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Speaker 3: Oh hey, it's your stepsister's weird friend who comes over
Speaker 3: and eats all your good cereal. Alleyboard back with another
Speaker 3: episode of Ologies. Also, a mini episode went up today
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Speaker 3: they're very near and dear to my heart. So please
Speaker 3: take a few minutes to catch up on that news.
Speaker 3: Should you desire. It's a lot of really good stuff
Speaker 3: and I'm excited. Okay, so I have been waiting to
Speaker 3: cover this particular ology for months. Hot damn. Whether you
Speaker 3: are currently smothered in a live cats or are adamantly
Speaker 3: a dog or a turtle person, this episode is going
Speaker 3: to inform you and endear you to our bewhiskered companions.
Speaker 3: So hardcore because cats, you guys, they're not all dicks.
Speaker 3: We get into it, okay, but first let's just wild
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Speaker 3: bendingly strange. Ten out of ten would recommend to any
Speaker 3: person eldritche being mythological creature, gaping void of existential horror,
Speaker 3: all of the above right here. Okay. Felinology it comes
Speaker 3: from the Latin for cat felis, and I started to
Speaker 3: go down this whole rabbit hole, whole catacomb. I'm sorry
Speaker 3: whether or not felicity, like felis and happiness and feline
Speaker 3: shared an etymology, and from what I found, they don't
Speaker 3: at all. But I did have a galaxied brain moment
Speaker 3: realizing that felix a cat is because of feel like
Speaker 3: a duh. I never got that. Also pocket knowledge for
Speaker 3: your next bar trivia slaughter. A group of cats can
Speaker 3: be referred to as a clouder or better yet, a
Speaker 3: glaring So I hope that helps you somewhere in your life.
Speaker 3: But it's taken me seventy episodes to cover feelinology because
Speaker 3: I just wanted to get the best person for the job. Boy,
Speaker 3: howdy did I? She is a postdoctoral fellow in Animal
Speaker 3: behavior in the School of Veterinary Medicine in the University
Speaker 3: of California Davis, studying kittens neonatal tiny kittens, and she
Speaker 3: got her bachelor's in psychology and then she got a
Speaker 3: PhD at cal Berkeley in animal cognition, and she's co
Speaker 3: authored various papers, for example, cat Play, a review of
Speaker 3: its development functions and future research considerations, and Beyond Bossy
Speaker 3: Feline Status Aggression. So she's also the co author, alongside
Speaker 3: Animal Planets by Cat from Hell host Jackson Galaxy, of
Speaker 3: the book Total Cat Mojo, The Ultimate Guide to Life
Speaker 3: with Your Cat. Woman wrote the book on cats, and
Speaker 3: if you deconstruct her last name phonetically, it sounds like
Speaker 3: oh the cat in Spanish, I mean, come on, okay.
Speaker 3: So I went to her home outside of Davis, California,
Speaker 3: over the holidays. I petitor cat first off, and then
Speaker 3: we chatted about catitudes, litter boxes, how to keep your
Speaker 3: bff from sitting on your face at three in the morning,
Speaker 3: cats on toilets, loll videos, cat training, feral friends, optimal
Speaker 3: cat habitats, who will eat your corpse if you die alone?
Speaker 3: Kiddies and their domestication history, and cats are they dicks
Speaker 3: or what? So stretch out on a patch of sun
Speaker 3: and learn what's happening in their minds with author, scholar
Speaker 3: and philinologist doctor Michael Delgado.
Speaker 4: It's very common. People think it's Michael, So, yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, that's what I wasn't sure and doctor, of course,
Speaker 3: doctor yes, and so how long have you been studying cats?
Speaker 4: So coming up on twenty years. I got my start
Speaker 4: in an animal shelter in the behavior program there, and
Speaker 4: got a PhD in animal behavior at UC Berkeley, where
Speaker 4: I primarily studied squirrels, but I also looked at the
Speaker 4: cat human relationship while I was at Berkeley, and I
Speaker 4: knew when I finished my PhD that I wanted to
Speaker 4: finally have the opportunity to do research with cats. And
Speaker 4: so that's one of the reasons that I was really
Speaker 4: excited to do my post doc at UC Davis, where
Speaker 4: there's a veterinary school and there's also an animal behavior program,
Speaker 4: so it's kind of the perfect place to be studying
Speaker 4: animal behavior and the perfect place to study cats.
Speaker 3: Are cats and squirrels alike in terms of behavior at all?
Speaker 4: There's certain I mean, I guess if you think of
Speaker 4: them as naughty, I think they both evoke strong emotions
Speaker 4: than people, like people either really love them or really
Speaker 4: hate them. But they are kind of territorial. Their social
Speaker 4: lives are different, but neither of them lives in like
Speaker 4: a pack they're not animals that kind of naturally have
Speaker 4: strong relationships that make sense to us, because we're very
Speaker 4: used to kind of a group kind of structure where
Speaker 4: there's a clear hierarchy, and I would say neither cats
Speaker 4: nor squirrels have that kind of relationship.
Speaker 3: So we're cats more of a lone wolf than wolves.
Speaker 4: So I think cats kind of have this reputation for
Speaker 4: being solitary, and what they are is they're solitary hunters,
Speaker 4: so they don't need other animals to survive, right. They
Speaker 4: hunt very small prey that they can catch on their
Speaker 4: own and they don't share it, which is different from
Speaker 4: larger animals that hunt and capture large animals. And so
Speaker 4: I think because of that, cat's got this reputation for
Speaker 4: being asocial where they don't need anybody, and we know
Speaker 4: that their social lives are definitely more complicated than that.
Speaker 3: So it's like when you go out to a nice
Speaker 3: Chinese restaurant and you say, hey, should we all get
Speaker 3: a bunch of dishes? Do family style? Cats are the
Speaker 3: friends who are like, Nah, I'm just gonna get my
Speaker 3: own noodles. I don't do it. Solitary hunters, got it.
Speaker 3: I can respect that now this next tidbit, it's amazing,
Speaker 3: it's relatable, and dare I say it's a little catty.
Speaker 4: Cats will form what we call preferred associates where they
Speaker 4: have certain cats that they like to hang out with,
Speaker 4: and some signs of them being friends would be they
Speaker 4: groom each other, they sleep together, like touching, or what
Speaker 4: we call pillowing where they're actually using another cat as
Speaker 4: a pillow. You might see playful behavior. And in general,
Speaker 4: you know that you don't see a lot of science
Speaker 4: of antagonism, although I'd say, just like you know, we
Speaker 4: don't get along with our siblings one hundred percent of
Speaker 4: the time, you might see the occasional tip. So they
Speaker 4: have clicks they do, and you'll see if you have
Speaker 4: a group of cats that you you know, say if
Speaker 4: you live with five cats, you might have two cats
Speaker 4: that get along with each other and not with anyone else,
Speaker 4: and the other three cats could be composed of, you know,
Speaker 4: one cat who doesn't get along with anybody and another
Speaker 4: pair who get along, or maybe there's one cat who
Speaker 4: gets along with everybody, but the rest of the cats
Speaker 4: don't really like each other. So it can be very complicated.
Speaker 2: So that's skins of the rules, and you can't sit
Speaker 2: with us.
Speaker 3: Okay, here it is. This is a secret. What makes
Speaker 3: a cat an asshole or not?
Speaker 4: What we do see is that cat groups are most
Speaker 4: successful when they have enough resources. So you'll see feral
Speaker 4: colonies that exist because there's either plenty of prey around
Speaker 4: or there's human supplied food. So there has to be
Speaker 4: enough to go around basically for them to tolerate each
Speaker 4: other and then have the opportunity to become friends. But yeah,
Speaker 4: if you don't have enough resources, either in your home
Speaker 4: or outside, or there's too much competition they have to
Speaker 4: do too much sharing of those resources, then they tend
Speaker 4: to either have antagonistic interactions or they'll just avoid each other.
Speaker 3: So they get bitchy when there's scarce exactly like.
Speaker 4: All of us, right, if there's not enough cookies to
Speaker 4: go around.
Speaker 3: There's gonna be I'll cut someone.
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly. You don't have to be that person that
Speaker 4: leaves the last cookie. You know, everyone's kind of staring
Speaker 4: at the last one, like who's gonna eat it? And
Speaker 4: you can just grab it.
Speaker 3: I'll throw hands for it. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so you know, getting back to your history, so
Speaker 3: you have been involved with cats for twenty years now,
Speaker 3: Can you take me back to when you first kind
Speaker 3: of realize that you are maybe more of a cat person,
Speaker 3: or when you really started connecting with them.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean I've always been obsessed with cats since
Speaker 4: I was a little kid. I think, you know, my
Speaker 4: mom probably got sick of me begging for a cat,
Speaker 4: and finally, when I was a teenager, she relented, but
Speaker 4: even though she was allergic. I don't know, I've always
Speaker 4: just thought cats were amazing, and I loved all animals.
Speaker 4: But I definitely, like, I feel awkward with dogs, which
Speaker 4: is funny because a lot of people say they find
Speaker 4: cats hard to read, but I actually find the opposite. Histry,
Speaker 4: like I can't understand dogs, like they don't purr. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I feel awkward. I feel they're awkward,
Speaker 4: whereas with cats, I just have always felt in tune
Speaker 4: with them and like they're kind of easy to read
Speaker 4: for me. But you know, I definitely was not that
Speaker 4: kid who was like, oh, I'm going to be a
Speaker 4: scientist when I grow up. I really didn't have like
Speaker 4: a plan or a clue. I dropped out of college
Speaker 4: when I was twenty one because I really didn't know
Speaker 4: what I wanted to do. Well, what I wanted to
Speaker 4: do was move to California and be in a rock band. Oh,
Speaker 4: which is exactly what I did. I grew up in Maine,
Speaker 4: and I basically was like, I'm moving to California, and
Speaker 4: so I moved to San Francisco and did not have
Speaker 4: any kind of plan that I was going to work
Speaker 4: with cats, even though I loved cats.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I worked at a health food cooperative, played in bands.
Speaker 4: I volunteered at a punk rock record store. So my
Speaker 4: life was very much revolving around like kind of this
Speaker 4: punk scene and collective work environments. And it wasn't until
Speaker 4: that cat that I had begged my mom to get
Speaker 4: me when I was a teenager. He died in two
Speaker 4: thousand and I decided to start volunteering at the local
Speaker 4: animal shelter, which was the San Francisco SPCA, just because
Speaker 4: I wanted more cat time. I had not a cat
Speaker 4: at home, but I knew that I just wanted to.
Speaker 4: I mean maybe I was on the market for a
Speaker 4: new cat. Yeah, you know, which is if you work
Speaker 4: in a shelter, you know, you see them all, you
Speaker 4: get first DIBs. But oh nice, but you know it
Speaker 4: was also just kind of missing that connection I had,
Speaker 4: And it was actually a friend of mine, Casey, who
Speaker 4: was like, oh, you should come volunteer at the SPCA,
Speaker 4: because he was volunteering there, And basically that just changed
Speaker 4: everything for me and I realized that first of all, like, oh,
Speaker 4: you can like do this for a job, like you
Speaker 4: can work with animals like cool. And at the time,
Speaker 4: the SPCA had a pretty involved behavior program, and so
Speaker 4: they had a whole program for cats that was first
Speaker 4: of all rehabilitating and working with cats in the shelter
Speaker 4: that were having difficult these coping.
Speaker 3: So Michael worked at the SBCA helping these seemingly imperfect
Speaker 3: giddies who were having a hard time getting accepted into
Speaker 3: loving homes. But speaking of that, let's take a quick
Speaker 3: detour down an old cobblestone alley into the past. So
Speaker 3: when did cats go from African wildcats and like European
Speaker 3: forest animals to the little buddies who watch us peace
Speaker 3: sometimes in who we love more than our blood relatives.
