Kristiina (00:33)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Hiss and Tell, a cat behavior and more podcast. I am your host, Kristiina Wilson, animal behaviorist, and with me today is my spouse.
that have been submitted by listeners and fans of our cat Steve, these are all cat behavior related questions. And so without further ado, I guess we will get right into it. Ally There's quite a few here, so we'll start at the top. Why do they scratch around their food bowl? They being cat.
Presumably. If they scratch before they're eating, it's to try to like clear away any dirt or debris that might be there. It's just like an instinctual behavior either way, but it's trying to clear anything away. And if it's after they're done, it's another instinctual behavior that is to try to clean up and to try to cover the food.
because in nature they would want to cover the food so they can like cache it and come back later. As we heard in that Bobcat talk that we went to with all the senior citizens recently. But so they're just trying to cover it up and come back later even though they don't need to do that. It's just like a lizard brain type of activity that they can't help it. And you may also see cats doing that at the water bowl. We have some cats who do that at the water bowl who before they drink they go to the water bowl and do this.
And that's also because they're trying to clear it of debris that really isn't there, but they're, they're trying to clear of debris so that it's safe to drink, even though it's perfectly safe to drink. It's just an old idea that their brain tries to tell them to do. So as if they were like in nature in the body of water. Exactly. Okay. Now thoughts about using CBD for stress anxiety related urine spraying.
I have a lot of thoughts about CBD.
There's not a ton of research out yet. There's a lot of research about dogs. Dogs and CBD and cats are not.
say the word. Okay cats and CBD there's not a ton of research that is conclusive.
So it can be used to mitigate pain. If your cat is urine spraying and it's not because of something like idiopathic cystitis or about, you know, like a painful bladder issue, if it's because of stress, I would go to something more like fluoxetine rather than CBD because CBD isn't known for really working well on cats with anxiety in terms of scientific studies.
and I would go to something that we do know works well, like fluoxetine, which is Prozac. I will say that I did recently read a study about the perceptions of owners and CBD, and it was a little bit alarming and that it was saying that most cat owners haven't been told anything about pharmacology for cats by their vets and don't even know that there are behavioral medications on the market that can be given to cats like fluoxetine.
or in some cases, trazodone or gabapentin. And so of course, people are going to use things like CBD rather than talk to their vet about medications that actually might ultimately be more helpful. So hopefully we'll get more education out to people and they'll go to things that would actually be appropriate rather than just kind of going to this blanket like CBD works for everything where I don't think it does. I think it can be helpful. I read another paper where it was helpful in treating stomatitis.
Because that is a painful disease. I think it can be helpful for pain mitigation But I don't think it's necessarily helpful for any type of anxiety Prone disorder in cats the research just isn't there. It's not it's not there and also cats just Metabolize medication so differently than humans do and then dogs do that I wouldn't rely on thinking like oh because it's helpful for people and oh because it's helpful for dogs I wouldn't stretch that out to cats because cats are very different
animal obviously, so we can't just like jump that CBD is going to be effective for cats. Okay. Your take on mushies versus crunchies. By the way, I really love that these have become two widely used terms. I think a lot of people use mushies and crunchies. I did. Honestly, I find it very cute. I wanted to feed my cat an all wet food diet, but he doesn't want to eat it. Well, you want your cat to eat. So if your cat doesn't want to eat it.
You don't want your cat to starve to death, right? So, I mean, obviously, I think we all know at this point that mushy's, i .e. wet food, is better for your cat than just eating a bunch of dry food, even if it's super high quality dry food is basically like carbs. But if that's all your cat wants to eat, you'd rather have a cat who's alive than a cat who is not.
ultimately you don't want your cat to just eat dry food, but if that's all your cat wants to eat, you're kind of in like a sticky wicket, right? So, um, you can try to do like a slow replacement or
There's a lot of stuff on the market now that are food toppers that seem to be a little bit more enticing than regular wet food.
you can put those on top of the dry food and see if that will work and just kind of slowly introduce moisture into the food and see if over time you can add more and more and more and then kind of push your cat into at least a diet that includes some wet food here and there. And hopefully that will work. It's never a good idea to just like throw.
a new food at a cat and then just immediately like try to force them into wet food. You always want any kind of adjustment with a cat to be gradual or they're very likely to just dig their heels in and be like, absolutely not. I'm not going to do that. So try doing it gradually and see if you have any success. If not, make sure that you're feeding a very, very, very high quality, high protein dry food and that you have a lot of water available in bowls and fountains to encourage drinking. Cause that's really the most important thing is that your cat.
remains hydrated. Because that's the real benefit of the wet food is that that's where a lot of times where cats are getting most of their hydration. Okay, so this person says, would like to know what you think about bathing cats regularly. I don't bathe my cats, but I've read that you should bathe them every four to six weeks. That sounds like a bloodbath. And not the cat's blood. No, no, it would be your blood. You don't need to bathe your cat.
