Ever wondered how to create harmony in a multi-cat household or why your feline friends sometimes clash? Discover the secrets to preventing intercat aggression in our latest episode of Hiss and Tell. Kristiina Wilson shares expert insights with Dr. Gina Rendon and Dr. Lee Nancarrow on keeping your cats intellectually stimulated. Learn about the importance of species-appropriate activities like catios, window perches, and bird feeders that mimic natural hunting behaviors. From engaging toys to puzzle feeders and even harness walking, Kristiina reveals how to channel your cats' natural instincts to keep them content and reduce unwanted behaviors.
Navigating the introduction of a new cat into a multi-pet household can be tricky, especially with older cats. Kristiina discusses the delicate process of gradual introductions, positive reinforcement, and creating separate spaces to foster peaceful coexistence. We also touch on how to manage peculiar behaviors in cats with mysterious pasts, including the potential need for psychopharmacological interventions like Prozac. Plus, get practical tips on encouraging activity in sedentary or obese cats through clicker training and ensuring they are physically capable. Tune in to create a more harmonious and enriching environment for your feline family members!
Takeaways
Environmental stimulation is crucial for cats, especially in multi-cat households.
Introducing a new cat into a household requires a slow and careful process, using positive reinforcement and high-value rewards.
Ankle biting and other unwanted cat behaviors are often a result of boredom and lack of intellectual stimulation.
Regular playtime is essential for cats to prevent boredom and unwanted behaviors. Negative reinforcement does not work on cats, and attention-seeking behavior should be managed by ignoring unwanted behavior and praising desired behavior.
Aggressive behavior in cats can be managed by ignoring the behavior that is not wanted and praising appropriate behavior. Psychopharmacological interventions may be necessary for cats exhibiting extreme aggression.
Encouraging physical activity in cats involves checking for mobility issues, using clicker training, harness training, and providing environmental enrichment. Environmental and intellectual stimulation are essential for the emotional well-being of cats.
The use of psychopharmacological interventions, such as Prozac, may be necessary for cats exhibiting extreme aggression or anxiety. It is important to rule out any medical issues before addressing behavior problems in cats.
Cats can benefit from clicker training, harness training, and outdoor walks to encourage physical activity and mental stimulation. Environmental enrichment, such as activity boxes and foraging activities, can also help in keeping cats active and engaged.
Ever wondered how to create harmony in a multi-cat household or why your feline friends sometimes clash? Discover the secrets to preventing intercat aggression in our latest episode of Hiss and Tell. Kristiina Wilson shares expert insights with Dr. Gina Rendon and Dr. Lee Nancarrow on keeping your cats intellectually stimulated. Learn about the importance of species-appropriate activities like catios, window perches, and bird feeders that mimic natural hunting behaviors. From engaging toys to puzzle feeders and even harness walking, Kristiina reveals how to channel your cats' natural instincts to keep them content and reduce unwanted behaviors.
Navigating the introduction of a new cat into a multi-pet household can be tricky, especially with older cats. Kristiina discusses the delicate process of gradual introductions, positive reinforcement, and creating separate spaces to foster peaceful coexistence. We also touch on how to manage peculiar behaviors in cats with mysterious pasts, including the potential need for psychopharmacological interventions like Prozac. Plus, get practical tips on encouraging activity in sedentary or obese cats through clicker training and ensuring they are physically capable. Tune in to create a more harmonious and enriching environment for your feline family members!
Takeaways
Environmental stimulation is crucial for cats, especially in multi-cat households.
Introducing a new cat into a household requires a slow and careful process, using positive reinforcement and high-value rewards.
Ankle biting and other unwanted cat behaviors are often a result of boredom and lack of intellectual stimulation.
Regular playtime is essential for cats to prevent boredom and unwanted behaviors. Negative reinforcement does not work on cats, and attention-seeking behavior should be managed by ignoring unwanted behavior and praising desired behavior.
Aggressive behavior in cats can be managed by ignoring the behavior that is not wanted and praising appropriate behavior. Psychopharmacological interventions may be necessary for cats exhibiting extreme aggression.
Encouraging physical activity in cats involves checking for mobility issues, using clicker training, harness training, and providing environmental enrichment. Environmental and intellectual stimulation are essential for the emotional well-being of cats.