Speaker 3: Let's discuss domesticity.
Speaker 4: Okay, so the domestication story for cats is a little
Speaker 4: bit complicated, and depending on which person you talk to,
Speaker 4: the question is are they truly fully domesticated, because they
Speaker 4: don't really meet some of the criteria for domestication, and
Speaker 4: their path to domestication was not a traditional one where
Speaker 4: we didn't take them and modify them for human use.
Speaker 4: It was instead what they call commensalism, where the cats
Speaker 4: benefited from human settlements. So that is really when cats
Speaker 4: started becoming domesticated, when humans became you know, agrarians and
Speaker 4: started settling and had large stores of grains which attracted rodents.
Speaker 4: So I think a lot of people think, oh, the
Speaker 4: cats are doing humans a favor by catching rodents, but
Speaker 4: it turns out that humans actually had other animals that
Speaker 4: did that just fine, like terriers and some of the
Speaker 4: weasel type animals that are good ratters, So we didn't
Speaker 4: necessarily need cats to do that for us. So cats
Speaker 4: actually benefited more from the relationship than humans did. And
Speaker 4: so what we believe is that cats that were taking
Speaker 4: advantage of this human resource, which was basically indirectly leading
Speaker 4: to lots of mice and rats gathering around humans. So
Speaker 4: cats who could take advantage of that and were friendlier
Speaker 4: were more likely to be maybe tossed to scrap meat
Speaker 4: from a human or given shelter by humans. So probably
Speaker 4: over time we helped cats become more tolerant of people
Speaker 4: and of each other. And so you know the question
Speaker 4: of whether or not cats are truly domestic, there's lots
Speaker 4: of reasons to think that they're not as domesticated. And
Speaker 4: you know what is that they can survive pretty well
Speaker 4: without human support. Last estimate I read was ninety seven
Speaker 4: percent of cats choose their own mates, so domestication is
Speaker 4: usually under much more controlled breeding. So in that respect,
Speaker 4: it's more like they've become more tolerant of people and
Speaker 4: other cats over time, and we've become more interested in
Speaker 4: them over time, and it's only in the last say
Speaker 4: fifty years that we've kind of imposed this new lifestyle
Speaker 4: on them where we're keeping them indoors exclusively, and so
Speaker 4: it's a pretty rapid change, given that their domestication is
Speaker 4: estimated over the past like eight ten thousand years is
Speaker 4: kind of the range where you start seeing evidence of
Speaker 4: them being kept as pets and you see fossils that
Speaker 4: you know where they were buried with people in the
Speaker 4: middle least, but really only last fifty years that we've
Speaker 4: kind of asked them to stay inside all the time.
Speaker 3: Oh, because they were really more like barn cats and
Speaker 3: outdoor cats before that. So the last fifty years that's nothing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so that was really sped up by the
Speaker 4: invention of kitty litter PI.
Speaker 3: I am had low since I invented cat box filler
Speaker 3: in nineteen forty seven, I've been improving it ever since.
Speaker 1: You might wonder what motivates a man like me. Simple,
Speaker 1: I love cats.
Speaker 4: And then recommendations by various like veterinary and humanitarian groups
Speaker 4: that cats should be kept exclusively indoors to prevent injury,
Speaker 4: prevent you know, predation of other animals. So yeah, I
Speaker 4: think part of why we see the struggle a lot
Speaker 4: of the times is that we've asked them to change
Speaker 4: their lifestyle very rapidly, and yet the person doesn't even
Speaker 4: want to give them a litter box or cat tree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you have to meet cats halfway more than
Speaker 3: you would a dog.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I think there's been a lot
Speaker 4: more selection with dogs for things even that might seem
Speaker 4: really minute, but like facial expressions, right, So like dogs
Speaker 4: have a lot more facial muscles, and we probably selected
Speaker 4: them for that because we like the reflection back of
Speaker 4: human expressions like smiling.
Speaker 3: And their eyes having whites so that we can see
Speaker 3: where they're looking. Like, that's so crazy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So what's.
Speaker 3: More important to cats their owner or their living space?
Speaker 3: I mean, if a cat had to get a full
Speaker 3: belly tattoo of one of those things, surely it would
Speaker 3: be a portrait of their owner with the inked inscription
Speaker 3: snug life, not a tattoo of like the couch. Right,
Speaker 3: So we know.
Speaker 4: That cats are really territorial, and so what's more important
Speaker 4: to them than anything is the familiarity of where they live.
Speaker 4: So even before they'll form attachments with people, they need
Speaker 4: to feel comfortable in their space. And it's almost like
Speaker 4: we're part of the territory, especially because most cats live
Speaker 4: inside and so this is where they live, right, and
Speaker 4: so we're just part of their space. So it's not
Speaker 4: like we're separate from it. We're part of it. And
Speaker 4: that's what their primary attachment is as to their territory.
Speaker 1: Smiles.
Speaker 4: So if you rip a cat out of their home
Speaker 4: and away from their people into a strange environment with
Speaker 4: a bunch of other animals that are freaking out, they're
Speaker 4: going to be really stressed. And so some cats just
Speaker 4: had a lot of difficulty coping with that change, so
Speaker 4: they'd be very fearful, they'd be hiding, some of them
Speaker 4: would maybe be biting and scratching if you tried to
Speaker 4: pet them, which is not great for getting adopted, right
Speaker 4: Like people who come into a shelter, they want to
Speaker 4: be hands on. They want the cat that's going to
Speaker 4: come right up to them and you know, interact and
Speaker 4: you know, per and be friendly, not draw blood. Not
Speaker 4: draw blood. Drawing blood is bad for getting adopted. Although
Speaker 4: those cats eventually will get adopted, but usually just because
Speaker 4: they start adapting to the environment. So part of our
Speaker 4: goal was to just help them adjust.
Speaker 3: So Michael really had a passion to make sure all
Speaker 3: these little kiddies found homes, and she found that a
Speaker 3: clutch part of the strategy was just educating the public
Speaker 3: to be fluent in kitty She loved it.
Speaker 4: So we had classes for the public on cat behavior
Speaker 4: and how to keep your cat happy, and then we
Speaker 4: also had a behavior hotline where people who were having
Speaker 4: problems with their cats could call and we would get
Speaker 4: over one hundred calls a month.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there's a lot of people out there
Speaker 4: with cat questions and cat problems, or they just don't
Speaker 4: understand their cat's natural behavior and why their cat's doing
Speaker 4: some of the things they would do. But one of
Speaker 4: the things I learned during that experience was like, I
Speaker 4: really wanted to see the home environment, like what's going
Speaker 4: on in the home, or be able to talk to
Speaker 4: everyone in the household at the same time. And so
Speaker 4: in two thousand and eight, one of my coworkers and
Speaker 4: I left the shelter and started our business, Feline Minds,
Speaker 4: and so we offered consultations, typically in home, although I
Speaker 4: do a lot of Skype and phone consultations nowadays as well,
Speaker 4: where we go to people's houses, you know, check out
Speaker 4: the scene, meet their cat if the cat's open to it,
Speaker 4: and then give them a modification plan to help them
Speaker 4: solve a behavior problem.
Speaker 3: So ah, so you realize from being the shelter that
Speaker 3: you could make a job out of this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's a semi living but yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: I remember the day I came home from the shelter
Speaker 4: and said to my boyfriend, like, I want to be
Speaker 4: a cat behaviorist, and he was like, cool, let's you know,
Speaker 4: make it happen. So yeah, I really just sunk myself
Speaker 4: into the field of behavior. And it was around the
Speaker 4: same time that I started the business that I realized
Speaker 4: that I wanted to go back to school. So, you know,
Speaker 4: I dropped out of college when I was twenty one,
Speaker 4: and here I was and realizing that even though I'd
Speaker 4: learned a lot about cats and behavior working at the shelter,
Speaker 4: that there was also this other world of kind of
Speaker 4: formal behavior theory and perhaps to do some of the
Speaker 4: things I wanted, that I needed that college degree that
Speaker 4: i'd blown off when I was twenty to play rock music.
Speaker 4: And so now I was like, Okay, if I'm going
Speaker 4: to really like be serious about being an adult and
Speaker 4: having a real job, like, maybe I should go back
Speaker 4: to school. And so I just went to finish my
Speaker 4: bachelor's degree in psychology with an emphasis on animal behavior,
Speaker 4: and then was like, wow, being in school is awesome,
Speaker 4: Like I want to do this forever, and so decide
Speaker 4: I wanted to get a PhD, which takes forever, so
Speaker 4: I able to stay in school forever, and throughout grad
Speaker 4: school did the consulting business, which is still going so,
Speaker 4: you know, still helping people with their myriad behavior problems
Speaker 4: with their.
Speaker 3: Cats, and now doing postdoc. You mentioned that you work
Speaker 3: with neonatal kittens.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you are. Yeah, it's gotten even cuter. So yeah,
Speaker 4: when I was doing my PhD working with squirrels, I
Speaker 4: didn't know if it could get cuter. But then now
Speaker 4: I'm doing a postdoc with kittens, so it did get cuter.
Speaker 3: And so what is your job typically involved.
Speaker 4: It really varies. So in the summer, when we were
Speaker 4: collecting data with the neonatal kittens, I might literally get
Speaker 4: a call from a rescue group that was like, we
Speaker 4: just got some orphaned kittens in we need a foster
Speaker 4: home now. So then it's like coordinating with one of
Speaker 4: the other rescue groups to find a coster parent for
Speaker 4: these kittens and coordinating a lot of things. We were
Speaker 4: taking blood samples on these kittens because one of the
Speaker 4: things we're interested in is whether or not being separated
Speaker 4: from their mom at an early age has any possible
Speaker 4: effects on their health. And so we're looking at a
Speaker 4: biological marker called telomeres, which are caps at the end
Speaker 4: of your DNA, and these have a protective effect when
Speaker 4: your cells replicate, They kind of prevent the important stuff
Speaker 4: from getting cut off because basically some stuff gets truncated
Speaker 4: when your cells replicate, and so what you want to
Speaker 4: get truncated is kind of the extra garbage at the end,
Speaker 4: not the important stuff, and so the telomeres are kind
Speaker 4: of the extra stuff at the ends, and so short
Speaker 4: telomeres are associated with basically a shorter lifespan. So we
Speaker 4: see shorter telomeres in multiple species, including humans have chronic disease,
Speaker 4: that live under chronic stress, have been subjected to adverse
Speaker 4: early childhood experiences, and so we're really looking at early
Speaker 4: maternal separation as a as a possible adverse experience for
Speaker 4: these kittens. We don't know. So we were collecting blood
Speaker 4: from these kittens in their first week of life when
Speaker 4: they're very very tiny, like one hundred grams, and then
Speaker 4: right before they were getting spaded neutered it like eight
Speaker 4: to ten weeks of age.
Speaker 3: So for US American metrically challenged Americans, one hundred grams
Speaker 3: is about the weight of half a medium sized apple
Speaker 3: or want stick of butter, or fifty thousand termites. So
Speaker 3: Michael's lab work involves comparing the blood and telomeres of
Speaker 3: baby kitties separated from their moms with a control group
Speaker 3: of baby cats so her daily work life involves coordinating
Speaker 3: foster volunteers who collect info about what goes into the
Speaker 3: kitties and what comes out of the kitties, and incubation
Speaker 3: efforts like keeping these little neonatal wei ones in these
Speaker 3: special contraptions that are ninety degrees and sixty percent humidity.