Your cats are self -cleaning. you don't need to bathe your cat. Your cat is self -cleaning. Please don't bathe your cat unless your cat gets, some long -haired cats do need to be bathed if they cannot bathe themselves.
hairless cats need to be bathed. obviously, if like that one time Steve fell over the wall and got into like an oil spill.
He needed a bath. You know, in those special circumstances, cats need to be bathed. You do not need to be bathing your cat on a regular basis. Your cat is bathing themselves. They're keeping themselves spick and span. Cats are very, very clean animals for the most part. You can brush your cat and your cat will love that. And that's a good bonding activity. You do not need to bathe your cat.
That's all I have to say on that. So next question is if I've made previous mistakes with my cat's boundaries, can that be walked back? I think so. I mean, it depends what the mistakes were, but I think...
Cats and animals in general tend to be a lot more understanding and forgiving than we can be as people and they don't tend to hang on to stuff as long as we can. So I think definitely you can always reset, especially if you show a willingness to let them be in control. That's always like the most important thing when dealing with cats and behavior is to make sure that they understand that they're in control or at least give them the illusion of being in control. And...
let them know that you're obviously going to respect their boundaries from now on. Again, you can always do stuff in baby steps. So like show them in small steps that you're willing to meet them at the point that they're comfortable at. And once they realize it, then they'll be really happy. But I don't think generally things are not usually like an end all and be all with cats. They're usually pretty open to kind of revisiting things after a certain amount of time. It may be you need to give them a cooling off period.
We all need those sometimes, but I don't think ever it's like usually a deal breaker unless you've done something like really horrible. And bribing them with churus always helps. Yeah, well I wouldn't like to say bribing. I know it's a negative. But churus can be a good positive reinforcer.
Is there a protocol to get two cats to get along after living together for a couple years?
Again, well this person's not saying their cats are actively fighting, so that's good. I kind of need a little more information to be able to give like a nuanced response. But you, I think always positive reinforcement.
cat into the home is to do.
In this case, if you don't need to walk it back that far, if they're just kind of neutral towards each other and you want them to be positive towards each other, you would...
Generally it's food because most cats are very food motivated, but some cats like our cat Kevin is praise motivated. So he loves a good job, Kevin, whenever he does something that he did a good job at. Other cats want not only praise, but they want pats.
you know, you can also use play. It depends really what your cat is their greatest motivator is. So figure that out what both of their motivator is. If it's food, that's going to be really easy. Then pick a really high value novel food reward. So it can be churu, it could be tuna, it could be freeze dried chicken, it could be meat and meat sauce, baby food. And whenever they're together and they're acting positive toward each other, you give them that high value reward. So they start to make an association.
with the other cat that they're sort of not that jazzed about. And you make an association with them with the positive reward. And then they start to kind of be like, oh, whenever I'm around this person that I don't love, like I get this high value reward. And that starts to build a positive association. And over time, that will help them become more and more friendly with each other. That was a very thorough answer.
Why is my cat pooping right outside the litter box? Usually when cats have inappropriate defecation, it is 95 % of the time it is medical.
So the first thing that I always tell clients when they have cases like this is you need to take your cat to the vet and get a full workup. You need to bring in a fecal sample. You need to get them checked for everything medical that it could possibly be. I'm not going to go into that list because I am not a veterinarian, but please talk to your veterinarian about everything that it possibly could be on the medical end. If you get a full clearance that it is not medical, it is most likely if the poop is right outside the litter box, it is most likely.
that it is the size or something about the litter box that they don't like. So it could be the size is too small. It could be they don't like the litter. So try messing around with some different litter substrates. It could be they don't like that there's a top on the box. It could be that all of a sudden they don't like how the litter feels on their paws, right? So maybe you're using one of those big pellet litters and all of a sudden now that's hurting their paws, that could be a problem. It could be, is your cat getting older? Do they have...
Arthritis is it becoming more of a problem for them to get in and out of the litter box especially for pooping So maybe you need to get a litter box that is much lower to the ground with a hole And they do make one that's called shoot. What is that?
that's for senior cats.