The use of psychopharmacological interventions, such as Prozac, may be necessary for cats exhibiting extreme aggression or anxiety. It is important to rule out any medical issues before addressing behavior problems in cats.
Cats can benefit from clicker training, harness training, and outdoor walks to encourage physical activity and mental stimulation. Environmental enrichment, such as activity boxes and foraging activities, can also help in keeping cats active and engaged.
Kristiina Wilson:
Hi and welcome to Hiss and Tell a Cat Behavior and More podcast hosted by Kristiina, Wilson, animal behaviorist. In today's episode, dr Gina Rendon and Dr Lina Ancaro flip the script and ask me all of their questions about cat behavior. I had a little too much coffee before recording this episode, so I apologize for my rambling and my talking super fast, but stay tuned and listen for the answers to all the questions from the vets. Hi and welcome to another episode of Hiss and Tell. I am your host, Kristiina Wilson, and with me today is Dr Gina Rendon and Dr Lee Nancarrow, and they are going to do a special episode with me today where they are going to ask me questions about behavior. So here we go.
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
Here we go.
Kristiina Wilson:
This is an unusual format for me, where I am usually the question asker, but today I'm going to have to be the answerer. Answerer. So yeah, I guess, have at it.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
Well, so this was Lee's idea, which. I thought was so brilliant because as vets you know we deal with all the medical stuff. But there are sometimes you know people will come in and they ask us these questions and you know we're not necessarily behaviorist and so there are a lot of times when we're just like I hope you guys make those faces at your clients always, always, uh, uh, yeah. So so yeah, I thought this was such a such a great idea.
Kristiina Wilson:
Great idea, I love it. It's very cute. Yeah, okay well shoot.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
Do you want to go?
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
firstly, well, my big question I Gina, you had a similar one, christina, I know you have is it 10 cats, 11. 11? How do you?
Kristiina Wilson:
keep the peace Through a variety of different methods. And so the first piece and the piece that I always recommend to clients when I hear that they have multi-cat households and generally they're coming to me because they have intercat aggression in those multi-cat households is a lot of intellectual stimulation, right, and I think we all know that cats at least have this kind of perceived tendency to have like obsessive, compulsive tendencies, and what that that means to me as a behaviorist is that they tend to get in these behavioral loops and so we want to give them species appropriate activities to do in our house because they're not outside hunting, right, and they would normally be outside hunting for like 10 hours a day, because they're not necessarily the world's most successful hunters. I think that one tiny African cat that is like the most successful hunter of all the cats, its success rate is 50% and that's like a really good hunter.
Kristiina Wilson:
All the other cats are real stinkers and they come in at like 15%, maybe 20%.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
It's really tough. I did not know that Interesting.
Kristiina Wilson:
And so I think that's a big part of why they have these kind of obsessive, compulsive tendencies, because their brains are wired to just say repeat, repeat, repeat, so that they can be successful and make a living out in the wild and not die of starvation. And when they're living in our homes they don't have anything to do to keep themselves alive. We're feeding them, we're providing them with a nice place to sleep, and so they can often kind of start aggressing on each other, especially if they're in multi-cat households, out of boredom. So that was a very long-winded way of saying let's give them something to do. That is species appropriate.
Kristiina Wilson:
What I really like is, if you can't build a catio like you know, we have right out here is the first thing that we built when we moved out here to Connecticut If you can't either build or just put a little window thing in your window for your cat to be able to safely experience outside, or consider learning, uh, teaching your cat to harness walk give them something like a suction cup bird feeder on your window. Uh, if you don't live in a skyscraper, obviously that's. That's not helpful. If you live on the 20th or 30th floor so that they can watch animals, that that they would be normally watching. So birds, chipmunks, mice squirrels at night I know I mentioned in an earlier podcast that we have a lot of raccoons that come to our house. They come, raccoons and possums come at night. All of these are animals that our cats love to watch and we'll often see all of them lined up at our windows watching the animals and they will sit there for hours and then, whenever they're done, kind of doing that first part of the hunting sequence, which is the stalking, and then they'll jump up at the windows and all of these animals are now so habituated to the cats that they just sit there and keep eating the birdseed and they're like you're an idiot, right one of the squirrels will even come and like do this at the window like kind of like to just mess with the cats, because he thinks it's really funny and we'll just like run down the windows to make sure to like mess with all of the cats and just be
Kristiina Wilson:
like. But the cats love it because they get excited, they're hyped, and so you want your cats to get that part of the sequence right and then you want to give them something to do the next part of the sequence, which is either with play if you can be there, you want to let them finish that sequence by capturing and killing something which is either with play if you can be there, you want to let them finish that sequence by capturing and killing something which would be with a toy that they can actually grasp, so not a laser pointer, but something like a flirt toy, which is any toy on a stick or a wand or if you can't give them that, then you can use some type of those mice puzzle feeders that they can kick around and get a few pieces of dry kibble out of.