Speaker 3: She notes, it's very similar to a bread machine. And
Speaker 3: sometimes she's just running all over the place driving vital
Speaker 3: supply around town. And I asked Michael what pheelinological charity
Speaker 3: she'd like a portion of this episode's and revenue to
Speaker 3: go to, and she said Kitten Central of Plastercounty dot org,
Speaker 3: which I will link in the show. Notes they're helping
Speaker 3: over a thousand displaced cats from the campfire and their
Speaker 3: mission is to reduce euthanasia rates for medically dependent neonatal
Speaker 3: kittens through action and education. So that is Kitten Central
Speaker 3: of Plastercounty dot org. Okay, back to Michael and her research.
Speaker 3: Some of it is I'm not gonna lie, it's a
Speaker 3: little shocking, a little bit of an ooh new.
Speaker 4: Other days I'm literally just sitting in front of a computer,
Speaker 4: typing in data and to excel or you know, reading
Speaker 4: research papers that are relevant to what I'm doing or
Speaker 4: watching videos. So one thing that came out of this
Speaker 4: research that we started doing this past summer was that
Speaker 4: a lot of orphaned kittens stuck on each other's genitals. Okay, yeah, good.
Speaker 4: So so I've been watching a lot of semi pornographic
Speaker 4: videos of kittens going to town on their roommates or
Speaker 4: their littermates crouches.
Speaker 3: Oh no, yeah.
Speaker 4: So the sad thing is that they will do it
Speaker 4: to the extent that they damage and injure their littermates
Speaker 4: that they're sucking on. So some of these kittens have
Speaker 4: to have their penises removed. Oh no, it's not a
Speaker 4: good scene.
Speaker 3: No, that's bad, bad on bad, It's really bad.
Speaker 4: But it's very like the videos are very risky, Like
Speaker 4: I don't know if I could show them in a
Speaker 4: mixed audience. Oh children, And.
Speaker 3: When you said you watch a lot of cat videos,
Speaker 3: it is not what I was thinking. Yes, most people's
Speaker 3: cat videos are like, you.
Speaker 4: Know, accept mom shelf Yeah yeah, no.
Speaker 3: Not uh he ate his brother's penis, yeah exactly. And
Speaker 3: so they're just looking for anything that's like a nipple.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know what it really just tells us
Speaker 4: is that the nursing instinct is very strong for obvious reasons.
Speaker 4: You need to nurse to survive, but it's obviously not
Speaker 4: just satisfied by food, and there's probably a lot of
Speaker 4: other reasons that animals do it. We know that there's
Speaker 4: a lot of non nutritive nursing that goes on. You know,
Speaker 4: who knows what the actual experience of sucking is doing
Speaker 4: for their little brains as far as releasing like en orphans, right, yeah, maybe,
Speaker 4: I mean we don't know. So, yeah, some kittens are
Speaker 4: are victims and suckers, so you'll have like a little
Speaker 4: daisy chain of kittens. It's human, it is so, it's
Speaker 4: it's it's very so anyway, this is because we became
Speaker 4: aware of this problem and there's very little information about it,
Speaker 4: like no one's researched it and no one's really come
Speaker 4: up with effective solutions for it. That's become one of
Speaker 4: the focuses of my research and so hopefully next year
Speaker 4: we'll be looking at some possible prevention strategies, including like
Speaker 4: a surrogate mother type situation. And you have other people
Speaker 4: that do things like put clothing on the kittens, which
Speaker 4: you know ethically is a little questionable, may not be comfortable,
Speaker 4: so you know, of course it's better than the kittens like, yeah,
Speaker 4: basically destroying their their littermates junk.
Speaker 3: But I'd rather wear pants than have someone eat by
Speaker 3: dick off my body.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So anyway, we're trying to come up with some
Speaker 4: strategies to fix that problem and also try to understand
Speaker 4: what it is about these particular kittens that makes them
Speaker 4: more prone to this behavior.
Speaker 3: So even though research like this could be a little
Speaker 3: heartbreaking and honestly pretty gut wrenching, Michael says that after
Speaker 3: working with lab animals like pigeons in her undergrad years,
Speaker 3: she's a lot happier now doing research with wild or
Speaker 3: domesticated critters because she just loves animals, especially cats, and
Speaker 3: she wants her research to be good or at the
Speaker 3: very least neutral for the individual animals involved. So let's
Speaker 3: look at the bright side. The kittens in her study
Speaker 3: end up adopted, so that's a happy ending. Oh and
Speaker 3: I I asked what the outcome of the telomere length was,
Speaker 3: and she says they're working with a genetics lab and
Speaker 3: they should have the results in the next few months.
Speaker 3: All right, So if you're around kittens all day. What
Speaker 3: happens in your off hours when you need to decompress
Speaker 3: after a particularly long day or project. Do you watch
Speaker 3: cat videos like the rest of us do?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, absolutely, that is yeah. I mean that's what
Speaker 4: Facebook's for.
Speaker 3: Why do you think cat videos do so well? And
Speaker 3: do you have a favorite? I'm just going to ask
Speaker 3: you stupid questions.
Speaker 4: Well, okay, so I have mixed feelings about cat videos
Speaker 4: because I'm very I think I'm more sensitive to their
Speaker 4: body language than people are, so I you know that
Speaker 4: people that don't know cats as well. So I sometimes
Speaker 4: see videos where the cats are actually showing signs of stress.
Speaker 4: Oh no, and people think it's funny.
Speaker 1: Oh no.
Speaker 4: I also don't like cats dressed up and clothing. Okay,
Speaker 4: so that's just philosophical. I don't like it when the
Speaker 4: cats are being physically manipulated. I like the you know,
Speaker 4: cats shredding rolls of toilet paper like that never gets
Speaker 4: old to me.
Speaker 3: How can you tell in a cat video if the
Speaker 3: if the cat is stressed.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm always looking at is the cat showing signs
Speaker 4: of relaxation or showing signs of tension? And so what's
Speaker 4: their body doing? Does that look like they're being either
Speaker 4: threatened or coerced into something cornered. If it's a cat
Speaker 4: who's showing signs of aggression, then I feel like that
Speaker 4: is not a good situation, Like cat's being exploited. And
Speaker 4: like I said, people don't recognize that aggression. Growling, hissing,
Speaker 4: all of those behaviors stem from fear.
Speaker 2: Why you're nothing but a great big collar?
Speaker 1: Are you scare myself?
Speaker 4: Even a cat who is actively like attacking someone, the
Speaker 4: root of that aggression is always some type of anxiety
Speaker 4: or fear, and that means the animal is experiencing some
Speaker 4: level of distress.
Speaker 3: It's just like humans. I mean, every time some jerk
Speaker 3: raph yells at you in traffic, it's just because they're
Speaker 3: afraid of merging too fast and getting in an accident,
Speaker 3: or they might be scared of being late somewhere and
Speaker 3: getting yelled at. And if you're the one screaming at
Speaker 3: people in traffic, here's some news, my fragile human. You're
Speaker 3: just afraid of things. So maybe take a minute look inward,
Speaker 3: find some coping strategies. You could listen to my two
Speaker 3: part Furology episode with Mary Poffinroth just saying calm it down. Okay,
Speaker 3: let's get back to cats being scared for Internet likes.
Speaker 4: So to me, it's just not funny, right, you know,
Speaker 4: if it's a cat who's like trying to, you know,
Speaker 4: make a jump from the kitchen table to the couch
Speaker 4: and they don't quite make it. You know, as long
Speaker 4: as they're not injured, you know, physical gags okay, old
Speaker 4: style comedy okay.
Speaker 3: And I do have a question about how they are
Speaker 3: able to land so well, did you ever have to
Speaker 3: study their landing capabilities?
Speaker 4: No, but you know they do. You have this amazing well,
Speaker 4: an amazingly flexible body. Basically, they have no collarbone, so
Speaker 4: that allows them to, like if their head can get through,
Speaker 4: if their faces through, like under a door, they can
Speaker 4: just squeeze right through, which is why you should leave
Speaker 4: your window open just an inch thinking your cat won't
Speaker 4: get out. So they have, you know, this amazing sense
Speaker 4: of balance. I mean, you know they have to catch trees.
Speaker 4: They have to be able to calculate distance when they
Speaker 4: hunt and be able to pounce right where they think
Speaker 4: they are. They have that amazing tail that helps them
Speaker 4: write themselves. So a tail is a good way to
Speaker 4: orient your body like. It's kind of a control to
Speaker 4: allow you to write yourself. What's interesting is that there's
Speaker 4: something called high rise syndrome where cats who fall from
Speaker 4: a higher distance often experience fewer injuries than cats that
Speaker 4: fall from a shorter distance.
Speaker 3: So they have time in the air to go who yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 3: this is what's happening.
Speaker 4: Yeah, probably not a lot of time, but enough.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and now you have a cat. Let's say
Speaker 3: someone has a cat, right, okay, how do they know
Speaker 3: if their cat is happy, is sad? Is bummed out?
Speaker 3: Needs something? What language?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 3: Body language markers are so important to know if you
Speaker 3: have a cat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so first of all, is your cat doing the basics?
Speaker 4: Are they eating, using the litter box? And are they,
Speaker 4: you know, using their space. So a cat who's spending
Speaker 4: all their time under your bed probably not happy. A
Speaker 4: cat who is freely walking through the space probably more relaxed,
Speaker 4: specific body language or interested in So for cats, when
Speaker 4: they're feeling friendly, they'll do what we call the tail
Speaker 4: up gesture. So this is a friendly greeting and the
Speaker 4: tail is completely up. Maybe less like question mark, but
Speaker 4: that is something else. See cats when they approach either
Speaker 4: a friendly human or a friendly other cat. They will
Speaker 4: be exhibiting that body language. You can also see when
Speaker 4: they're laying down, they should be either on their side
Speaker 4: sometimes like or pause, tucked, which tells you they're not
Speaker 4: kind of gearing to run away. A cat who is
Speaker 4: feeling defensive or unsure is going to be kind of
Speaker 4: crouched in a tense position where they could easily just
Speaker 4: take off if they needed to, as opposed to I'm
Speaker 4: laying down and just kind of melting in the sun
Speaker 4: over here, therefore, I'm not feeling any threat. And then
Speaker 4: there are more subtle things, like you know, are the
Speaker 4: pupils relaxed and somewhat dilated? I mean, of course according
Speaker 4: to the lightning in the room, are the ears up?
Speaker 4: Ears up? Is more relaxed, can be alert as well,
Speaker 4: but you know, certainly flattened ears are a sign of
Speaker 4: a cat who's making themselves smaller. So yeah, you'll see
Speaker 4: things that cats do when they're fearful, aside from hiding,
Speaker 4: would be like tucking their tail, putting their ears back, hunching,
Speaker 4: so they're trying to again make themselves seem smaller. A
Speaker 4: cat who is on the offensive might be trying to
Speaker 4: make themselves look bigger. So that's kind of the classic
Speaker 4: Halloween pose. They're kind of puffed up, and you'll see
Speaker 4: that more reserved for fighting with other animals, where they're
Speaker 4: trying to bluff like I'm big and scary. You shouldn't
Speaker 4: fight with me. Because for cats in a home, it's
Speaker 4: really more about, like I said, using the space, doing
Speaker 4: their normal kitty things. I mean, purring's great. Eye blinking
Speaker 4: is a sign of relaxation and a sign of trust.
Speaker 4: So we know that staring is threatening to most animals,
Speaker 4: so you shouldn't stare at your cat.
Speaker 3: Oh really, So don't make loving eye contact with your
Speaker 3: cat for too long.
Speaker 4: Eye contacts fine, but make it soft and blink your
Speaker 4: eyes a lot as opposed to hard stare. Like a
Speaker 4: hard stare is what is threatening for them. And you'll
Speaker 4: see cats that don't get along. We'll avoid direct eye
Speaker 4: contact or the one cat will be like staring you
Speaker 4: down or staring the other cat down like I've got
Speaker 4: my eyes on you.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so eye contact is very important. Cats may be
Speaker 4: fearful of particular people in the house, so like toddlers,
Speaker 4: can be difficult for cats to cope with, but it
Speaker 4: really depends on the context and the cat's ability to
Speaker 4: escape and deal with the stressor in their environment.