So the litter box for senior cats is called Kitty Go here. And it's like a very low pan that has like a low cutout. So that could work if your cat has arthritis and that's the issue. So I would try, you know, messing with the substrate. I would try getting, getting a really thin substrate that feels very soft on their paws. I would try removing the cover. I would always try adding another litter box because cats like to urinate in one and then defecate in a -
we'll go into one box do one thing.
if one of those issues doesn't solve it. You can also start making a log and note the time, the date, and then what was going on.
the incidents of the inappropriate defecation and see if there's a through line. Like is somebody, if you live in a multi cat household, is somebody coming and harassing your cat while they're trying to go to the bathroom and that's causing them to not go on the litter box because they feel trapped. You know, is, is this happening right after they're eating? Are they straining? I'm also a huge advocate of having cameras pointing at the litter box. I know this sounds really weird. I promise we don't just like watching the cats go to the bathroom. Except for uncle dad.
That's true. Uncle Dad has a really funny going to the bathroom style that I do post on our cat's Instagram, because it's hilarious. But it's really helpful to be able to see, especially if you live in a multi -cat household, to see who's going to the bathroom how many times. Like, is it more than usual? Is it less than usual? Is anyone being bullied in the bathroom? Like, who likes to use what bathroom? Do we need to add another one?
to take this one away. Like what exactly is going on? You know, is somebody going too often and could they have like a UTI or an obstruction? That's how we found multiple obstructions in our cast is by looking at the footage and being like, Oh, this cat's going 14 times a day. Like something's wrong. In the case of inappropriate defecation, it could be very helpful to see like, is your cat going in and out of that litter box and then just coming out to poop? In that case, it probably is the size of the litter box. It's the issue.
Especially if they're a bigger cat or they're a long haired cat, often they need like a really, really big litter box for them to feel comfortable so they're not getting the poop on themselves.
Sorry, that was like a really long... No, no, it makes sense. Long explanation. My former feral stray hardly eats any real cat food. Mostly treats. How can I shift this? So this cat only wants to like salami and that kind of... mean... I think treats meaning cat treats. Oh, okay. But you get them salami. Chicken. Remember that meme about like your cat can have a little salami as a treat? Yeah.
cat can have a little salami as a treat. But anyway, um, I think this is kind of the same answer as the other question about how to get your cat to eat wet food is that you want to just transition them slowly. Um, you could also do a mixture of treats and dry food in a bowl and see if you can kind of fool them that way into eating some dry food. And then once you get that going, you can.
start putting in some wet food in the mix and then kind of just in baby steps again everything with cats you want to be baby steps it always reminds me of that movie with Bill Murray where he's baby stepping you know where he's the like psych patient uh yes that movie what about bob what about bob yeah god 800 years old never mind i'm gonna cut all of this out um
Baby step in. Yeah, everything you want everything with cats to be baby step in. So yeah, you could start with a little bowl with treats and dry food. Once you get him eating the dry food, then put some wet food in there with the dry food. Then you can transition to both wet food and dry food. But definitely a diet of all treats is not great, but it could be who knows what this cat has been eating out in the wild. So it may be, it takes a little bit of transition time to get them used to regular cat food. And that's
Oh man, I don't have an answer for this question. Hopefully you do. Any suggestions for 3 a .m. howling? Often zoomies slash play.
We're tired all the time lately. Yeah. Because of butters. Because of butters. So the first suggestion is play. Play with your cat until exhaustion, which is usually at least 20 minutes. And you really want your cat to be so tired at the end of it that they cannot move anymore. They're just on the floor like I'm done. Right. So playing to exhaustion at least once a day, if not two to three times, but definitely right before bed. You want to wear them out so that they are not running around.
at three in the morning
You can also, if they're food motivated, set up an auto feeder to go off a little bit before they usually start bothering you. So if your cat starts to bother you at three in the morning, set off the auto feeder to go off at like 2 .45, right? Or 2 .50 so that they have something that is going to motivate them to be doing something else rather eating.
instead of harassing you at three in the morning, right? You could do that. You can also get them some good toys that they can play with on their own. I have a bunch of links to those on my cat behavior website, which is catitude -adjustment. And if you go into the resources section, you will see a bunch of toys that cats can play with on their own. We recently got one that I bought off like TikTok shop that I have to put up there, but I'll put it up before this is released. And it's just like a stick that has a feather on it.
it but it's not a suction cup and Gene and Butters are obsessed with it and even Kevin and Moo a little bit and they just play with that thing so much that I've already had to reattach.
they are obsessed with playing with this and it's really helpful. So you really just need to add physical exercise and then intellectual stimulation so that they're not harassing you in the middle of the night. The other thing that you can do and this is more of a pain in the butt and not very fun is to ignore them. They will stop this behavior but after it takes about two weeks and then the behavior will stop.
