Total Cat Mojo: The Ultimate Guide to Life with Your Cat

by Jackson Galaxy

I came to believe that many, if not most, of the problems that my cat clients were experiencing (with the exception of undiagnosed physical issues), could be boiled down to territorial anxiety.

For cats, Mojo is all about confidence. Mojo is proactive, rather than reactive. Cats’ source of Mojo is unquestioned ownership of their territory and having an important job to do within that territory. That job is a biological imperative that cats inherited from their wildcat ancestors, and I call it: Hunt, Catch, Kill, Eat, Groom, Sleep. When we create a rhythm that mirrors that of the Raw Cat—the ancestor—we’re there. When cats are at home inside their bodies, they can make the space outside their bodies their home as well.

Old World cats lie with their paws tucked under the body (in the “meatloaf position”), while New World cats do not.

Old World cats bury their poop, while New World cats do not. (Imagine how different our litterbox situation might have played out had our beloved house cats descended from the New World, rather than the Old!)

I don’t believe cats have ever been fully domesticated. This speaks to my insistence at seeing the rawness in your cat at all times.

9,500 ya—Archaeologists found evidence in Cyprus that a cat was buried with a human, along with various decorations, in a grave that was dated at almost 10,000 years old. Wildcats were not native to this island, meaning they would have been introduced by humans in some way. This individual cat may have been tamed, even if cats were not fully domesticated yet.

By selecting Persians for the brachycephalic (short-nosed) appearance, we have actually made it harder for them to breathe, increased the chance of skin, dental, and eye disease, and made giving birth riskier and more difficult. Scottish Folds are used as a model for studying pain and arthritis because the mutations that cause the folds in their ears also lead to painful degeneration in their bones and cartilage. Manx cats are prone to back pain, constipation, and other elimination problems because of spinal cord deformities. Maine Coon cats are prone to heart disease, and Siamese cats have a higher likelihood of asthma and hyperesthesia.

1999—The organization In Defense of Animals (IDA) begins the Guardian Campaign, seeking a change of language and legal status for companion animals by changing the term “pet owner” to “pet guardian.”

Cats are extremely sensitive to touch. This is, in part, because they have skin receptors that fire continuously as long as they are being touched—meaning these cells don’t adapt to physical contact because the brain keeps getting a signal saying, “I am being touched.” This is in contrast to humans, whose sensory receptors, for example, do adapt to touch, as evidenced by the fact that we don’t consciously notice, moment by moment, that we are wearing clothes. The type of cells that cats have (Merkel cells) are ultrasensitive, more like those on your fingertips. Even their hair follicles are innervated, so having hairs out of place can be irritating for a cat.

Instead, their optimal focal distance is between two and six meters—perfect for stalking a bird or mouse. If the prey is closer than a foot away, the cat’s eyes don’t even focus; at that point, the whiskers take over by pointing forward to pick up the details. That said, indoor cats are slightly nearsighted because the objects they focus on tend to be closer, while cats who go outside are usually farsighted, just like their Raw Cat ancestors.

Cats have the broadest hearing range of the carnivores—10.5 octaves. Cats and humans have a similar range at the low end of the scale, but cats can hear much higher pitched sounds (like mouse squeaks) than we can—about 1.6 octaves above the sounds we hear.

Generally, cats have a weak sense of taste, with fewer taste buds than humans. Their sense of smell is much more useful for them in hunting, and thus important for eating.

cats can still detect salty, sweet, sour, and bitter, and tend to show dislike for sour and bitter

You may notice your cat eating with her head tilted. This is an ancestral behavior related to eating their prey from the ground, not from a bowl. Harder-to-chew items usually increase the degree of head tilting. Cats pick up a small amount of food and give a quick “shake” of the head. This is another ancestral behavior that helps loosen meat from bones, and removes feathers from a bird’s body.

Cats are naturally fastidious and typically clean from tip to tail, spending 30 to 50 percent of their waking hours grooming.

Cats are more active at night than we are, but they are not truly nocturnal. Rather, they are crepuscular. Their natural rhythm, devoid of other influences, is to be active at dawn and dusk, just like rodents, their primary prey animal.

The “tail up” with a curve at the tip is a classic friendly or playful greeting that says “hello,” or “right this way, follow me.”

A quivering tail (sometimes referred to as “mock spraying” since that’s exactly what it looks like) is usually a sign of positive excitement. In my experience, I’ve noticed the “mock spray” directed either at or near a person the cat is fond of. I can only guess that this signifies ownership with a posture that walks the tightrope between confident (body scent marking, rubbing, etc.) and unconfident (urine marking) cat language. Either way, I’ve learned to take it as a pretty high compliment!