Kristiina Wilson:
So they've kind of finished that sequence. So you've given them this whole hunting sequence. They're not needing to turn that aggression around to each other because they're doing this whole thing. That's a natural behavior.
Kristiina Wilson:
Another thing is have Feliway pheromone diffusers going. I don't normally mention brands, but I do mention Feliway just because they have so much robust research behind them. There's a lot of different brands of pheromone diffusers. The only one that I found that has significant research behind it is Feliway, and so that's the one that I recommend and that I use in my house. And we definitely notice when they are running out, because the cats will get a little bit weird and they'll be like, oh, I need to go check them and I will notice that they have. They have run low.
Kristiina Wilson:
So it's definitely a piece of the puzzle in our house, and I also always tell clients that managing a household of cats or really any cat behavior problem, there's not one thing that's going to come along and solve it.
Kristiina Wilson:
It's a puzzle that you're just trying to figure out, like what pieces are coming in that fit together in your particular house right, making sure there's enough high perches and hiding spaces, making sure there's not places like top of stairwells, around corners, things like that, where cats can often kind of lord space over each other or where cats can come face to face and that often will create an aggressive incident. So you want to give them little shelves so they're never going to surprise each other and come directly into contact. You always want to have like a little bit of raised space around those areas so they can pass around each other without conflict. So those are just some things. I feel like I've been talking for 20 minutes, just like, oh, I think I had too much coffee, I'm not shutting up and I should shut up now, and my mouth keeps going um yeah, I have so.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
So, um, if, because obviously I'm in the city and so people don't have necessarily room to to make catios, yes, um, and sometimes don't even have the windows really to have a um, a cat, right, um know, a bird feeder. What about TV like cat TV?
Kristiina Wilson:
Cat TV is great, as long as you do not have a very large cat or a very energetic cat that is going to hop up and knock your TV over into the wall if you don't have a wall-mounted TV or you got to be careful with that because sometimes they will get so excited about watching the birds on cat TV that they will try to get the birds and then you know your TV is falling over.
Kristiina Wilson:
One other thing that I recommend is setting up. If you have an extra iPad lying around, use that. Put it in a plastic bag if you're concerned about the cat like scratching at it, and that can be really good as cat TV. That's what I use often when I'm socializing feral cats is. I use my wife's old ipad. Just put it in like a clear ziploc so they don't scratch at it and that's their little tv for while they're being socialized so you can kind of scoot it around.
Kristiina Wilson:
There's a few really good cat games that they can play on the ipad and then you can, you know, put it more up if you want them to watch cat TV. And then you can sit there and watch cat TV with them and, you know, show that you take an interest in their interests. We're all in this together.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
Yeah exactly.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
That's always a good resource. I love that. Yeah, how do you introduce a cat into a situation like that, into a multi pet household? Into either a multi pet household or into even you know, a household where my experience is? You know, often people will have like a little old and it's usually like a little female cat who like doesn't want any company, but for some reason the clients think that their cat needs company and so then they'll get a cat. My experience. I don't know if this is strictly true, but I always feel like the older female cats they really don't want company. They generally do not.
Kristiina Wilson:
I think your assessment is totally correct.
Kristiina Wilson:
I see this a lot in my practice too, and I think again, it all comes from a good place, from from right, absolutely they're like oh gosh, I would be lonely cats generally, you'll know, if they're lonely they're going to do a lot of kind of play solicitation, um, and even like human directed aggression, that is is play solicitation like biting of your ankles and like slapping at you and that kind of stuff. So if you're not seeing that they're, they're probably okay. If they're older cats and and I do see a lot of people who have older cats and then they introduce a kitten and this- is not a good scenario.