the way that we really fully stop cat behaviors that we don't like is to ignore them because 99 times out of a hundred, the reason the cat is doing the behavior is because they want our attention. And so any attention we give them, even if it's negative attention is reinforcing that behavior. So if you get out of bed and you're like, shut up, no, that's actually reinforcing their behavior and teaching them that, hey, every time I yell at three in the morning,
that person gets out of bed and I get their attention. So this is great for me. I love it. Even if I'm getting yelled at or sprayed with a water bottle, which no one should do, you're still reinforcing that action. So you can't get up out of bed and give them any attention, which is why we want to tire them out, which is why we want to redirect them with a, um, auto feeder. If you want to try ignoring them, it is very hard, but that is also the reason that none of our cats play with our feet or wake us up in the middle of the night, except for butters who's new. Um, so the way that you do that is you f**k.
fully ignore them for about two weeks. If they come in, if they tap you on the face, if they bite your feet, if they shriek into your ear, you don't open your eyes, you don't move a muscle, you don't acknowledge them in any way. And there will be something called an extinction burst. So if you imagine like a kid trying to get their mom's attention on the phone, right? And the mom's on the phone and the kid's like, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom. And it gets louder and more obnoxious until the kid just finally stops and wanders off.
That's what your cat is gonna do while you're ignoring them. It's gonna get worse right before it stops. And then once it stops, you never have to do that again. They will have learned that there's no benefit to them from doing this behavior, but it is going to stink while you're ignoring them. That is a hard two weeks, but it will fully stop the behavior.
Okay, how do cats use their tails to communicate? Oh, in many, many ways. Cats are really kind of visual communicators. They use so much body language to communicate with each other and with us. So they use their tails. If you see an upright tail, it means that they're alert and usually happy. If you see like a little hook at the end of it,
It means that they're super happy and they're ready to engage and they're really excited to see you. If the tail is just straight out from their body, that is just neutral. They're neutral. They're okay. If the tail is down, that is not great. They're usually scared or upset. If it's tucked underneath them.
That's really very scared. You want to stay away from that cat or find a way to help them If the cat is sitting and their tail is like whapping, you know, like really like slapping They're they're probably very agitated or they're thinking about play attacking someone. It's usually something like that.
Yeah, and if the end of the tail is just like slowly tapping, it's often like irritation. They're just kind of like, you know, you guys are so annoying or something like that, or they're just thinking, really thinking about something.
and then the other one that we see a lot with with male cats and I think maybe Moosh does this a little is when they're really excited and happy, they will off on fake spray, right? And so you'll see the tail up and then it's going to like wiggle, kind of wiggle jiggle a little bit and it's they're just really, really happy and there's no spray that's coming out, but it is like a faux marking behavior.
because they're so happy where they are and they're so happy with you and in their environment that they're pretending to spray to like mark their territory. But thank goodness they're not actually spraying. But that is also another method of communication. Jean does that. Jean does it. Butters does it. I've seen Kevin do it. I think Moo has done it. Steve used to do it all the time. Yeah, he did.
Okay, so is it okay for cats to watch videos on my phone? My cat wants to watch bird videos. Of course! Yeah, I think that's totally fine. That is great intellectual stimulation, especially if you pair it at the end of that with play so that your cat is not frustrated by just doing that first part of the hunting sequence, right?
So if you're having your cat either watch birds in nature, which we do, we have bird feeders all around our house and our cat spend a large part of the day watching birds and chipmunks and mice and squirrels and it's really amazing intellectual stimulation for them and they're super happy to do it. And then at night the raccoons come and they get to watch the raccoons and the possums and mice again eating all the snacks. They're less excited about those guys than they are about the prey animals during the daytime. But I would
always pair stuff like that with either play so that they can finish that whole hunting sequence and not feel frustrated or a puzzle feeder like hunting toy. We have these little mice around and I never have them when I need to demonstrate this but most people are listening to that so it doesn't really matter. Again there are links to this in the resources section of my website again catitude -adjustment .com.
and they're little plastic toys that look like mice and then they have little holes in the bottom and you fill them up with dry food or treats and then you can change the size of the holes and the cats can just bat them around and get their food out. So it's twofold. They feel like they're actually killing something and then they feel like they're actually eating what they killed. then they also feel like they're in charge of knowing where their next snack is coming from. So they feel a little bit more in control of their lives and that's really helpful and good for their their mental health.
and emotional stability and everything. And it does finish this whole play rehearsal.
type of like hunting basically. So I think if you're going to have them watch cat TV, that's great. If you have an iPad, that's a little bit bigger. That would be helpful because cats don't have really very good vision. They have great vision for motion. They do not have good up close vision. So it needs to be at least like a foot in front of their face, or they really won't see it. People may have noticed if you put a treat down right in front of your cat, they may have a hard time finding it, especially if they have a cold or something and they can't smell very well. It's because they really don't see very well.
right in front of them. They see peripheral motion super super well and they see at night better because they have that tapetum luceum in the back of their eye that helps reflect light around but during the day their vision is not great.
