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

by Jackson Galaxy

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