Speaker 3: So to deal with it, some cats get high as
Speaker 3: but like literally elevated the top of the fridge, et cetera.
Speaker 4: So a cat who has a cat tree or a
Speaker 4: shelving and can get up high away from a dog
Speaker 4: or a toddler is going to be able to cope
Speaker 4: with that situation much better than a cat who doesn't
Speaker 4: have those escape routes.
Speaker 3: What do you do when you walk into someone's house,
Speaker 3: house cat? How can you make the cat dig you?
Speaker 3: It's better to get low, not look at it? What
Speaker 3: should you do?
Speaker 4: You should ghost them? Really?
Speaker 3: You should just ignore them.
Speaker 4: A little should ignore them a little bit?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Wow, So the opposite of a dog, because a dog
Speaker 3: would be crushed if you walked in and you're like,
Speaker 3: what dog? Yeah, I don't see a dog.
Speaker 4: I'm a dog ghoster for sure.
Speaker 3: Okay, So what we've learned is just because they're not
Speaker 3: dogs doesn't mean that cats are assholes. They could be
Speaker 3: scared or just territorial. But why do cats like you
Speaker 3: to be an asshole to them? Why do we have
Speaker 3: to play hard to get Like it's two thousand and
Speaker 3: seven and that dating book the Rulds just came out,
Speaker 3: and we're not supposed to accept a Saturday night date
Speaker 3: with a cat if they ask after Wednesday? Why must
Speaker 3: we feign aloofness when we want love for cats?
Speaker 4: Yeah? You So. Research has shown that they prefer interactions
Speaker 4: with humans where they control the interaction, so they actually
Speaker 4: when they initiate, and not the human. So if a
Speaker 4: person approaches a cat and pets them versus sitting back
Speaker 4: and letting the cat come to you, the cats who
Speaker 4: come to you, you're going to have a longer interaction.
Speaker 4: It's going to be more positive. Oh my god. Yeah,
Speaker 4: which is pretty funny. But so what I would recommend
Speaker 4: if you do want to greet a cat is get
Speaker 4: down on the level, offer a finger or your hand
Speaker 4: to them, let them sniff it, and then let them
Speaker 4: decide if they want to rub against your hand or
Speaker 4: you know, come closer, or if they're going to just
Speaker 4: you know, okay, like keep your distance.
Speaker 3: Let's say that you adopt an elegant furree enigma and
Speaker 3: it's so sweet to you, but it hates your brother
Speaker 3: or your child. Why does one cat file a lawsuit
Speaker 3: against you when you turn on the vacuum, but the
Speaker 3: others chill us out.
Speaker 4: And as far as your question, do cats prefer certain
Speaker 4: types of people over the other You know, some of
Speaker 4: it is probably due to socialization. So cats have a
Speaker 4: socialization window that's really short and early, So between two
Speaker 4: and seven weeks is the ideal time for them to
Speaker 4: be exposed to different types of people, different animals, and
Speaker 4: different experiences like sounds in your house, like your coffee
Speaker 4: grinder or a blender. Unfortunately, most cats don't get adopted
Speaker 4: between two and seven weeks of age because they really
Speaker 4: need to be with mom still, or they're still on foster,
Speaker 4: or they're not even in the rescue group yet they're
Speaker 4: still out in the cabbage patch like being wild, and so,
Speaker 4: you know, Unfortunately, a lot of cats are what we
Speaker 4: would consider slightly undersocialized. They didn't get a lot of
Speaker 4: exposure to lots of different things when they were young.
Speaker 4: For dogs, their socialization period is later and longer, so
Speaker 4: it means that they're more flexible and adaptable. Because they
Speaker 4: have this kind of thing, you can kind of take
Speaker 4: a slightly more laid back pace with socializing them. They
Speaker 4: just have more oppertunity to get exposed to different people,
Speaker 4: different things. So a lot of cats probably grow up
Speaker 4: in a very quiet environment. Maybe they're exposed to one
Speaker 4: person who's bottle feeding them at first and then taking
Speaker 4: care of them, and so when they get into a home,
Speaker 4: it's like holy shit, like what are you So Yeah,
Speaker 4: I think some cats that prefer women because women have
Speaker 4: higher voices, we're quieter, our footfall is softer, we're not
Speaker 4: as threatening. And I think what's also important to consider
Speaker 4: about cats is that they're we think of them as predators, right,
Speaker 4: Like that's very much our focus on you know, keeping
Speaker 4: cats and doors or killing birds, you know, and they're
Speaker 4: hunters and that's natural for them. But they're also prey animals,
Speaker 4: so they're not an apex predator, and so they're vulnerable
Speaker 4: to larger animals including humans, but also you know dogs
Speaker 4: in you know, more outside environments, wolves, possibly even hawks,
Speaker 4: So they're always on guard. They're not going to be
Speaker 4: that relaxed like sleep lyon that we often kind of
Speaker 4: think of them as like because they never know when
Speaker 4: someone's going to come and eat them. Oh, so that
Speaker 4: is why I think, you know the kind of scaredy
Speaker 4: cat stereotype prevails is that they have to be cautious.
Speaker 3: They're just watching their back.
Speaker 4: They're watching their back.
Speaker 3: Oh man, So you have this really kind of delicate
Speaker 3: balance of hunter and hunted exact in them. That they're
Speaker 3: complex psychologically.
Speaker 4: Yes, they are like people really because they don't understand cats.
Speaker 4: They like to project that onto them. It's like they're
Speaker 4: I don't understand you, so I'm just going to make
Speaker 4: up stuff and hope that it is right. So I'm
Speaker 4: going to think you want to kill me, you know,
Speaker 4: or think that you're lazy, or you think people are stupid.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: A lot of the I think a lot of the
Speaker 4: internet kind of jokes about cats are that they're assholes.
Speaker 4: You want to kill us? Right, Yes, there they hate us.
Speaker 4: They you know, know we're calling them, but they just
Speaker 4: ignore us because assholes.
Speaker 3: Right, they're judging us.
Speaker 4: So they're judging exactly. I mean, they they probably are
Speaker 4: judging us all the times.
Speaker 3: As we're talking about this. Your cat is now hopped
Speaker 3: on the table.
Speaker 4: She is going to perhaps make an appearance.
Speaker 3: Okay, So at this moment, a wispy, white and gray
Speaker 3: little animal princess named Clara Bell just suddenly appeared on
Speaker 3: the table, just materialized. And she's tiny and beautiful with
Speaker 3: these big green eyes. And I wanted to just scoop
Speaker 3: her up and stuff her my sweatshirt and demand that
Speaker 3: she loved me back. But as I have recently learned,
Speaker 3: cats are not down with that vibe. Hello, she's so pretty,
Speaker 3: she's very sweet, and she's fifteen. Okay, I'm gonna put
Speaker 3: my finger out. She can smill my fingers. She's smelling
Speaker 3: the mic. Oh my gosh, Hello, Now should I not
Speaker 3: pet her? So?
Speaker 4: You know, I think the other thing about the laws
Speaker 4: of cats is that the best thing to do is
Speaker 4: know the cat you're dealing with. So, you know, we
Speaker 4: know from science that cats prefer to be petted on
Speaker 4: their head, like their cheek and forehead, and that everywhere
Speaker 4: else is kind of But some cats love belly rubs,
Speaker 4: and you know, there's only one way to find out,
Speaker 4: which is like, pet your cat and see what they do.
Speaker 4: If they tell you they don't like something, then don't
Speaker 4: do it again. If they seem to like it, try
Speaker 4: it again and see.
Speaker 3: So they're very individual they.
Speaker 4: Are, I mean, just like we are. Thinking of them
Speaker 4: as individuals is very important to understanding them. And they
Speaker 4: are general kind of guidelines that apply, but that doesn't
Speaker 4: mean that that your cat is going to of course
Speaker 4: fit into every single one of those slots.
Speaker 3: And when you're thinking about making your environment more comfortable
Speaker 3: to them, I what kind of tips do you have?
Speaker 4: You know, the first thing is embrace that your house
Speaker 4: is going to look like you live with a cat.
Speaker 4: You know, it really drives me crazy when people say, well,
Speaker 4: I don't my house to look like I live with
Speaker 4: a cat. Well, why do you have four cats? Like,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, but you need to have a litter box
Speaker 4: that's successible and not in the garage, you know, with
Speaker 4: some like ten mile trail and walking through a billion
Speaker 4: cat flaps to get to Yeah, and you need vertical space.
Speaker 4: You need to create spaces for your cat. And a
Speaker 4: lot of people like, oh, he just sits on the
Speaker 4: couch with me. What if he doesn't want to share
Speaker 4: the couch with you. He wants his own space, and
Speaker 4: so you're not going to sit on his cat tree,
Speaker 4: So give him a cat tree. And so, you know,
Speaker 4: I think it's it's definitely critical for a few reasons.
Speaker 4: You know, One is that we're increasingly living in urban
Speaker 4: spaces that are small, and we want to have multiple cats,
Speaker 4: and we're trying to get them to share smaller and
Speaker 4: smaller spaces. So going vertical is a great way to
Speaker 4: add to your square footage. As far as the cats
Speaker 4: are concerned. You can have two cats literally on top
Speaker 4: of each other on a cat tree. They're sharing the
Speaker 4: same square footage, but they're not like bothering each other.
Speaker 4: So I think, you know, making it useful as well,
Speaker 4: like don't stick the cat tree in the back corner
Speaker 4: where they can't look at anything, Like put it by
Speaker 4: a window where they can watch birds, put it in
Speaker 4: a sunny spot, like make it something that's appealing to them.
Speaker 3: So quick aside, I will say that when I walked
Speaker 3: up to Michael's house, I noted a single tall carpet
Speaker 3: ensconced cat tree right in the front window, as if
Speaker 3: it were cat tree season and this was the Macy's
Speaker 3: window display. I was like, oh, hello, oh and right
Speaker 3: in the sun. I wondered, cats like that turns out yes,
Speaker 3: Like duh, how much better is a window seat than
Speaker 3: a middle seat? How have I never considered this before? Also,
Speaker 3: this part about heat was new science kitty information, and
Speaker 3: it forever changes the way I look at cat behavior.
Speaker 4: The other thing that I definitely recommend for making your
Speaker 4: cats comfortable is a heated catbit. Oh, so, cats have
Speaker 4: a thermo neutral zone that's higher than ours. And a
Speaker 4: thermo neutral zone is basically the temperatures at which you're
Speaker 4: not working to either warm up or off. So we're
Speaker 4: not sweating, we're not shivering, we're just relaxed. And for humans,
Speaker 4: you know, because we wear clothes, our thermoneutral zone is
Speaker 4: pretty low. It's you know, high sixties, low seventies is
Speaker 4: where we're comfortable. Cats, it's like starting in the mid eighties.
Speaker 3: So yes, oh my gosh, because but they're nude when
Speaker 3: they're also so fuzzy.
Speaker 4: Are fuzzy, but you know, they're definitely not. They didn't necessarily,
Speaker 4: you know, imagine themselves living in chili frigid climbs. Except
Speaker 4: for you know, certainly there's long haired cats that basically
Speaker 4: we're domesticated out of certain areas of like Eastern Europe,
Speaker 4: where they have longer, fuller coats. But your average cat
Speaker 4: is going to be much happier at a warmer temperature. Now,
Speaker 4: if you get a heated bed, will your cat stop
Speaker 4: sitting on your lap as much, maybe because the bed
Speaker 4: is warmer than you are now, but I do think
Speaker 4: that it really makes so much more happy, makes happier,
Speaker 4: makes it more comfortable. There's a reason that cats congregate
Speaker 4: around heating vents. They love to be hot, And is.