So I would either put it on an iPad if you can and you could put your iPad in like a Ziploc bag if you want to be careful of them not like scratching up the screen or put it on a TV if you're sure that your cat is not going to launch themselves at your TV, which they might do. Although I do think that the best thing to do if you can and if you're not too high up in an apartment building is to put up like a suction cup bird feeder or any kind of bird feeder that you can so that they can actually watch birds. But I think cat TV is great.
Again, I'm giving the longest answers. It's okay. Cat throws up her crunchies. It's almost immediate. They're whole. Is this stress or overeating? It's just too fast. It's neither. It's, I mean, they could be eating quickly from stress, but a lot of cats just eat really fast. Like Steve was the biggest abuser of crunchies in this way.
and like every morning would eat not even his crunchies but his mushies too and we had to really control.
like his food intake, and he was not a stressed out guy at all, like at all. So some cats just really love food and want to inhale it really fast. And so I would recommend that you put the crunchies into a puzzle feeder, like the one that I just mentioned, or there's plenty of different ones that you can get. And then if you have this problem with mushies to get something called a licky mat, which is just a little mat that has different ridges and different places for the wet food to go so that they have to work.
get it out. Either way, you want them to have to work a little bit to get either the dry food or the wet food out both for their mental health, but also so they can't just inhale it that quickly. And that that's what makes them vomit it back out because they've taken it in so fast. And as you've noticed, cats don't chew, they don't use their teeth to chew, which is why our tooth optional cats can still eat dry food, because they just throw it back like a shot, which is what all cats are doing every once in a while, you'll hear them crunch on something. But for the most part, they don't chew their food. They just
throw it back. So if they're inhaling their food, they're just going to throw it back so much that their stomach's going to be like, nope, and throw it back out. So get a puzzle feeder.
Yes, they do. They absolutely do. And that's how a lot of people end up with really fat cats. And I think that comes from a misconception that cats are so self -reliant and they don't need any interaction and that, you know, you can just feed them and otherwise they're kind of like good to go on their own. I think cats often do this because they're bored, like the question asked, and really what they need is additional play. They need additional interaction from us, but they also need more environmental and intellectual stimuli.
So again, what I think is great for this is doing stuff like cat TV, like a bird feeder, like additional toys like puzzle feeders are great. Additional toys that they can play with on their own. Again, you can go to the links that I've talked about. There's some battery operated ones. There's ones like the little suction cup stick toy with the feather on the end that I talked about.
There's a lot of toys that they can play with on their own. And then I would look at environmental stimulation as well. Like, do you have enough high perches for your cat? Do you have...
enough places for them to hide and pop out of, you know, cats are surprise predators. So they, that's why they love a box and they love a hiding space, but they're also prey. So they also want to feel like they're safe in places. So I would examine all of that stuff and make sure that they're getting enough attention from you enough interaction, enough play. and then also that they have enough things to to stimulate their intellect. Um, you could also do clicker training with them, which I think is a wonderful intellectual stimulation. And I actually am going to have an
coming episode with the woman who runs cat school, which I think is an amazing resource for clicker training, harness training, all of that stuff. So you can listen in for that episode coming up soon. I just think that you need to just add, if your cat is eating out of boredom, you need to add some things so that your cat is not so bored.
to introduce a new animal into the pack. Okay. So you want to do something called separation and introduction. We have done this 8 ,000 times, I think over the course of our eight years together.
Something like that. Something. Okay. However long it's been. Some amount of time that we have been this. Yes. So we have had to do this multiple times. The best thing to do is to bring the new cat in, put them in their own room that they can have with all their own resources, right? They're going to have water, food, a high place to perch, a place to hide some toys, and then make sure you have Feliway running all over in your house, especially in that new room. What I recommend,
would recommend for a multi cat situation is Feliway optimum. That is a combination of Feliway classic and Feliway multi cat. The Feliway classic is a synthetic version of the bunting pheromone. So that is when cats rub up against walls or you with their faces or when they scratch to leave their scent. And that is just marking their territories and saying like, this is where I live. My home is safe. This is all my t -
territory and everything's good in this space, right? The Feliway Multicat is a synthetic version of a lactating nursing mother's pheromone, which tells all the kittens we are all part of the same family. We all like each other and we all get along. So the Feliway Optimum combines both of those things and puts out both of those messages to cats. And so I think when you have a new cat coming in, you want them to feel like this is my new territory. I'm safe, but also I like all these other cats and you want to send that same message to your, your
um regular cats what is the word i'm looking for um initial initial cats i don't know why i can't think of the word your existing existing cats whatever i don't know why i can't i think it can think of it's clear that i can't think of words today yeah so and i'm not sponsored by Feliway in any way fyi they don't give me any money i wish they would i like money um
But I like to recommend Feliway because they have actual research and peer reviewed studies behind them. And that is the only way that I recommend products to clients is if they have actual studies behind them. So that's why I recommend Feliway and we use them. We use that all over our house. So.