Kristiina Wilson:
This is not a good scenario If you think of your grandma is 85, do you think she would enjoy living with a teenage or a preteen kid? Like that would be a weird and, I think, annoying match for all parties involved, right, like the teenage kid would be like oh, let's go, you know, let's play and like, let's blast video games, and the grandma wants to go to bed at 7 pm.
Kristiina Wilson:
like these two people are not going to get along and that's what happens with cats, too, and then we have a poor match that really doesn't have a lot of hope of becoming friends. They might learn to live in peace, but they're not going to love each other, and that's really what owners usually want.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
Yeah, I always tell people it's a little bit like if you just got a random roommate.
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
Yes, with dogs.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
you know dogs are often if they're good with other dogs, it's not so hard to introduce another dog into the household and they're generally okay.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
But, with cats. It's very much like us If you don't know that person and nobody has given you a questionnaire of what your lifestyle is like, and somebody is all of a sudden living with you. That's what it's like with two cats. They may or may not get along, they may or may not be friends. But what do you do when you bring that cat in? How? How do you make that introduction?
Kristiina Wilson:
It's a really it's a slow process and I think that's often something that people have to really be ready for is that everything with cats, like I've said before, is baby steps and you have to go at a speed that I think is very painful for us as humans but in the long run, is going to serve you and your cats better. You have to do separation and introduction. So first you want to bring that new cat in. You want to have a room prepared for them. That's got feely way going. You want to have it, have all the resources the rest of your house has. So you want it to have scratching solutions, you want it to have toys, you want it to have a nice bed, you want it to have a hiding space, you want to be in that space a lot hanging out with that new cat, and you also want to be out with your current cats or your older cat, I don't know how to say your resident cats, hanging out with them. Then, after you've given the new cat several days to acclimate to that room and for their cortisol levels to come down because moving is always stressful and cats really hate changing environments you're going to start doing introductions, but with a high value enforcer. So we're going to use positive reinforcers to make the cats think that every time I see this other cat I get this really positive, amazing thing that I never get unless I'm around this other cat. So we're going to kind of, in essence, get them making an association with the other cat and this high value reward right. So I love minnows, churros, freeze-dried tuna, freeze-dried chicken, whatever it is that something that they don't normally get, that's not their everyday treat you're only using when they do this work right.
Kristiina Wilson:
I want to reiterate there's a lot of stuff out there and like common knowledge that you should feed cats on opposite side of the doors of their meals. That's not true. It's not true. Okay, it's something we've discussed a lot lately in the past few years, and the thinking now is really that you know, cats out in nature generally are solitary hunters and solitary feeders hunters and solitary feeders and that it is very stressful for them to be forced to eat near someone that they don't know, that they don't necessarily like, and to have to make a choice between eating or being comfortable, and so you're not making a positive association that way. You're just causing additional stress. So we don't want to make them choose between their daily meal or their daily meals and making a positive association with this, this other cat.
Kristiina Wilson:
That's why we're using a high value reward. They're all their nutritional needs are being met outside of, outside of the work, and then we're going to use the chewer or whatever it is as a reward, so we're not affecting their hunger levels one way or the other. Um, and then it's it's kind of a bit of a long process to really describe here Um, but you essentially go in very, very small increments towards getting them to meet each other and you may one day just crack the door like an inch and let them see each other. As long as there's no anxious or aggressive body postures or sounds, the two of them get the reward. You shut the door, then you repeat, and you kind of go pushing it a little bit more every day.
Kristiina Wilson:
Eventually you want to get a baby gate in there so that they can see each other. But there's a physical barrier so there's no way that anybody can rush anyone else. Eventually, once you're able to have the door fully open for like 30 minutes an hour while you're still there and they're still being positively reinforced, you may be able to remove that gate. Um, at some point. If you do have a cat who's very young, you might want to harness, train them so that you can have them on a harness so they can't rush once you remove the gate. But essentially you're going in this like baby steps process, while you're using the high value reinforcer so that you're able to get to a place where they can be together and and just associate each other with a wonderful and great thing, and this can take anywhere from a couple days to a month, depending on how they react.
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
How much of a stick, yeah, how much of a stickler everyone is, and how reactive they are.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
Oh, okay, yeah, Awesome, you talked about those ankle biters. Yes, yes, and that's one that I get asked. You know my cat. When I'm walking through the hallway, my cat attacks my ankles, and how should a person respond to that?