Speaker 3: That why they want to come on your laptop?
Speaker 4: Laptop absolutely really cable boxes, stereos, computers, laptops. If it's warm,
Speaker 4: they're going to try to sit on it.
Speaker 3: So they're not just trying to cock block your work.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I think you know. The other thing,
Speaker 4: of course, the other motivating factor is human attention. What
Speaker 4: are we staring at more than almost anything or stupid
Speaker 4: ass computer screens? So if they can somehow get in there,
Speaker 4: like hey, will you give me some attention? You know,
Speaker 4: cats will get attention when they can. And so the
Speaker 4: other question I get asked a lot is like, why
Speaker 4: does my cat follow me into the bathroom and like
Speaker 4: try to sit on my lap while and taking dump. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's because it's like the only time that you're not
Speaker 4: running around like texting people, or maybe you are texting
Speaker 4: people scrolling, but you're you're basically your attention is not divided.
Speaker 4: You can't get up and like do something else, so
Speaker 4: they're gonna grab a little love while they can.
Speaker 3: So you're held captive by the toilet, so they're like,
Speaker 3: this is a good time. Is this a uc to
Speaker 3: be stationary? Let's talk about me? Oh my god. Actually,
Speaker 3: speaking of bathrooms, how do you cultivate the best litter
Speaker 3: box scenario and also have your house not smell like
Speaker 3: a litter box. Your house does not smell like a
Speaker 3: litter box.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that a clean box daily. And just for
Speaker 4: the record, there's a litter box around the corner.
Speaker 3: Oh se yeah, so you can smell it.
Speaker 4: I have a litter box in my living room. I
Speaker 4: practice what I preach. I have three litter boxes in
Speaker 4: my relatively small house for my one cat. So you know,
Speaker 4: there's kind of some basic rules for litter boxes, like
Speaker 4: have at least one box per cat. You get a litter.
Speaker 3: Box, you get a litter box, you get a litter box.
Speaker 4: More is even better. So if you have two cats,
Speaker 4: three boxes would be ideal. Keep them clean. And so
Speaker 4: one of the reasons I don't recommend covered litter boxes is,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's up for debate whether or not cats
Speaker 4: don't like the cover or not. I mean, the cover
Speaker 4: definitely limits their ability to move around and find a
Speaker 4: clean corner and feel comfortable. But it also means that
Speaker 4: the owner is not cleaning the box as often. And
Speaker 4: there's actually research that showed that cats with litter box
Speaker 4: problems with covered boxes, the owners were cleaning the box
Speaker 4: around every five days because it's out a site, out
Speaker 4: of mind. So I actually prefer like have it where
Speaker 4: you live, because you will keep it clean. So it
Speaker 4: should be accessible to the cat. I think because we
Speaker 4: don't like to take a dump in front of other people.
Speaker 4: Usually we think that the cats want a lot of privacy,
Speaker 4: and so you know, people hide the box in some
Speaker 4: you know back room next to the washing machine or
Speaker 4: in the garage like because they think the cat needs privacy.
Speaker 4: The cat does not give a care. You know, they
Speaker 4: will take a dump right in front of you. So
Speaker 4: you know it should be Obviously, if you have a
Speaker 4: home that's heavily trafficked, then you probably wouldn't want the
Speaker 4: litter box in the middle of the most trafficked area
Speaker 4: of your house, but you know, so quiet but not
Speaker 4: too far out of the way. It should be accessible
Speaker 4: and easy for them to get to and just like
Speaker 4: we want a bathroom on every floor of our house,
Speaker 4: your cat wants a litter box on every floor of
Speaker 4: their house. And this is especially important if you have
Speaker 4: a cat who is either elderly or a kitten, because
Speaker 4: access is going to be important. As far as other
Speaker 4: aspects of the litter box, you know, most cats prefer
Speaker 4: an unscented, sandy type litter that clumps, and really the
Speaker 4: biggest thing is scooping it. There was a study done
Speaker 4: by Puriina a few years ago that was actually pretty genius.
Speaker 4: So the main question was whether or not cats were
Speaker 4: willing to share a litter box with another cat.
Speaker 3: So Michael told me all about this study in wonderful
Speaker 3: disgusting detail, but i'mss summarize it for you. So cats
Speaker 3: prefer a clean litter box over a dirty one. Not
Speaker 3: any breaking news there, But then a researcher made odorless
Speaker 3: fake number one one and fake number two little decoy turds,
Speaker 3: if you will, and in between the real stinky stuff
Speaker 3: and the fake non stinky stuff. Are you ready for this?
Speaker 4: So the question was, really, does like a stinky box
Speaker 4: bother cats? And it turns out that what they really
Speaker 4: don't like is trying to, you know, basically walk around.
Speaker 4: These bombs in the box, right, are creating probably a
Speaker 4: sensation that is unpleasant for them when they're scratching and
Speaker 4: digging around. So the most important thing is just scooping it.
Speaker 3: A lot, coop that box.
Speaker 4: Scoop it.
Speaker 3: What do you think the biggest myth about cats is?
Speaker 3: What's the biggest flim flam you'd debunk?
Speaker 2: Who?
Speaker 4: Let's see, Well, I think you know, one of the
Speaker 4: things I always encourage people to recognize is that cats
Speaker 4: are not small humans, and they're not small dogs. And
Speaker 4: I also think probably the biggest myth is that cats
Speaker 4: can't be trained. So a lot of people don't realize
Speaker 4: that you can change their behavior. So a lot of
Speaker 4: cats end up in shelters because of behavior problems. And
Speaker 4: a lot of these behavior problems fixable. Oh see, you're surprised.
Speaker 3: I am surprised. Also, can you train them to use
Speaker 3: a toilet? Do they hate it?
Speaker 4: Okay? They hate it? You can? I mean, you can
Speaker 4: train them to do anything under corrosion, right, so, but
Speaker 4: and I won't say they hate it. There's certainly the
Speaker 4: rare cat out there that just spontaneously uses the toilet,
Speaker 4: and if your cat does that, great, but I would say,
Speaker 4: still have that litter box handy. I've definitely had clients
Speaker 4: who had trained their cat to use a litter box,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry to use the toilet, and now their cat
Speaker 4: is peeing around the house and it's like, just give
Speaker 4: them a litter box.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Or maybe if your cat is very fancy, you
Speaker 3: give them a glitter box. Just kidding. That's a very
Speaker 3: bad idea, no matter how into disco they are. And
Speaker 3: side note, I did some research to find out if
Speaker 3: kitty glitter is a thing, and I found a blog
Speaker 3: post from a cat owner all about a new glitter
Speaker 3: box brand, Sparkly Gold Litter, that promises every scoop is
Speaker 3: like a treasure hunt and one might be inclined to
Speaker 3: fall for it. But the post was made on April
Speaker 3: the first, and to really yield the lily, the brand
Speaker 3: was named Jester. So yes, that was a prank and no,
Speaker 3: disco ship boxes are not a thing. So on the
Speaker 3: topic of falsehoods.
Speaker 4: Back to this myth that cats can't be trained. So
Speaker 4: probably one of the more common reasons that we get
Speaker 4: called to help people is that their cat is, for example,
Speaker 4: waking them up at three in the morning for food
Speaker 4: or to be let out, or you know, some just
Speaker 4: to be an asshole. Yeah, and it's actually a relatively
Speaker 4: easy behavior to fix compared to things like cats fighting.
Speaker 4: And some of it is training and training your cat
Speaker 4: when to expect attention, when to expect food, and a
Speaker 4: lot of people inadvertently train their cats to wake them up,
Speaker 4: So it's it's actually that they're reinforcing the behavior because
Speaker 4: typically when a cat is walking on someone's head at
Speaker 4: four in the morning or mewing for food, the person
Speaker 4: gets up and puts food down because they're like, just
Speaker 4: shut them, I want to get back to sleep. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And so in the short term that's the quickest way
Speaker 4: to fix the problem, but in the long term that's
Speaker 4: actually training the cat that well, if you just persist
Speaker 4: long enough, your human will get up and give you
Speaker 4: what you want, whether it's food or petting, attention. Same
Speaker 4: thing with cats that like get up on counters. Typically
Speaker 4: people like go and chase the cat down or pick
Speaker 4: them up and put them on the floor. A cat
Speaker 4: jumps right back up, person picks them up, puts them
Speaker 4: on the floor again. Well, guess who's having the time
Speaker 4: of his life the cat. He loves it. It's a game.
Speaker 4: And if your cat is bored and understimulated and doesn't
Speaker 4: have other ways to get praise, attention, or other rewards,
Speaker 4: then they're going to do things that piss you off.
Speaker 3: Oh is that why they knock things off shelves?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean, you know, a good clue is whether
Speaker 4: or not it happens when you're home or not. So
Speaker 4: if you're at work and your cat does not knock
Speaker 4: things off your shelves, they only do it when you're home.
Speaker 4: They're doing it for attention.
Speaker 3: Oh, never forget your cat is a furry poltergeist who
Speaker 3: loves you. Perhaps it's their spade and neutered gonats just
Speaker 3: trapped in a realm between the living and the dead.
Speaker 3: They'd cause mischief. Who knows either way? Quick psa spae
Speaker 3: and new to your cats? Okay, so they want your
Speaker 3: attention though.
Speaker 4: And this gets back back to setting up a good
Speaker 4: environment for your cat, so their vertical space and bird watching,
Speaker 4: but also making sure your cat is getting daily exercise,
Speaker 4: whether that's like with a cat dancer type toy or
Speaker 4: taking them out on a harness for a walk.
Speaker 3: Do they hate that?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: Really, I love it. Oh, I love a cat on
Speaker 4: a leash. Yeah, our cat loves it really yeah. I
Speaker 4: mean she's old, so she just wants to go outside
Speaker 4: and like roll around in the sun for you know,
Speaker 4: fifteen minutes and then come back inside. She's actually really
Speaker 4: bummed now that it's winter. When it was like ninety
Speaker 4: five out, she would just happily lay in the sun
Speaker 4: for an hour. And now if she wants to go outside,
Speaker 4: we take her out and she's like, it's broken. The
Speaker 4: heat's off. Can you turn the heat on out here?
Speaker 3: So remember I mentioned that Michael has written papers on
Speaker 3: what kind of play is the best for cats? Is
Speaker 3: it like sudoku? Is it having them jog behind you
Speaker 3: outside chasing a feather wand attached to your fanny pack?
Speaker 4: Probably not so for cats. A lot of play should
Speaker 4: be really more about the calculating their their final pounce
Speaker 4: and not just like running around chasing the feather wand
Speaker 4: but stalking it and watching it while you move it
Speaker 4: very slowly. Maybe you're acting like a wounded bird or
Speaker 4: like you know, hiding behind a piece of furniture and
Speaker 4: shaking like you're terrified, and then wooh, you swoop out
Speaker 4: and that's your cat's moment to pounce and kill. And
Speaker 4: so I jokingly call it kitty for play because I
Speaker 4: think when cats play with their cats, they really just
Speaker 4: want to like whip the toy around and then like, yeah,
Speaker 4: the cat be tired and done, whereas the cat is like,
Speaker 4: can we go as slow as possible and like, you know,
Speaker 4: just move to the right a little bit, move the
Speaker 4: toy to the left a little bit, ark to it
Speaker 4: there is and so it is a build up for
Speaker 4: the cat to again that perfect moment where they would
Speaker 4: be hunting and killing. And so you really only have
Speaker 4: one chance to kill a bird, right if you're a cat.
Speaker 4: If you fuck it up, that bird's taken off. And
Speaker 4: so you really have to plan appropriately and get close
Speaker 4: enough so you can make that last jump and like
Speaker 4: get it.