have that Feliway going all over your house, I recommend one for 500 square feet or floor of a house or room with a door that shuts. So you're gonna give everybody a cooling off period of several days. You're gonna let your original cats smell the carrier this new cat came in so that they understand, hey, there's a new cat here. This is what that cat smells like. Let them have a go at the carrier. They can smell it. Nobody meets anyone else for several days until everyone has chilled out. You may read on the internet,
an erroneous protocol that says to use cats' meal times as a way to kind of force them to be together. Do not do that. It sounds like a terrible idea. It is a terrible idea. It's old school behavior thinking and it is still unfortunately used by people
Do not use their daily meals as a way to force them together. Cats in nature are solitary eaters and they don't generally eat together in groups. So we don't want to force them to do that. And we also don't want to force cats to have to choose between being comfortable or eating their daily meal, right? And that's would be making an association that is negative with this, this new cat or the new people that the new cat is meeting. So we're not going to do that. So what you want to do is then slowly start to
them together you want to pick a high value reinforcer usually in the form of a treat again like we talked about if your cats are food motivated so again you can use churu you can use tuna you could use dehydrated chicken you could use whatever it is that you think is going to work with your cats it's something that they don't get at any other time than when you're doing this work the first things that you're going to do and again we're just doing baby steps
crack the door just a little bit, as long as everyone's body language is positive, right? Tails are up or neutral, ears are up or neutral. We don't want to see any ears back. We don't want to see any puffiness. We don't want to hear any growling. Hissing is okay, because hissing is just talking, just setting boundaries. No swiping, no like anything negative. Everyone can get the high value reinforcer, shut the door, reset, right? We're going to take super baby steps this whole way. Then,
20 minutes, an hour, a couple hours later, you can come back redo it again. This time do the same thing again.
If it all goes well again, the next time you can crack the door a little bit more. The next time a little bit more. You want to do each step twice and then you can move forward to the next one. If you ever get a negative response, if someone gets puffy, if someone growls, if somebody swipes, you stop immediately. You do not give the positive reinforcer. And then the next session after you've taken longer this time for everyone to reset, then next time you go back a step.
and you repeat that step several times. So you're gonna do this, this can take a couple of weeks, right? It depends on how quickly everyone comes around and how, just how everyone is feeling. You're gonna graduate once the door is kind of more open, you're gonna get a baby gate and you're gonna use that so that there's visuals but there's still a physical barrier.
Once everybody's good around the baby gate, you're going to have everybody together, but you're going to be ready to stop the interaction at any time. And again, you're only going in small amounts. So like two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes at no point, are you just letting people be together?
And by people, I mean cats. At no point are you letting the cats being unsupervised together or just being like, ah, they seem fine. We'll just let them together. Because if something bad happens, you have to restart the whole thing. So you do that until you have them together for multiple hours while they're supervised. And then I'd say when they are supervised and they can be together, okay, during the day, you can start considering letting them be together at night.
but you really want them to be okay during the day, supervised and unsupervised, before you even consider letting them be together at night, because at night is when shenanigans can really happen. Yes, absolutely. So, this kind of piggybacks off the previous question. How to tell when cats are playing rough versus fighting?
Okay, so that's another one where you're going to really look at body language and listen. So cats that are play fighting aren't usually making any noise, right? Except for like their paws hitting each other and the like, whap, whap, whap that you'll hear of their paws. But it's very silent. It's largely silent, right? Cats that are fighting are going to be noisy. There's going to be yelling, there's going to be meows, there's going to be hissing and growling sometimes. So if you hear a noisiness or vocalization, that's not good.
cats generally don't vocalize with each other unless they're irritated or angry. There's really not a lot of positive vocalizations unless there's a mother cat and her babies. Otherwise cats are not chatty with each other unless they're pissed. You can also look at their ears. If the ears are back or flat against the head, that's not good.
You don't want to see that, except for in certain instances, like if somebody's slapping the other cat on the head, they may put their ears back to just protect from the slap.