Tail lashing is often an indicator of impending aggression or defensiveness, while smaller, subtle twitching movements can indicate frustration or irritation.

For a relaxed cat, the ears will be upright, but slightly rotated to the side. When the ears are more forward facing, your cat is on alert, or maybe even frustrated. Flattened ears can mean different things. If the ears are sideways and down, your cat is fearful, but also still trying to get information. The flatter the ears, the more fearful the cat. Complete backward rotation of the ears is getting them out of harm’s way in anticipation of an attack. When each ear is doing something different, the interpretation is more ambiguous . . . and in that moment, so is your cat’s emotional state.

The more dilated the pupils are, the more defensive the cat is probably feeling. On the other hand, a cat with constricted pupils is likely confident and relaxed.

Forward-pointing whiskers indicate a cat is trying to get more information, since those whiskers will detect air movements and objects. The more forward facing the whiskers are, the more attentive the cat is. Forward whiskers could indicate that a cat is about to attack, perceives a threat, or is just plain interested, so, as always, context is important.

When a cat goes belly up for you, we call this the Cat Hug, because often it’s the closest you will get to a cat actually hugging you. To fully appreciate this, you must understand the genetic experience of being a prey animal. By exposing their belly to you, they are essentially saying: “I am 100 percent vulnerable to you right now. You could take your claw and eviscerate me down this line from my throat to my groin and essentially tear me open. It is the most vulnerable part of my body, and I am flipping over and showing it to you.” Just like the body roll, it is a message of trust.

Cheek rubbing is generally a sign of confidence, and “head bonking” against you is a sign of “cat love.” Scratching is another way for cats to mark their turf, but sometimes cats will also release alarm pheromones when scratching.

There’s actually little evidence that cat groups form a strict hierarchy, where one cat is always on top. Instead, I believe that cats who live together settle into various “occupations” rather than certain rankings on some hierarchal totem pole. There’s time-sharing that happens in different favorite spots, and there is that one cat who sort of goes around and keeps things in check like a benevolent dictator . . . a sort of a territorial corrections officer. In my house, it’s Pishi who plays this role. He’ll walk up, for example, sniff my other cat Caroline’s butt, and she’ll get the message. “Lights out. Move along.”

The Raw Cat awakens and needs to hunt. Anything else that happens to cats (like being petted), or even around them (experiencing the lively rhythm of your and your family’s day), becomes more air in the balloon—more energy that will seek release. That’s where our job comes in. We can almost guarantee a measure of mojo and proactively lessen the frustration of a quickly filling balloon by being the architects of this preexisting rhythm. When interacting with our cats, we are either putting energy in, filling the balloon, or taking energy out, opening the safety valve. It’s that simple.

Redirected aggression is an example of your cat letting air out, but there are more subtle ways. To me, the tail swish is that “balloon’s” ability to let air out. Once the balloon is full, the tail becomes an air escape mechanism. Same thing with what I call “back lightning.” The twitching that happens through the cat’s back is, at least partially, a spasm, but also a way of getting that energy out. You may notice your cat walking across the room, suddenly stopping as if a fly just landed on him and then very deliberately grooming himself. This self-soother is also a self-regulator.

One of the most important things I can tell you about keeping your cat Raw happy and Raw healthy is that play isn’t a luxury, something that is a fun diversion if and when you have time.

The exhaustion that comes from hunting happens even when the cat isn’t continually moving; watching the moth on the ceiling exhausts, the stalk exhausts, those short bursts of energy exhaust. It’s the mind-body focus that exhausts your cat. This is a directed action that your cat is 100 percent engrossed in. Expecting success to look like a track-and-field event will result in both you and your cat being frustrated. Don’t set yourself up for failure: know what success looks like.

A note on laser pointers: A laser pointer can help you start the engine for play. But I firmly believe that it is limited as a tool. It simply can’t be the through line for ending the game. Why? Because it can’t be “killed.” It is a predatory tease—no biting, no all-four-paw wraparound—just an endless chase. Get that motor going with a laser, for sure; just make sure, at some point, that you switch to something physical that can be “caught and killed.”

Personally, one of the things that makes me really happy is when, toward the end of the HCKE sequence, a cat takes the feather from the toy in their mouth, starts to growl, and looks around the room for that perfect space to take his prey. Then he starts walking away, and I give him some slack in the line and follow him. To me, that is the Holy Grail. I have played so well that my cat has slipped into that other world—the world of the Raw Cat. Then I wait for him to drop the feather, and I fly away again. This is how you know you’ve hit Raw Cat pay dirt.