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
So attacking my husband while he puts his jeans on? And how should a person?
Kristiina Wilson:
respond to that. So attacking my husband why he puts his jeans on. So yeah, so ankle biting the attacking. I'd need to see a video or hear more about what is attacking, because people have very different ideas of what certain words mean, right.
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
And what?
Kristiina Wilson:
an attack. Somebody says attack, that could mean something totally different to somebody else.
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
So I'd need to hear a little bit more about what.
Kristiina Wilson:
What is that?
Kristiina Wilson:
And especially see a visual um but for ankle biters especially, or cats who are like pawing at your legs. Um, that is almost always play solicitation and we normally always see this in younger cats, but we might see it in bored older cats too, and it comes from boredom. It comes from a cat who needs more intellectual stimulation and they definitely need more play as well. So I know it's very hard for us with our busy lives and we're not home that much to give cats the play that they need and they really need at least 20 minutes a day of like, full on play until like play to exhaustion, essentially until they sit down and they're like I'm done, I have exhausted myself, right, because they're sprinters and they would in nature, be out sprinting multiple times a day after prey, and they're not doing that in their in our home.
Kristiina Wilson:
So we really want to tire them out, and so also whenever we see behaviors that we don't want in cats, I think our tendency and again what's out there in kind of the general lore is, oh, let's use a spray bottle or let's yell at them and say, no, those things do not work in cats, because cat psychology is like really 180 degrees from human psychology and they view any attention as good, even if we see it as negative. So although negative reinforcers work on us as humans, they do not work on cats. If we spray them with water, they're going to be like oh yeah, I'm wet, but I'm getting.
Kristiina Wilson:
I'm getting attention from the person and that is my highest value thing, right? Or the person's saying no at me, but that person giving me attention is my highest value thing. So, in essence, you're rewarding the behavior that you don't want to reward, especially if they're seeking your attention, looking for play, right? So the best thing to do and this is very hard and it's hard for me too, when our cats are like being obnoxious is to ignore the behavior that you don't want and praise the behavior that you want to see instead Screaming.
Kristiina Wilson:
No screaming, no, water spraying no, and it's very hard when a cat is like biting your ankles. You know I have clients who have this problem. What I recommend is and I know wearing shoes in your house is gross, but you want to wear like a high boot for a while because you need to disabuse the cat of the notion that doing this is going to get them what they want.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
And they're going to do this for a while. So fishing waders, they have to actually wear boots, thigh boots, and walking down the hall you just keep your thigh boots by the the entrance of the hallway, put them on every time.
Kristiina Wilson:
Yeah, interesting, okay, like thick socks, jeans, you know sure, anything that's going to keep you able to ignore them when they do this and to not come into actual bodily harm. Right, because we? Don't want you going to the hospital Cat's mouths are dirty.
Kristiina Wilson:
We don't want you getting puncture, wounds, having to go on antibiotics, like all of that jazz, so you need to be able to safely ignore them when they do that, while you're also providing them with physical play, outlets and intellectual stimulation and all the stuff that we already talked about. You have to ignore the behavior that you don't want and then praise them when they are doing appropriate things. And then they very quickly do make that connection. They may have what's called an extinction burst before they stop.
Kristiina Wilson:
That happens right before they stop, and to people who may not know what that is, I like to think of it as like if you're a little kid and your mom's on the phone and you're trying to get your mom's attention right, and at first you're like mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, and you like get louder until right before you stop, and then you wander off and you do something else because you realize your mom's not going to pay you any attention. That's what your cat's going to do. They're going to have that burst of loudness right before they give up with the ankle biting. So they're going to have a burst of like getting worse right before they cut it out, and so that's something normal to expect.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
Excellent, because we were just talking about the ankle biters and I guess this kind of segues into that how to manage an uneven relationship where you may have two humans going back to your use of humans two humans living in a house and a cat is only friendly to one and tends to target the other one to do aggressive behavior.
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
Yeah.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
So which I actually it's funny because I hear a lot of this with, like new, new significant others. You know there may be the original owner of a cat, and then some significant other comes in and that person becomes the target of a cat's aggression.
Kristiina Wilson:
That's very common actually, and actually I have a client with that issue later on today that I'm tackling.