But again, that's only then if the if the play fight is silent, right? You also want to look at tails. Are the tails up? Are they okay? Are they tucked or underneath? Is somebody trying to get away and someone else is trying to pin them? That's not a good situation. Is somebody puffy? If somebody's really puffy, that's no good. Like you don't want any of that. I will say never put yourself in the middle of a cat fight. This can be really hard to stop yourself. I've definitely put myself in the middle and then later been like, what was I doing? But sometimes in
instinct takes over and you just can't help but insert your hand and then you have to go to the hospital because you have 57 cat bites. So don't do that. What would be good to do is to redirect it or startle them. You also don't want to spray them with water. You don't want to do any of that. You want to redirect them with either a loud noise, like throw a pot on the ground, shake a jar full of pennies, like do anything that just startles them.
and will either cause both of them to run in different directions or just startle them out of that moment where they're kind of locked into each other. But definitely do not put your hand into the mix, none of that.
best way to get your cat exercise and if it is needed. It's definitely needed. Cats definitely need exercise. Play. I mean just play with your cat.
get one of those we call them flirt toys but they're just I know I don't know why I don't like that is that like a industry term yes it is and it's it's like the feather on a stick like anything that's on a wand is called a flirt toy I really hate that term but that's that's what they're called um and those are really amazing for play also cat dancers again this company's not paying me but uh cat dancers are amazing toys that I have yet to see a cat other than mr. peepee man not play with
Mr. PP Man was a feral that we trapped and neutered and got all his shots and I was really trying hard to socialize but he did not want it so we released him and he's back outside and he comes by every night to eat but he hates us. So fair enough. But he did not want to play, he did not want to have anything to do with being an indoor cat so that's his choice, he was an adult. Anyway, back to the question which was how do you get them exercise? So.
Play with them. I just think for the most part, none of us play enough with our cats because we kind of just think like, oh, they'll play with each other or they'll exercise themselves. Like, we need to, we need to be our cats trainers, essentially, just like we need trainers to come and make us work out. We need to help our cats work out. So at least 20 minutes once a day, if not two to three times a day of rigorous play where they are very tired at the end, get them jumping, get them running.
Ally knows that I love to make our cats run up and down. We have this long hallway in our house that we call the runway and I get one of those toys and I will just be like, okay, we're gonna run and I make the cats run up and down the runway with me. So I'm also getting a workout which isn't necessarily what I wanna be doing sometimes at 11 p .m. But it's really good to just get them going. Also cats like to chase balls.
So I have found that to be an easy way that I don't have to necessarily get the exercise and I'll just throw tennis balls for them down the runway and they'll run and chase them. So that's helpful. But toys are very helpful. Flirt toys are very helpful. Cat dancer is helpful. Anything that you can do to get them up and moving at least once, if not several times a day, you definitely want to do that. There are also those cat wheels that people have. I don't know anyone who has one that their cats use it a lot.
but I would love to hear from people if they do have one and their cats use it a lot. Like, please tell me because I have yet to like hear about that. But and people are always saying that we should get one for Butters. But I was just about to suggest that I wonder if Butters would use that. I just I don't know. I would love to hear if you have a cat who has one of those exercise wheels and they use it, please write in and let me know because I want to send me a video. I want to see it. Yeah.
So what to do if my cat is yelling at me, but she's had enough food, how to divert her? Well, you can do the ignoring method, which again, admittedly, this is hard. Again, your cat may just want your attention. Sometimes cats just yell at us because they want our attention and we just feel like, well, you've had what your biological needs, so you must not need anything anymore. So it could be that your cat...
doesn't need any more food, but they just want you to sit down and give them attention. So try that and see if that's helpful at all. I know at least Ally, you were having those times with, with Babby, with one of our cats who's very obsessed with Ally and doesn't like anyone else in the house. It's just only Ally. And there was those, you know, for quite a while she was just like trying to trip you and like getting underfoot and like,
really being, yeah. But then we had a whole discussion about it and I was like, I think she just wants you to sit down because normally if cats get underfoot and they are kind of like trying to trip you, it's because they want your attention. They're trying to get you to sit down and be present in the moment with them, right? And you did that and it worked, right? It was what she wanted. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So try just sitting down and being with your cat and see if that is what she wants.
Otherwise, she might also just be trying to work you for more food because she has realized like yelling is annoying to my person. If I just keep yelling, they'll eventually give me more snacks. In that case, you may have to do the ignoring method where you just give her her allotment of food and then you just don't pay attention to the yelling, meaning there's no eye contact. There is no talking. There's no looking. There's nothing.
for whatever amount of time it is that she's doing this annoying vocalizing for about two weeks and then eventually she'll realize this is not working for me and stop it. Cats are master manipulators. They are. I always tell clients that actually while they're coming to me for help working with or training their cat, what's really happening is their cat has been training them and the cats are really good at it. They're very very good trainers. All they're doing all day is looking at us and
behavior and figuring out how to kind of, not all they're doing, but a vast majority of what they're doing is observing us and figuring out how to kind of manipulate that into something that they can get, which isn't, doesn't make them bad. They're just smart. It's very smart. And that's part of why they they domesticated themselves.
and came to live with us in the first place. And so they're still just doing that. They're still just kind of figuring out how to game the situation into their favor. And they're really good at it. They should write books. They should have a podcast for each other on like new techniques.
