bad situation, shaking that can will help shock the cats out of the moment they are locked into. The thing that unites
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Our Cat-to-Dog Mantra: The Sky Is Owned by Cats in the World of Cats and Dogs. That means that cats may be either sharing or relinquishing control of the floor, to a certain degree, but that’s a decent trade-off. Don’t forget, in a cat’s-eye view, their world is floor to ceiling. The volume they perceive in terms of vertical territory, if it is accessible to them, is the whole megillah. Dogs, on the other hand, are terrestrial for the most part. And this is where cats get an advantage, in terms of overall space utilization.
Keep litterboxes in rooms that dogs can’t access. Ordinarily, I’m all about litterboxes being available in socially significant spaces. But in the world of dog and cat, you might have to make some concessions. One of my go-to moves is putting up a baby gate in a room where the litterbox is. Then you can raise up that baby gate around eight inches off the ground—maybe a little less, if you have a small dog. That way, the cat has the ability to go either under the gate or over the gate, and we can rest assured that the litterbox is safe from prying snouts (or toddlers, who think that any sandbox
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First Time Through the Threshold—Dog into a Cat’s Home: It’s all about the leash. When you first bring a dog into a home with cats . . . repeat after me: The leash. Stays. On. The fact is, you don’t really know your new family member very well, and despite all of your due diligence before the adoption (and, likely, on the part of the shelter or rescue organization), you just have no idea what triggers may be pulled the first time your dog sees a cat, or the first time a cat sniffs the dog’s toys, food, or even water. So once your cat and dog are in the same physical space, I would still keep
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most cats are not wild about repeated head-to-tail pets (which is not necessarily true for all cats, but avoiding this type of petting helps to avoid petting-induced overstimulation. May as well stay one step ahead of the game!)
Respect the “personal space bubble”: Don’t disturb the cats when they are eating, sleeping, using the litterbox, cocooning, or in their vertical space.
for the most part, the best way to approach a cat is just to ignore them. This is especially true with fearful cats. Back off, get low (meaning off your feet, not hovering over the top of them), and let them come to you.
Gaze at her, soften your eyes, blink, and think, “I love you.” “I” with eyes open, “Love,” eyes closed, “You,” eyes open. Wait for an eye blink back, or at least for her whiskers to go neutral. Even a partial return of the Slow Blink is a good sign. If you don’t get a blink in return, look away or down, and try again.
the Three-Step Handshake breaks down like this: Step 1—The Slow Blink: Present yourself in a completely nonthreatening way to the cat. Step 2—The Scent Offering: Offer the cat something that smells like you. I like to use the earpiece of my glasses or a pen. Step 3—The One-Finger “Handshake”: Offer your hand to the cat in a relaxed way. Take one finger and let the cat sniff it like he did the glasses or pen, and bring that finger toward the spot between and just above the eyes. Allow him to push into your finger; he will press in so you can gently rub his nose and up to the forehead
Let Your Cat Call the Shots One study looked at over 6,000 interactions between humans and their cats in 158 households. The interactions were categorized by whether the human approached the cat or the cat approached the human. When humans initiated contact with their cat, interactions were shorter. When cats were allowed to initiate the contact with their human, interactions lasted longer and were more positive.
there are some techniques I always fall back on when it comes to petting a cat I’ve just met. I never want to make assumptions about where (or if) a cat wants to be touched. Here are my go-to guidelines: The best introductions are made by asking, not telling. When a cat walks up to you, greeting him with a full head-to-tail stroke is just rude, and expecting entirely too much. Instead, I rely on the Michelangelo (a.k.a. the Finger-Nose technique). I’ll use this technique if I’m seated on a chair and a cat comes to explore me, or if I encounter a cat while standing and he is in a vertical place
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As predator and prey, the Raw Cat needs to be sensitive. But for his alter ego, the housecat, that survival tool can become a nuisance. We ask cats to handle a lot of touch because we enjoy petting them. Does this mean that your cat shouldn’t ever be petted? Of course not! Armed with this info about how and why cats respond to touch, you should realize that more times than not, that “Don’t touch me!” vibe is a product of physiology, not a choice—which is to say, see it as an “aha!” moment and not a “my cat hates me” moment!
When you nonchalantly say things like “he hates me” or “he’s the devil incarnate,” it paints your cat in a way that can’t be unpainted. When you name your cat “Devil Kitty,” “Bastard Cat,” or “Satan,” please, do us all a favor—especially your cat—and change his name to something more dignified . . . or at least a name you would bestow upon a human. Whatever your justification might be, it’s not a valid reason for such a negative label. It’s an unnecessary form of devaluing him that will conspire, on one level or another, to weaken your relationship.
Try to be informed by the behaviors you observe. Think in terms of stress and anxiety, and log behaviors, look for patterns, and write down details. Nothing is random and nothing is personal. All problematic behaviors are rooted in fear, anxiety, and pain, or some combination thereof.
Living on the fridge or under the bed: This is a sign that something in the environment is threatening. As I mentioned, the Raw Cat, feeling vulnerable because of pain or illness, would also choose to hide or withdraw. Urinating or defecating outside of the litterbox: There are lots of possible medical reasons, including cystitis, crystals, infection, kidney disease, digestive problems, diabetes, and the list goes on. Two clues to look for that usually signify a physical component: eliminating directly outside the litterbox, sometimes by inches, and very small amounts of pee spread out by a
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feline obesity is an all-out epidemic, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Here’s what you can do to help: Stop free feeding your cats, and stop feeding your cats junk, especially dry food. They should be eating scheduled, bio-appropriate meat-based meals (that means a raw diet or at least a grain-free wet diet). Use slow feeding bowls and/or food puzzles to prevent them from scarfing. Just like humans, cats need a minute to register that they are full, and that can only happen if they are eating at a reasonable pace. Don’t forget about HCKE. Play, in conjunction with the tips above, will
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First, we need to change the carrier from a place of dread and fear to a destination, a portable base camp. Start by taking the carrier apart. Part of what will help undo the association is if it no longer resembles the yellow station wagon. Use the bottom part as a starting point, and turn the carrier into a cocoon. Make it cozy with some bedding that contains the scent of both your cat and you. Use treats to make that cocoon even more inviting. Give your cat a treat for any curiosity around the carrier, even if she just gives it a sniff. Remember the concept of the “Jackpot!” Treats? Now is
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That’s where Mary Poppins comes in. “A Spoonful of Sugar” is the idea that we let go of the angst and consciously bring the sweetness to a stressful situation. We do things “in the most delightful way.” This is how we mitigate the misery.
This is all about getting more competent and confident about the mechanics of a given task, particularly those where you feel resistance. The way to do this: Define your Challenge Line moments. Research methods to turn these moments into step-by-step tasks. Your due diligence, of course, includes online research. But don’t forget to mine the knowledge and experience of your local pet professionals. Your vet, vet tech, groomer, or pet sitter can either demonstrate, or offer valuable info, about the how-tos. There are many methods: find the one that resonates for you. For example, there are more
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the spirit of euthanasia is probably best defined by its literal translation from the Greek: a kind death.
Part of my personal process is rooted in my belief that we are all transient, we are all spirit taking a pit stop in physical form. The process of letting go of an animal companion is, in part, about shepherding him to the next place. When I think about “never on their worst day,” I am also thinking about their transition into another form. I want their last memories of this particular time around to be of love and light, not pain and suffering. I also believe that, unless they feel a bit of emotional detachment on your part when tuning into this sacred bond, they won’t feel “permission” to
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