You’ve got your sports car, which is where you simply present a toy, and varoom . . . they’re off! There is no gap. It’s just turn the key, press the gas, and zero to sixty. And then you’ve got your Model Ts. You have to crank that engine—sometimes for five minutes—before they actually respond to the toy. But when they do, they really do. And once their hunting mechanism has been cranked to the point of the key turning over, they’re in the game. That’s why we use toys like laser pointers. They’re like those old-time engine cranks on the Model T.

Matcha is a sports car and Moka is a Model T!

Catnip, also known as Nepeta cataria, is a member of the mint family. Nepetalactone is the active ingredient in catnip that cats respond to and, in fact, most species of cats—big or small—will respond to it. This response appears to be somewhere between hallucinogenic, aphrodisiac, stimulant, and relaxant. (Wow—where can I sign up?)

Nonetheless, I would rather you feed your cat the worst wet food on the market than the best dry; if you want to use dry, use it for treats.

Temperature: Food should be served at “mouse body temperature.” There’s no self-respecting Raw Cat out there that would choose to eat something out of a fridge.

My question for people who bathe their cats all the time is this: why are you torturing your animal? 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).

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.

And 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.

Cat TV takes the most important story line for cats—hunting—and puts it in a “box,” so that they can experience the same relaxed sensation: an exercise I call “passive engagement.” The most common Cat TV watching involves sitting at a window to watch prey. The key to a stalk-and-rush hunter’s strategy is the watching and assessing. The pounce is just a small part of the HCKE cycle, whereas sizing up prey and planning a possible attack is an activity that can engage your cat for most of his day.

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 realize it might feel as if I just dropped a litterbox–shaped bomb on you. But this bomb could radically change the landscape of your home—in a mutually constructive way. This willingness to change the landscape of your home for your cat’s well-being is the very definition of Catification.

There’s just no way around this, in my experience: the box should be located where it works best for your cat, not you. Think of it as the lesser of two evils. It’s either a litterbox where you don’t want it, or pee where you definitely don’t want it.

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.

Some telltale signs that cats don’t love the litter or something else about the box: They don’t put their feet in the box. They don’t scratch at the litter before or after. They zoom out of the box as if someone is chasing them.

Today, scientists and animal trainers recognize that positive reinforcement is the most effective way to change behavior. Although punishment might work temporarily, it doesn’t change your cat’s motivation, and it doesn’t tell your cat what to do instead. Punishment also comes with a healthy dose of side effects like fear and aggression (not to mention a complete erosion of the trusting foundation of your relationship).

“Without using some form of punishment, how do I discipline my cat?” To which I respond: there is no such thing as disciplining your cat. They have no idea what you are doing when you scold them, shoo them away, or squirt them with a water bottle.

Anything that serves the purpose of enforcing your dominance over your cat is anti-Mojo.

The experiment showed that dogs weren’t experiencing guilty feelings about eating that treat, but that they likely experienced fear and anxiety when scolded by their human. And if you see those “guilty-looking” behaviors in your cats, there’s no reason to think they’re experiencing anything different from those dogs.

“See, that’s how it works. We either reward the noise or we reward the silence. Everyone learns the same way.”

Cats, not being dogs, are not motivated by the thought of pleasing you. Cats, by and large, are most definitely motivated by food. The more they like a particular food, the more receptive they are to your influence and persuasion. Hence, whether you want to call it targeted food motivation or bribery, when it comes to working with your cat, food is not just any old tool; it’s your best friend.

In our kitchen counter–surfing example, our clear challenge is not finding the “No!” but determining where the “Yes!” lives—we have to find out what motivates your cat to go to that spot to begin with. The first obvious motivation is to get to “that place”—the vertical world. Even if your cat is not a Tree Dweller in the traditional sense, he clearly finds mojo off the floor. So let’s start by making verticality a part of our “Yes!” recipe. The second part of the recipe is resources: what lives up on that counter that makes it so desirable? Well, it’s the kitchen counter, which probably means food. Our “no” means keeping food put away so it’s not a consistent temptation, and we aren’t setting our cats up for failure. For our “yes,” read on. . . . That’s the third part of the recipe—us. When our body clocks are in sync, the human and cat energy spikes are happening at the same time. Whether morning or evening, you can bank on the fact that when our family’s energy is spiking, we are probably doing something in the kitchen. Getting up on the counter gives the cat front row access to that something. Clearly, all “yes” signs point to giving your cat a place to go that is near enough to the action and the resources, just not on the counters themselves. My go-to solution is a cat tree that is near enough to accommodate these desires and far enough away that the cat doesn’t use that tree as an off-ramp of the Cat Superhighway toward the counter. When