Speaker 3: And so that is what stimulates their brains and their muscles.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and their body is really tuned into hunting. So
Speaker 4: their eyes are you know, designed for hunting in for example,
Speaker 4: lower light conditions and to detect horizontal movement that's about
Speaker 4: three meters away from them, so up close, their vision
Speaker 4: is really terrible. So when you're holding your cat and
Speaker 4: like all levy eyes with them, you are just a blur. Oh,
Speaker 4: I know. But they can probably smell you very well,
Speaker 4: and so that's probably what they're most you know, in
Speaker 4: tune with when they're that close to you.
Speaker 3: And are they nocturnal?
Speaker 4: No, no, okay, they're crepuscular. Crepuscular. Oh, so they're active
Speaker 4: at dawn and dusk, which is when their prey is
Speaker 4: most active. Now, cats that are not given enough to
Speaker 4: do during the day, I would say, are going to
Speaker 4: be what people would consider nocturnal because you you haven't
Speaker 4: really taken advantage of their natural activity cycle. And so
Speaker 4: this gets back to that idea your cat's keeping you
Speaker 4: up all night, it's because they're sleeping all day. And
Speaker 4: so a great time to engage your cat and play
Speaker 4: would be at dawn and dusk because that's kind of
Speaker 4: their natural rhythm to be active and certainly throughout the day.
Speaker 4: It's good to keep them moving, stimulated, not just snoozing
Speaker 4: all day, and then play with them at night time
Speaker 4: before you go to bed. Maybe give them a snack
Speaker 4: before bedtime, and that will help them sleep more soundly
Speaker 4: through the night.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: Good to know.
Speaker 3: So if you were sleeping all day, chances are you'd
Speaker 3: be up all night too, right, right, So there you go. Yeah,
Speaker 3: can I ask you questions from listeners?
Speaker 4: Of course I didn't know you had questions.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, do you have time? Yeah, okay, okay. So
Speaker 3: before we get into the Patreon questions, we have a
Speaker 3: new feature ads. So this has been eight months of
Speaker 3: negotiations to find the right company that gets ologies and
Speaker 3: the kind of ads I'd want to do. Today, I
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Speaker 3: free things like transcripts for the hearing impaired, bleeped versions
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Speaker 3: stick with me. You're not only helping me make this
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Speaker 3: I really dig to spread the word about the things
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Speaker 3: so I posted on Patreon. I asked my olog I
Speaker 3: BFF tire to just DM their phone numbers if they wanted, and.
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Speaker 3: Then I just called a few individually. We shot the
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Speaker 3: so they're edited. I got permission. Of course.
Speaker 2: You're on the bus an hour from home, and bumper
Speaker 2: to bumper traffic creeping forward a few inches at a time,
Speaker 2: someone's kids are screaming, and suddenly your back is too. Luckily,
Speaker 2: Panadal extra film coated tablets are boosted by caffeine and
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Speaker 2: for powerful relief. That's more than just paracetamol. That's one
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Speaker 2: read the label or leaflets.
Speaker 3: And now listener questions from patrons about cats. I let
Speaker 3: people on Patreon ask questions. So the patrons wrote in
Speaker 3: I've never gotten so many questions. Really, Okay, let's have
Speaker 3: categorize them as best I can. Oh my gosh. So
Speaker 3: this is like a lightning ground. You can just answer
Speaker 3: as fast as you want, fast as you can.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Tia rialto Roudio wants to know what does my cat
Speaker 3: put a buttole in my face?
Speaker 4: So that is how cats greet each other, right, so
Speaker 4: they butt sniffing is an important way to get information.
Speaker 3: There you go, yeah, it's just a Hey, Christopher Burwer
Speaker 3: wants to know best way to tame a feral cat.
Speaker 4: So, as I talked about before, you know, you have
Speaker 4: the socialization window where you know, if you can get
Speaker 4: a cat when they're young, you can really turn them
Speaker 4: in to a lovely pet. Once they're outside of that window,
Speaker 4: it's like it's not that the door shuts, it just
Speaker 4: is like you have to nudge it a lot harder
Speaker 4: to get it to open. And so if you have
Speaker 4: an adult cat who's truly never been socialized around people,
Speaker 4: then now you're not socializing. You're doing what we call
Speaker 4: counterconditioning and desensitization, where you're just gradually getting them used
Speaker 4: to your presence and trying to associate it with things
Speaker 4: that they find pleasant. And so it would be like
Speaker 4: taming a wild animal. Oh yeah, but it's going to
Speaker 4: be a long and slow road, and that cat may
Speaker 4: only ever adapt to one or two people that they're
Speaker 4: very familiar with. So the ways you would do that
Speaker 4: would be to build trust with something basically gradually exposing
Speaker 4: yourself to them, so keeping a distance at first, and
Speaker 4: trying to pair your presence with something that they find pleasant,
Speaker 4: like food, typically tuna or something very high value, like
Speaker 4: it would have to be like bonus, like basic. It
Speaker 4: might be a very slow process. There have been some
Speaker 4: people that have found that like rehabilitating an injured or
Speaker 4: sick cat has sped up the process, and we don't
Speaker 4: know why that is. That's just anecdotal, but something that
Speaker 4: John Bradshaw wrote about in his book Cat Sense. But otherwise,
Speaker 4: like I said, you're really literally like you said, taming,
Speaker 4: And the difference between socialization and taming is that socialization
Speaker 4: implies that you're able to change their behavior when they're
Speaker 4: highly plastic and able to be kind of molded to
Speaker 4: your liking, whereas after that door has shut, it's going
Speaker 4: to be really just like you're going to love me
Speaker 4: because you're going to think of sashimi when you.
Speaker 3: See so just getting them used to you and associations
Speaker 3: that are good. Yeah, I feel like this also works
Speaker 3: for people too, Like if every time you saw someone
Speaker 3: you were just rad as hell to them and you
Speaker 3: handed them a shepherd's pie or a tastefully potted succulent,
Speaker 3: they'd be like, WHOA, you are dope, and now I
Speaker 3: like you. Now. One thing that is not dope is toxoplasmosis,
Speaker 3: a parasitic infection often linked to kitties. So, according to
Speaker 3: the Centers for Disease Control quote, toxoplasmosis is considered to
Speaker 3: be a leading cause of death attributed to food born
Speaker 3: illnesses in the United States. So more than forty million men, women,
Speaker 3: and children in the US carry the toxoplasma parasite, but
Speaker 3: very few have symptoms because the immune system usually keeps
Speaker 3: the parasite from causing illness. So let's get into this
Speaker 3: shit in every way imaginable. A lot of people asked
Speaker 3: about toxoplasmosis orx ISA. Sarah Clark, don Jen durban Ian
Speaker 3: Robertson all kind of wanted to know what's the deal
Speaker 3: with toxoplasma? Gandhi, are cats unwittingly subjecting us to mind control? Essentially?
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is definitely one of my This is probably
Speaker 4: actually when you asked about like the myths about cats
Speaker 4: that drive me crazy, this is one of them. Oh, okay,
Speaker 4: So cat ownership is not considered to be a risk
Speaker 4: factor for toxoplasmosis by the CDC. They don't recommend that
Speaker 4: you get rid of a cat. Now, what is true
Speaker 4: is that cat's digestive system is the optimum environment for
Speaker 4: toxoplasmosis to reproduce, so they are definitely associated with it.
Speaker 4: How people typically get it is not from cats directly,
Speaker 4: but from eating contaminated meat or vegetables that have not
Speaker 4: been cleaned or prepared properly, which is probably from feces
Speaker 4: being so a garden where there's cat poop, there may
Speaker 4: be toxo in it. The best way to protect yourself
Speaker 4: from toxoplasmosis is to clean your cat's liquer box every day,
Speaker 4: because the osysts need over twenty four hours to hatch basically,
Speaker 4: so if the poop is fresh, it's good. You can
Speaker 4: just handle it, wash your hands after and you're not
Speaker 4: going to be exposed to talk. So of course keeping
Speaker 4: your cats indoors is probably the other safest way to
Speaker 4: avoid it. The research associating it with you know, psychological
Speaker 4: disorders has you know, I'd say it's mixed, And there's
Speaker 4: a pretty lengthy publication a couple of years ago out
Speaker 4: of Britain that showed with a longitudinal study, no association
Speaker 4: of cat ownership with and toxoplasmosis with mental health disorders.
Speaker 4: So I think those stories get a lot of hype,
Speaker 4: and it really feeds into this idea that cats are
Speaker 4: somehow fucking with us, trying to control our minds. And
Speaker 4: you know, certainly people who do have toxo. You know,
Speaker 4: for example, the men find the odor of cat pee pleasant,
Speaker 4: which is weird. And and you know rats that are
Speaker 4: infected with it also are not afraid of cat urine,
Speaker 4: which is not normal. So so we know that it
Speaker 4: can have the effects on the brain. And I don't
Speaker 4: question that at all. It's really the direct link from
Speaker 4: having a cat to getting toxoplasmosis that kind of drives
Speaker 4: me crazy because again the CDC does not considered a
Speaker 4: risk the of course, if you are you know, compromised
Speaker 4: or pregnant, then you have to take extra care about
Speaker 4: handling cat feces. But again, if you clean the box
Speaker 4: every day, you are at zero risk basically. And so
Speaker 4: it's it's really more about perhaps the link between your
Speaker 4: bad hygiene and your mental health.
Speaker 3: Oh snap, those people, you know.
Speaker 4: But again it makes it makes for good clickbait, So
Speaker 4: I think people really latch onto this story quite easily.
Speaker 3: That's that's it's such a good flim flam to debunk.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad that they.
Speaker 4: Asked, I'm really glad, they asked.
Speaker 3: Let's see Jamie Drew and Genderband both want to know
Speaker 3: about drowel. Jamie Drew's eleven year old Meredith asks, why
Speaker 3: does my cat drool when he's happy.
Speaker 4: There's different reasons that cats may drowel, and they may
Speaker 4: be as simple as they're missing a tooth or and
Speaker 4: so there's more opportunity for the jewel to drip out.
Speaker 4: Or they're relaxed so their their jaw muscle isn't as
Speaker 4: tight and so the drool can flow more free, much
Speaker 4: like when you're falling asleep and you're on a plane,
Speaker 4: for example, hanging open and then you're like, been there,
Speaker 4: done that. Yeah, So I think it's probably just a
Speaker 4: sign of relaxation. It could be a sign of a
Speaker 4: dental problem if it's really like stinky and your cat
Speaker 4: does not seem to be happy when they're drooling, So
Speaker 4: during their yearly checkup, I would say, have your bet
Speaker 4: check their teeth.
Speaker 3: So side note, I double checked on this and Yep,
Speaker 3: it's just a sign of relaxation and slack jawed comfort.
Speaker 3: So some cats just drooll when they're happy and some don't.
Speaker 3: But unless it's sudden and could be due to a
Speaker 3: dental issue. Just look at it as mouth tears of joy.
Speaker 3: But it might just be happiness.
Speaker 4: It might just be happy, which is amazing.
Speaker 3: Let's see. I had a several people ask this question,
Speaker 3: Kelly Windsor, Andrea Machka, I believe one. Pedro Martinez, christopherper
Speaker 3: and Sarah Walker all wanted to know essentially about biscuits.
Speaker 3: Why do cats need their lap or their bed? What
Speaker 3: are doing when they're making biscuits?
Speaker 4: So I'm baking, they go biscuits. They're trying to get
Speaker 4: milk out of you. You are a giant boob.