Kristiina Wilson:
I will say, sometimes you just have cats who are weird. You know, our cat, babby, is like that, she loves Allie and she hates everyone else. And if I try to pat her she just slaps me and bites me and so I'm just like, okay, cool, we both raised you. But like, be that way, whatever. Um, but she's not coming for me, it's. You know, if I, if I try to go solicit attention for her, she's like absolutely not, I, I don't like you, so that's fine. I do think it happens frequently in cats who come from backgrounds that we don't know too much about. They tend to be cats who were feral or street cats, stray cats, cats who often have some kind of and I know it sounds weird to talk about PTSD in cats, but it is something that that is real and sometimes, if those cats are exhibiting like other anxious behaviors, it's a good time to talk about a psychopharmacological intervention, because often cats who are acting out that much they're already over threshold right.
Kristiina Wilson:
And we need to do something to bring them back down, so that behavioral interventions are able to be effective. And often, if we just start out with behavioral interventions on cats that are already being like physically aggressive, like that, we're not going to get anywhere, so that makes me happy because I have actually offered Prozac too. Oh yeah. And that's in those situations, yeah, and I think that's the right thing to do, and that's normally what I do, because anytime we have a cat being not just grumpy but physically aggressive to a person.
Kristiina Wilson:
Again, like we just talked about, there's the danger of infected wounds, infected scratches, right. It's so easy for a person to become really sick. I've been hospitalized for multiple days because of cat bites, right. And again that's because I stick my hand in car engines, going to work with feral cats like an idiot. But you know it is. It's very easy to become very sick very quickly from a cat bite.
Kristiina Wilson:
So we want to do whatever we can to just kind of minimize that happening before we do anything else. I do think fluoxetine Prozac is a great first step. As you know, gina, I love using it and recommending that people use it as a transdermal application, just because it's easier. I think chasing a cat around who's already in a high stress mode to give them a pill is not a great idea, because now you're just creating a secondary stressor in their lives and now they're associating you also the stressor, and they're predicting that you know, and it's just creating a cascade of additional stressors. So I think, if you can afford it, having it compounded as a transdermal ointment is really helpful. Give that a few weeks to a month to really be effective and then you can start doing the behavioral interventions which actually it's desensitization and counter conditioning.
Kristiina Wilson:
But it does have a lot of the same steps as what we were just talking about with the introducing a new cat to your home. But you're just going to essentially reintroduce the person that the cat doesn't like to the home with the same high value reward in small doses Once the cat is back below threshold. But I can't stress that enough. We can't do this work without the cat being below threshold. And again, we want to make sure there's enough intellectual stimulation, environmental stimulation, all of those things are really essential to, just like the health and happy emotional wellbeing of a cat. Did I answer that?
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
I feel like I just rambled.
Kristiina Wilson:
I feel like I've had so much caffeine today and not enough food that now I'm like what am I saying?
Gina Rendon, DVM:
My mouth is just going but no one's running the show. That's so funny. Can I have any other?
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
I have one more.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
Okay, I think this was on my list, so I do, and I actually had a cat like this. I had a couch potato cat. She was not interested in exercise. She, you know, she loved to eat. She would hang out. I would try to encourage her to do various activities, to do things, and she had none of it. And I think probably, lee, you and I both have seen patients that are just grossly obese.
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
Oh.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
God. Obviously diet is part of it, but then activity is that other part, and sometimes there are these cats that just won't move. So do you have recommendations for how to get them more active?
Kristiina Wilson:
I do. The first thing that I would say if this was a client, the first thing I would say was would be get that cat checked out at the vet to make sure there's no mobility issue. Let's make sure that they're not having any joint pain like anything going on that they maybe do they need antinol, do they need something? Is something affecting them, especially if they're an older cat? But even if they're a younger cat and they're obese, do they need something to kind of help lubricate those joints?
Kristiina Wilson:
and help get things moving? Do they need silencia? Do they need something to just help get them going?