So last question, tips for getting our two cats into carriers with minimal stress for them and tears for us. Okay, so I am a big proponent of carrier training your cats. So I'd say about half of our cats are carrier trained, which means that they're just really used to and habituated to their carriers and think of them as a fun space to be in.
So if we put a carrier on the floor, Steve definitely went into it immediately. Mimi will go into it, kitten man will go into it. Even Kevin at this point will go into it. Several of the cats will just go in because they think it's a fun space, right? And they're not necessarily connecting it with a vet visit or a move or getting in the car or whatever. So a good way to do this, it's best to do it right when you adopt the cat, but you can do it really at any point is to just have the carrier out.
and about in your house and open and put it, put stuff in it that your cat likes, put catnip put toys, put a blanket that smells like them. Just put stuff in there that makes it sort of more like a cozy cave. You can even cover it with a towel. If you think your cat would like that, make it just like a little fort for them. That's fun. So that they make a positive association with it. And it's not something that they only see that you like only pull out when it's time to go somewhere really unpleasant, like the vet, right? Because I think.
If you think back to when you were a kid and like you had to go to the doctor and at least for me, I hated going to the pediatrician. And so like, even if we drove by it, I was like, ah, you know, these like brown squat buildings and I hated it. Like, so I think if anything would come out that would give me an association of going to the doctor, I would freak out. And I think it's the same for cats. So we want them to be comfortable with the thing that they're being carried in, right? So get them comfortable with the carrier itself, carrier train them.
If you can't even get them to go in the carrier you can kind of What we did with Gene? Was using a toy to get him gradually acclimated to it so kind of playing with him in the carrier So he associated it with play so it was fun You can use like a ribbon toy to get him to start going in at the beginning, right? So he follows the ribbon or follows the toy into the carrier and realizes. Oh, this isn't necessarily a terrible place then
For the actual vet visit, I am a huge proponent of anxiety medications for all animals going to the vet. And I am a huge proponent for trazodone. Trazodone is also used in people, mostly for sleep issues. Trazodone is a lifesaver for cats going to the vet. I would speak with your vet about getting some doses of trazodone for your cat. If your cat is super nervous, you can give it the night before and the day of. If they're only like,
Marginally or regularly regular level of stress give it to them the morning of the vet visit that will help bring their Anxiety down and just kind of chill them out. It's a little bit like Xanax for cats I guess It'll just chill them out so you can pick them up You can put them in the carrier that they're now Acclimated to get them to the vet and have them be in a place where they're not so Overthreshold that it's impossible to work with them. Also over time
With these two measures in place, hopefully they'll become less and less freaked out at the vet and you can even dial the trazodome back because now they're not having this negative association all the time with the vet. Well, what about the situations where like, yeah, we keep the carriers out and a lot of them will go in it to hang out, but when it comes time to like actually take them, it's, we've kind of developed like a working as a pair system.
it's very helpful if you have a partner that can help you grab your cat, get them in the carrier and get them to the vet. And then also if you have, like we do several feral cats that it's just difficult to handle them. You wanna have either handling gloves and or a towel so that you can just quickly.
towel your cat, right? You want to cover their head because that really helps calm them down, get them safely into the carrier and get them safely to the vet. But really having Trasadone on board is super helpful for all of that. Yeah. And you do, we have better luck when you put them in backwards. Yes, that's true. Yeah. A backwards entry I find is a lot better than a head first entry. Cause if you do a head first entry into a carrier, they can spread their back legs.
and then stop you from getting the rest of them in there and then escape. So I like to flip them around and put them butt first and then just shut the front. But I think, I think most people are not asking about feral cats. They have cats that they can carry your train plus use the trazodone. Most people don't have a house full.
of half feral cats that like, sorry, I have to somehow get to the vet for their annual physicals and it's like a horrible mess. Well, was that it? Yeah, that was it. That was all the questions. All right. Well, thanks, boo, for joining me on this.
special episode of Hiss and Tell where we answered your questions. I'll be doing this a couple times each season so feel free to go to our Instagram which is Hiss and Tell podcast or to our website which is Hissandtellpodcast .com and submit questions if you have cat behavior questions that you would like answered on the next Q &A and we will see you next week for another episode of
Hissandtell podcasts. Okay, toodaloo.