Speaker 3: What are they But if they are adults, are they
Speaker 3: just hungry or are they?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So you know one one thing that has possibly
Speaker 4: happened through domestication, which is typical that we select for
Speaker 4: juvenile traits, right, so we keep our animal somewhat stunted,
Speaker 4: like emotionally, developmentally through domestication. And honestly, I don't know
Speaker 4: if like lions and tigers make biscuits.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 4: It's a great question. Actually I need to find out.
Speaker 3: Quick aside, do tigers make biscuits? They sure shit do?
Speaker 3: My friend, So I found an article on mental floss
Speaker 3: with Susan Bass of the Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida,
Speaker 3: and she says, yep, but they don't purr. According to
Speaker 3: an article by the Library of Congress, lions, leopards, jaguars, tigers,
Speaker 3: snow leopards do not exhibit true purring. They can make
Speaker 3: up peer like sound. But wildcats like bobcats and Cheetah's
Speaker 3: Eurasian links, pumas and wildcats they purr. But let's get
Speaker 3: back to biscuits.
Speaker 4: But you know, the kneading or you know, biscuits, muffins,
Speaker 4: whatever you like to call it, is how kittens get
Speaker 4: milk from mom. And it's adorable when you see them
Speaker 4: doing it. But they're needing the mammary glands to get
Speaker 4: milk out. And so for some animals they stop engaging
Speaker 4: in juvenile behaviors and others continue throughout their life, and
Speaker 4: it tends to be at times where they're happy, right,
Speaker 4: and so time with mom is a very happy time.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of oxytocin flowing, there's a lot of
Speaker 4: purring going on, which we believe stimulates oxytocin, and so
Speaker 4: you know, we always just say they're kind of in
Speaker 4: the mommy zone when they're nursing, and so they might
Speaker 4: be trying to comfort themselves or they might just be
Speaker 4: very very happy.
Speaker 3: They might just like you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if it bothers I know a lot of
Speaker 4: people it bothers them because mostly because it hurts if
Speaker 4: their kiddies' nails are sharp. And so either you know,
Speaker 4: trim your cat's nails or get a nice like fuzzy
Speaker 4: blanket to put on your lap when your cat does it,
Speaker 4: and then it won't make its way to your legs.
Speaker 3: Now, let's talk about cats and drugs. Christina don Schwartz,
Speaker 3: Danny buck Heeister, Brent Monsieur, Madeline Heising, and Mary Fuller
Speaker 3: all asked what is the story with catnip? What happens
Speaker 3: to their brains? Like are they stoned? What's going on?
Speaker 4: Another question where we don't really know the neuroscience behind it,
Speaker 4: because as far as I know, no you know one,
Speaker 4: you can't at this stage do like a functional MRI
Speaker 4: on a cat and see live what their brain's doing
Speaker 4: without probably doing some pretty heavy invasive stuff, in which
Speaker 4: case you might be screwing up the catnip response. So
Speaker 4: the chemical composition of catnip is pretty similar to some
Speaker 4: of the chemical compositions actually of females estress, like really juices,
Speaker 4: I guess, for lack of a better term, juice. Not
Speaker 4: all cats respond to catnip. It's a genetic trait. It
Speaker 4: seems to be an autosomal dominant trait. But cats who
Speaker 4: don't respond to catnip often respond to other plants, so
Speaker 4: catnip is not the only catnip out there. There's Japanese catnip,
Speaker 4: which is silver vine, which more cats respond to silvervine
Speaker 4: than cabinet catnip, and you're starting to see it's hit
Speaker 4: in the market, So if you're not hipped to silver
Speaker 4: vine yet, don't worry. It will be at a pet
Speaker 4: store near you before you know it.
Speaker 3: It's like a Macha laatee, Yes, exactly nice japan.
Speaker 4: Some cats also love. Valerian root and honeysuckle are two
Speaker 4: other very commonly used olfactory stimulants for cats, and it
Speaker 4: seems to have different effects on different cats. So again,
Speaker 4: your cat is an individual. First of all, your cat
Speaker 4: may not even respond, so about sixty percent of cats
Speaker 4: respond to catnip, so your cat might be the forty percent.
Speaker 4: Straight edge kitties that are not interested, thank you very much,
Speaker 4: but it's always worth a try. Some cats get more
Speaker 4: worked up and excited on catnip, and other cats get
Speaker 4: more mellow and just kind of roll around. And some
Speaker 4: cats like to eat catnips, I just like to sniff it.
Speaker 4: And so it's one of those things where know your cat,
Speaker 4: are they a happy drunk or I mean drunk, and
Speaker 4: use accordingly. If you leave it out all the time,
Speaker 4: they do stop responding as strongly to it. So we
Speaker 4: typically recommend that you you know, store it in a
Speaker 4: jar or maybe put all their catnip toys in a
Speaker 4: jar with fresh catnip, and then they can remain potent,
Speaker 4: and then when you take them out again later, they'll
Speaker 4: be excited again. But if you leave it out all
Speaker 4: the time, it'll lose its excitement. But as far as
Speaker 4: like what is going on in their brains, I don't
Speaker 4: think anyone's looked that carefully. There's been a lot of
Speaker 4: studies of their behavior while they're using catnip, and we
Speaker 4: typically see things like rolling. Some of the behaviors are playful,
Speaker 4: some of them are sexual or similar to sexual behaviors,
Speaker 4: like the kind of rolling and presenting type behaviors, and
Speaker 4: some are just very relaxed and mellow. So yeah, I
Speaker 4: think there's still a lot of debate as to whether
Speaker 4: it's it induces play or something else.
Speaker 3: Or if it's like viagra. Yeah, okay, I did look
Speaker 3: this up and while up to a third of all
Speaker 3: cats just aren't into it, they lack the gene. They're like,
Speaker 3: get this trashy mint out of my face. I did
Speaker 3: find one source that said some male cats, when exposed
Speaker 3: to catnip, get a little too rambunctious, bordering on aggression
Speaker 3: tor to top on the herb. Katie Cobb and Bob
Speaker 3: Ogden both want to know why do cats love sitting
Speaker 3: in boxes? What is it with their boxes?
Speaker 4: Okay, so it gets back to the predator and prey
Speaker 4: like they need like a safe blind where basically they
Speaker 4: can like spy on the world without being detected. So
Speaker 4: it gives them a sense of security as far as
Speaker 4: we can tell. Cats typically you know, for example, hunt behind.
Speaker 4: You know they're going to be hiding in a shrub
Speaker 4: or like behind some grasses, and so it gives them
Speaker 4: some protection. Offers heat, which is always a bonus. Smaller
Speaker 4: than boxes, more heat, it's gonna conduct right. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: and we also know that actually there was a study
Speaker 4: that showed that cats that gut boxes in animal shelters
Speaker 4: were less stressed out than cats who did not, So
Speaker 4: so boxes can be a real place of security for cats.
Speaker 4: And yeah, again it probably makes them feel safe. And
Speaker 4: I think anything is not like there's some magical like
Speaker 4: your cat loves Amazon.
Speaker 3: Or yeah it just smells like rats.
Speaker 4: It's really just they like being enclosed and having this
Speaker 4: like little sense of security where they can kind of
Speaker 4: see what's going on, but they're partly hidden.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's so cute though. And yes, tigers,
Speaker 3: lions and other big cats at sanctuaries just hang out
Speaker 3: in boxes. It's cat in a box, just real big ones.
Speaker 3: So how many videos did I watch? One? I got
Speaker 3: my answer for this aside, and then I continued watching
Speaker 3: at least eight more large cats playing in large boxes,
Speaker 3: just wasting some quality American time on the internet. Okay,
Speaker 3: let's talk birds murder. Adam Hallahan and AJH Schlebnik said,
Speaker 3: do outdoor cats really kill billions of birds each year?
Speaker 3: How bad is this for the environment? Really? They hear
Speaker 3: different things from cat advocates versus bird advocates curious.
Speaker 4: Okay, so cats do get like one hundred percent of
Speaker 4: the blame for bird deaths even though they're not one
Speaker 4: hundred percent responsible for bird deaths. A lot of bird
Speaker 4: deathts are happening because of human encroachment on bird territory.
Speaker 4: So I think, you know, first of all, we should
Speaker 4: recognize that cats are not the only killer of birds.
Speaker 4: Rats are also a huge killer of birds. So what
Speaker 4: do we do about cats killing birds? I mean, I
Speaker 4: firmly believe that people should keep their cats and doors
Speaker 4: if they have pet cats. So let's reduce the damage
Speaker 4: and be responsible pet owners and take your cat on
Speaker 4: on a harness or build a cadio for your cat
Speaker 4: so they can enjoy some fresh air and outdoor time
Speaker 4: without being loose and catching birds.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I just had to bust in and say,
Speaker 3: what is a CaTiO? I had never heard this word before,
Speaker 3: and you bet your butt crack I looked it up.
Speaker 3: So it's like a mesh enclosure, kind of a tasteful
Speaker 3: cage that either connects inside the house via a window
Speaker 3: or a tunnel or cat door, so they can just
Speaker 3: chill outside but enclosed it's a cadio. It's fairly new term.
Speaker 3: It's Wikipedia is just three scant sentences. But I did
Speaker 3: a little digging and like all quality trends and lifestyle movements,
Speaker 3: it may have originated in Portland. So the Portland autobonn
Speaker 3: Society does an annual cadio tour, So you have until
Speaker 3: September Portland folks to gear up for the next one. Okay,
Speaker 3: Aside from a hip indoor outdoor living space, what else
Speaker 3: can protect birds and other backyard critters?
Speaker 4: There are some products on the market that are supposed
Speaker 4: to reduce cat's ability to predate on birds. So there's
Speaker 4: like these little ruffled collars that if you look on
Speaker 4: the websites, the cats all look so pissed, like I
Speaker 4: can't leave you fucking put this thing on me, Like
Speaker 4: that cat might leave a bird on your pillow if
Speaker 4: they can still catch the bird. Yeah, there's some some
Speaker 4: strategies that people who insist on letting their cats go
Speaker 4: outside could try to reduce the amount that their cats kill.
Speaker 4: You know, there's been some research suggesting that the birds
Speaker 4: that are killed by cats are typically weaker, and you know,
Speaker 4: I'd say the models that suggest that cats are killing
Speaker 4: like ten billion birds a year. It's it's hard to know,
Speaker 4: like really what's going on and how much of that
Speaker 4: is cats. And I'm not trying to say that cats
Speaker 4: do not want to kill birds, but they're typically harder
Speaker 4: for cats to catch than mice. So you know, in cats,
Speaker 4: some cats are generalists, like they'll kill anything that moves,
Speaker 4: but a lot of cats are specialists. They have a
Speaker 4: preferred prey and as long as that prey is available,
Speaker 4: they'll they'll hunt that. So if they prefer lizards, they
Speaker 4: will hunt lizards as long as lizards are available. So yeah,
Speaker 4: what I would say, it's a big picture, it's complicated.
Speaker 4: I don't think that cats should get all of the blame,
Speaker 4: and capologists yeah, and I also, you know, agree that
Speaker 4: we should make as many efforts to keep as many
Speaker 4: cats indoors as possible. Yeah, inside and certainly like cats
Speaker 4: will still hunt even if they're fed, typically, but they'll
Speaker 4: maybe be less quick to hunt and kill. So so
Speaker 4: that's another argument for managing feral colonies instead of just
Speaker 4: letting them propagate and or trying to exterminate them, which
Speaker 4: is usually not an effective strategy.
Speaker 3: Right, And it's also very sad and it's said a
Speaker 3: big question I got from so many people, Ashley Bergamy
Speaker 3: or x Bica, Ben Holland, Chelsea Shay Gadard, Anna Thompson,
Speaker 3: Micah Eckert, all want to know, will cats really just
Speaker 3: eat their owner if they die alone in their apartment.