Kristiina Wilson:
You know, know, because maybe, maybe there's a pain issue that that is part of the driver of this right. Once we get that solved. And I do want to stress that, like there's so many behavior issues that can come from medical issues that the first stop for anybody who's like my cat's acting weird is like please go to your vet and then you can come to me, but like let's always rule out a physical problem before we just are like my cat's being a butt face. So after that I would say I have really experienced that cats love training and not training like physical training, but they love clicker training. Again, I've got I've got a couple cats who have fried their brains, so they're not the smartest tools in the shed, but most cats really love training like learning to do a trick or learning to harness, walk or learn, learning, learning stuff right, because cats are normally they would be outside, moving through through the landscape and learning new things every day. So I think clicker training is often a really great start to teach your cat to just move around. You can have them following a target stick and if you don't want to give them a treat which obviously we don't want to because of the obesity issue.
Kristiina Wilson:
You can either if there are eating like low calorie dry food, you can use that, or it doesn't always have to be a food reward.
Kristiina Wilson:
We have one cat who his favorite thing in the whole world is not food, it's if you tell him good job, kevin, so you can use praise.
Kristiina Wilson:
You can use praise, you can use pats. You don't have to always use food as a positive reinforcer, right. So I just urge people to think about that and to think about really spending time with your cat and doing clicker training, and I actually there's an amazing resource called catschoolco. I had an episode two weeks ago with the behaviorist who runs that and it's amazing and it's a very cheap for running through all the courses that are all the different things that you can do with your cat um for for clicker training, um, and so I think clicker training is great. I think a lot of people buy those cat wheels and I bought one recently and it is actually fairly rigorous work to train your cats to get on those Um. But if you have a cat who enjoys doing the clicker training, I think then they're a good candidate for one of the wheels, because our cats who have loved clicker training with me are the ones who are very successful on that wheel now.
Kristiina Wilson:
So that's another thing that you can do. I think also trying to give them some cat nip before you play with them can be helpful, especially if you have a cat who gets hyper from the cat nip rather than getting sleepy. And then I would say, also do things like build them an activity box. Maybe they would respond more to that. And to like a foraging activity versus a playing activity. To not use a laser pointer, because those are often very frustrating for cats because there's not something they can actually like catch and kill. So I would use a real toy they can actually catch. And then again I would say, try, trying, along with the clicker training, try maybe harness, if you're able to, where you live.
Kristiina Wilson:
Obviously, if you live in a big city, this may not be feasible, but try training your cat to accept a harness and taking them outside on a walk, because that is going to really motivate them to move, that is their natural environment. They most likely would love to do that If you live in a place that is safe, if you get them make sure they're treated for fleas and ticks. You know all all of that jazz. That's a really good and I don't want to say easy, but natural way for your cat to get its movement in.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
Excellent.
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
Yeah, we have a neighbor that walks her cat.
Kristiina Wilson:
Yeah.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
We have a neighbor that walks her cat.
Kristiina Wilson:
Oh, so I walk a lot of our cats, yeah, yeah. And our cat who, who passed from SEC, he was like the one who. He just walked all over the neighborhood. He would walk into people's houses, he just like all of these are mine. He was like the boldest dude in the world and it was this guy back here, and he was just like I live everywhere and everyone's my friend and I love all the dogs and people just were like who is?
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
this guy.
Kristiina Wilson:
Cars would pull over to be like who's this guy? And he'd try to like crawl in the cars and like yeah, he was just, he was crazy. But we went for like multiple walks a day and he was just like running and loved it. But we still have a few cats that I walk and they like it too, but nobody's on the. Steve, level of just like this is my world and you just live in it. But I do think cats really like to be outside if they can Like, if people have the time and can walk them.
Kristiina Wilson:
It's really good for their health. Was that all the questions? I think that's it.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
I think you hit them off, okay.
Kristiina Wilson:
All right, all the questions. I think that's it. I think you hit them off. Okay, all right. Well, thank you for your amazing questions and for doing this cute little episode with me and for putting, for putting Mia to the test with some questions. Um, I hope I wasn't too crazy and long winded. I think I'm going to have to edit myself a little bit.
Lee Nancarrow, DVM:
Yeah, that was excellent.
Kristiina Wilson:
Okay, all right, thank you. Gina and Lee for being on another episode of Hiss and Tell Thanks for having us.
Gina Rendon, DVM:
Thank you Okay.
Kristiina Wilson:
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today's episode or any of the episodes, please like and give us a rating. Also, feel free to share with your friends. We'd super appreciate it if you shared on social media or really anywhere. For cat behavior consultations go to catitude-adjustmentcom. You can follow us on social media at Hiss and Tell Podcast Music provided by Cat Beats.