Speaker 4: I think most of us will eat someone if we're
Speaker 4: alone in an apartment with them and they die and
Speaker 4: we don't have anything else to eat. Yeah, so yes. Actually,
Speaker 4: when I worked at the shelter, we did have a
Speaker 4: kitty who came in who her owner had died, and
Speaker 4: she'd apparently nibbled on the nose, just the nose, as
Speaker 4: far as we were told by animal control. So you know,
Speaker 4: it happens you're starving, Donner Party. I don't know what
Speaker 4: to say, like it's your dog will do it too,
Speaker 4: so really, I mean, come on.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're pretty much just you are sashimi for
Speaker 3: whatever animal lives in your home.
Speaker 4: If you are, if they're stuck without food and you die,
Speaker 4: you are going to become food. We are meat.
Speaker 3: Okay, So yeah, your cat's going to eat your dead body?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Well, what do you care?
Speaker 3: You'd them anyway? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Do you want them to die?
Speaker 3: Too.
Speaker 4: I mean they're just trying to stay alive until they
Speaker 4: can get another home.
Speaker 3: You know, look at it this way, you're feeding the
Speaker 3: cat even if you're not able to feed the cat,
Speaker 3: and it's like.
Speaker 4: You know, environmentally friendly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what else are you going to do with your body? Hey?
Speaker 3: Entrepreneurs consider a niche burial service that involves having one's
Speaker 3: body dehydrated and made into pellets. Okay, so I did
Speaker 3: look this up. Boy, oh boy, oh, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of dark stories from paramedics available on the internet if
Speaker 3: you want to scar your brain, but essentially a cat,
Speaker 3: we'll start eating you the same day, usually going for
Speaker 3: the nose, lips, and eyes first. A dog may or
Speaker 3: may not eat you, but they definitely do eat their owners,
Speaker 3: so many confirmed cases. Apparently German shepherds are way more
Speaker 3: likely to just tuck in a bib and dive right
Speaker 3: in while you're still warm, and there have been reports
Speaker 3: of dogs who ate their dead owners down to the skeletons,
Speaker 3: even one stashing a bone under a pillow on the
Speaker 3: couch just to enjoy later. So yes, dogs will certainly
Speaker 3: eat off your nose despite your faith.
Speaker 4: I really love that so many people are converging on
Speaker 4: the same question. I know it's kind of.
Speaker 3: Fascinating many people, the last two questions because I have
Speaker 3: enough questions to sit here with you for literally like
Speaker 3: all day. But I understand that you do have a life.
Speaker 3: So last two questions. I always ask, what is the
Speaker 3: worst thing about your job or the thing that you
Speaker 3: secretly hate about cats.
Speaker 4: I don't think there's anything I hate about cat.
Speaker 3: Come on, oh, voting mo vomiting? Yeah, yeah, any way
Speaker 3: to prevent hair ball vomiting. This was also a question
Speaker 3: from patron Sandra Kirby.
Speaker 4: Brushia Cat. Okay, yeah, yeah. But you know, one thing
Speaker 4: we know is that vomiting cats is actually not normal.
Speaker 4: I think people really normalized vomiting, but we believe that
Speaker 4: it's you know, more likely a medical or stress related issue.
Speaker 4: So but as far as my job, you know, I
Speaker 4: think one thing, when I started working with cats, people
Speaker 4: be like, oh my god, you have the best job.
Speaker 4: You're just like pett and kittens all day, Oh my god.
Speaker 4: And you know, and it's true. I do get you know,
Speaker 4: I do get to pet a lot of kittens, and
Speaker 4: certainly when I worked in the shelter, I petted a
Speaker 4: lot of kittens and cats, but it's really about dealing
Speaker 4: with people. Like so much of my work is even now,
Speaker 4: I'm like dealing with research participants, and you know, I
Speaker 4: need something from them. I need them to collect data
Speaker 4: for me in an accurate way, and I need their help.
Speaker 4: And when I'm dealing with clients who having behavior problems
Speaker 4: with their cats, I'm not dealing with their cats. I'm
Speaker 4: trying to get them to change typically their behavior in
Speaker 4: order to change their cat's behavior. And so probably the
Speaker 4: most challenging aspect is often the human element, because behavior
Speaker 4: change is hard, and you know, trying to get someone
Speaker 4: to scoop the litter box every day when they've been
Speaker 4: scooping it once a week all of their life is
Speaker 4: not easy. Or getting them to change their habits when
Speaker 4: their cat is waking them up at four in the
Speaker 4: morning and telling them you have to ignore your cat
Speaker 4: until he stops, and it might take a couple of weeks.
Speaker 4: A lot of people break down. I've had people cry,
Speaker 4: you know, it's like and certainly I think, you know,
Speaker 4: it's easy to make light of when people are having
Speaker 4: behavior problems with their cats, but I've definitely experienced, for example,
Speaker 4: like people who basically got divorced over their pet, or
Speaker 4: you know, like stop sleeping in the same bed because
Speaker 4: they have two cats that hate each other and they
Speaker 4: don't want either cat to sleep alone, so they're sleeping
Speaker 4: separately with you know, their two cats, or people who
Speaker 4: are afraid they're going to have to put their cat
Speaker 4: to sleep because they can't live with the behavior problem,
Speaker 4: whether it's you know, their cat has ruined their house
Speaker 4: and they can't have people come over anymore because their
Speaker 4: house smells like pee, or you know, their cat is
Speaker 4: aggressive to strangers and so they don't feel comfortable having
Speaker 4: people over. And I definitely think there are so many
Speaker 4: joys and benefits of having pets, but for people who
Speaker 4: are experiencing problems, there can be a lot of guilt
Speaker 4: and shame and they feel like they're a bad pet
Speaker 4: parent when it's not necessarily them, you know, And so
Speaker 4: it's it can be really hard to deal with that
Speaker 4: side where people are going through a lot of pain,
Speaker 4: and by the time people reach out for help, they're
Speaker 4: kind of at their wits end, and so sometimes you're
Speaker 4: just the last stop on their way to the shelter.
Speaker 4: Like I've literally had people call like I'm driving to
Speaker 4: the shelter. If you don't call me right back and
Speaker 4: fix this problem, the cat's going, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 4: basically going to be getting rid of so and so
Speaker 4: that can be a lot of pressure. And so that
Speaker 4: is probably the hardest part of this kind of work
Speaker 4: is when you're seeing the complexity of the human animal relationships.
Speaker 4: Sometimes they need someone who's a human psychiatryt yeah, not
Speaker 4: a cat behaviorist.
Speaker 3: So the hardest thing about cats is people exactly. Probably
Speaker 3: what's the best thing about cats? Wow, especially if you
Speaker 3: want to say anything to any cat haters out there.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're fucking cute. But I've never met a
Speaker 4: cat I didn't think it was cute. I mean, I
Speaker 4: like the mystery personally that you they're not as maybe
Speaker 4: blatant as to like, you know, like a dog who's
Speaker 4: like I love you. You know, cats got to work
Speaker 4: for it a little bit, and I definitely appreciate that.
Speaker 4: And and I like that they still have that little
Speaker 4: bit of wildness. You know, we're still asking are they
Speaker 4: domesticated or not? We can't even tell, yeah, right, because
Speaker 4: they're a little bit wild, but they're also tame enough
Speaker 4: that they're like, you know, curled up in your lap
Speaker 4: and purring, which is like I think purring is magic.
Speaker 4: It's just a very soothing and like wonderful little trick
Speaker 4: they have.
Speaker 3: Do they do that in the wild, same with me owing,
Speaker 3: or do they just really do that to communicate with us?
Speaker 4: Well, little per So, moms and kittens will purr when
Speaker 4: they're nursing, so you know, we think typically positive situations
Speaker 4: where there's some love going on, and they'll also purr
Speaker 4: of course when they're distressed, so it's not just positive.
Speaker 4: They have self soothing kind of aspects to it. So
Speaker 4: you will see cats in pain who are dying that
Speaker 4: will will purr as well. But again, look at the context.
Speaker 4: If your cat's not dying and they're purring, they're probably happy,
Speaker 4: right right, they've got a broken leg and they're purring,
Speaker 4: not help.
Speaker 3: Do they mean out just to communicate with us?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So meowing is something that they primarily do with humans.
Speaker 4: So the communication they do with other cats is typically
Speaker 4: either more antagonistic like yowling, growling, hissing, shrieking, or smaller
Speaker 4: shorter like chirping would be like a positive sound that
Speaker 4: cats would do to each other, But meowing seems to
Speaker 4: be something they reserve for primarily for humans.
Speaker 3: So cats not just a little afraid. And also they
Speaker 3: know how to play us and that's why we love them.
Speaker 3: I know where can people find you?
Speaker 4: I have a blog Cats and Squirrels dot com and
Speaker 4: so I try to report on there about primarily about
Speaker 4: science related to cats and squirrels because of my two
Speaker 4: favorite species. And I'm on Twitter at Michael Underscore Maria,
Speaker 4: so it's on my k E L Underscore m A
Speaker 4: R i A. My business website is Feline Mines dot com.
Speaker 3: So if someone needed some consulting they could.
Speaker 4: They could go to Feline Minds.
Speaker 3: Okay, feeling you're gonna have a lot of cat questions
Speaker 3: going on.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for you're welcome, Thanks for having
Speaker 4: me this super fun.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I could seriously ask you cat questions
Speaker 3: all day.
Speaker 4: Thank you so so.
Speaker 3: Find doctor Michael Delgatto follow her. Check out Feline Minds
Speaker 3: dot com. And this week's ologies donation goes to Kitten
Speaker 3: Central of Plastercounty dot org in case you want to
Speaker 3: check out what they do. Soli jes is at ologies
Speaker 3: on Twitter and Instagram. I'm Ali ward one L on
Speaker 3: both and to support the shou via Patreon. Head to
Speaker 3: patreon dot com slash ologies you can ask the Ologist questions.
Speaker 3: You'll be supporting a different charitable cause every week, helping
Speaker 3: me pay people what they deserve to work on the show,
Speaker 3: and maybe I'll call you and talk about a bra.
Speaker 3: You can also get ologies merch at ologiesmerch dot com
Speaker 3: black t shirts. Y'all the're avails, so thank you Shannon
Speaker 3: Feltas and Bonnie Dutch for managing that. Thank you to
Speaker 3: Aaron Talbert and Hannah Lippo for adminting the Ologies Facebook group.
Speaker 3: The theme song was written and performed by Nick Thorburn
Speaker 3: of the band Islands. And thank you to Proudcat Dad
Speaker 3: and host of the cat themed show The per Cast,
Speaker 3: Steven Ray Morris check that out for cutting this whole
Speaker 3: episode together. This one's for you, pal now. If you
Speaker 3: stick around until the end of the show, you know
Speaker 3: I tell you a secret and this week you'll get too.
Speaker 3: Number one. I am legit so disturbed by reading so
Speaker 3: many stories from paramedics about devoured bodies. Wish I didn't
Speaker 3: do that. Uh lah blah barf too. I went to
Speaker 3: get something out of my pantry this evening and I
Speaker 3: found a bag of baby carrots in there. I guess
Speaker 3: I tossed them into the pantry and not the fridge
Speaker 3: just hours ago. I'll continue to eat them. Also, I
Speaker 3: feel bad because just last week, guest doctor Julie Lesnik
Speaker 3: was specifically like, don't buy plastic bags of baby carrots,
Speaker 3: just buy carrots and cut them. And now I feel
Speaker 3: like this is an omen and a reminder and I
Speaker 3: should never do it again. Anyway, carrots don't belong in
Speaker 3: the pantry, okay for bide pacadermatology, bombology, r doo, zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, bytology, anthology, cereology, ethology.
Speaker 3: I love cats. I love every kind of cat. I
Speaker 3: just all them. But I can't get a cat.
Speaker 2: Can I get the cats?