Oh,

no.

Come on.

Vacuums.

No, I mean, people are desperate.

They're not doing it because they want to stress their cat out or harm them.

They are thinking of the end goal, which is I have to get my cat to the vet because we have this appointment.

Yeah.

Is middle of the night cat wake-ups, waking up the humans, is that pretty common? And then people gripe about it like, I got the lemon of the cat world and he's waking me up at night like it's the cat's problem or the cat's fault.

Yeah, we call this nocturnal activity, right? And it can be very disruptive if you like sleeping through the night.

So yes, this is a relatively common complaint.

And I think people seek help for it, obviously, because they're sleep deprived.

They're kind of stuck in this cycle.

Yes.

of like waking up with their cat, trying to go back to bed, just trying to get the cat to shut up so that they can fall back asleep.

a solution maybe

Yeah

...

I always try to approach those situations with a lot of compassion because, again, the intentions are good, but we know there's a lot of, you know, just obstacles either within the person or just societal.

Like, certainly now, like, finances are a big issue for being able to care for pets, um, the way they, they need to be, and we see that, you know, that can be really stressful for people.

So, um, so there's, you know...

It's complex.

Um, and I think that, again, the science is evolving.

Mm-hmm

Okay.

And so we do see some cats that really love to play in water or get in water.

They don't seem to mind the sensation of water.

Um, it's certainly known to be a breed trait, as mentioned.

So you know, one thing I would wonder is if this person prefers a certain breed of cat that maybe already has a tendency to like water.

And then there are cats that really, um, are curious, playful.

Maybe they've never had a bad experience with water, you know, so they're open to it, right? They're like, "Oh, this is kinda fun." Um, so, so I wouldn't be...

[laughs]

say to the cat, this is yours forever and ever, amen, but then will they think that all furniture is theirs? So what do we do about furniture?

I think it really depends in part on the human.

Do they have the finances to replace the furniture? Not always possible.

Upholstering is more affordable, but not cheap.

I think there's certainly...

What I would do is work to remedy that behavior ASAP.

And we know that, of course, like you mentioned, scratching is a natural behavior.

So

Do you see any benefit of trying pheromones? Yeah, so that's

a good question.

I think I've maybe angered a lot of people because I wrote a blog post, it's definitely my most popular blog post, which was really kind of reviewing at the time, now this was about 10 years ago, the published research about Feliway, which was the only, I think at the time was probably the only product that was kind of dominating the market.

And since then, of course, we've seen an explosion of pheromone products on the market.

Like everybody's got a pheromone product.

So I fully recognize that I have a biased perspective because most of my clients have tried pheromones and they didn't help.

So I'm seeing the people who pheromones didn't help.

What are the kind of mistakes that owners are making? And can you advise in particular about the smell that's left behind and how to actually manage that smell so that it doesn't continue on a sort of vicious cycle?

So talk a little about vertical peeing and what, where, and how that happens.

Sure, yeah.

What I have typically heard this behavior described as is elevator butt, right? The cat starts on the ground floor, and then as they're peeing, the butt starts going up.

And we really don't know how common this behavior is because it usually doesn't present as a problem for the caregiver, like peeing outside the litter box, as in like house soiling, right? Peeing on your bed, peeing on the carpet, peeing on the counters, right? So because this behavior tends to occur in the litter box, There's really no research on why cats, why some cats do this, right? We know not all cats do.

So typical posture for elimination for cats is to squat.

You know, first they'll do a little digging, create a nice little spot for themselves and they'll squat and urinate.

Right.

So

[laughs]

Getting my cat's arms through all of those straps is, like, a nightmare.

So just make your life easy and pick, you know, uh, know your cat and then pick something that's, you're gonna be able to get on your cat, um, so that you're not, um, struggling, especially at first.

Because you're going to spend a little bit of time introducing your cat to the concept of a harness before you even take them outside.

This could take a couple weeks.

Right

... grabbed.

So we just wanna briefly get them introduced to that, and then once they're comfortable with that, um, and by comfortable I mean they don't even seem to notice it, they keep eating the treat, whatever, then you can start introducing, like, okay, I'm gonna just secure the front, um, straps.

You know, the cats are known for being aloof and, and, and, and separate and self-focused, and I think there's a desire to break down that barrier and, and have some kind of one-on-one with our cats.

Yeah, and research has shown, uh, that cats do recognize their names.

They recognize their humans' voices.

Their responses are subtle.

I think it's always important to consider how cats entered our lives versus dogs, right? The domestication history of dogs is much longer, and we selected dogs to do things for us that were very specific, like things that involve communication, right, and fetching and, um, helping with hunting and helping with guarding.

And cats, we didn't do any of that, right? So cats have been domesticated a much shorter time, and really, it was just kind of a domestication of convenience.

Like, they were cute.

But I want you to tell me if it's changed since you've been doing what you've been doing, this belief that it can happen or does happen or needs to happen, that we have actual human speak to animal speak interaction.

So what about the I'd like to tell you about what's going to happen at the vet and to reassure you? Any communication tips for that? It's probably very common because cats get very agitated.

They do.

And so they primarily use body language and scent to communicate with each other.

So I know Steve was talking about the fact that Vincent and Mr.

Bad don't really communicate with each other except through hissing, which is not a pleasant sound.

That's not a friendly communication, right? That's because cats use body language and scent to communicate with each other.

And they also use those things to communicate with us.

And I think it was a desire to break down that barrier and have some kind of one-on-one with our cats.

So cats were domesticated a few thousand years later.

What we see is that in the Fertile Crescent where humans were settling, storing food, that there is evidence that cats came into people's lives, became part of their lives, right? So we see art depicting cats, um, we see archaeological evidence of cats coexisting with humans.

But, you know, the question of, like, are cats truly domesticated really depends on how you think about domestication, and so I prefer to say they're semi-domesticated.

Um, certainly we have, um, coexisted with them.

But domestication is often described as, like, a process we do to, like, plants and animals to make them usable by humans, right? And that includes dogs.

Um, but, you know, we want plants to create more corn or more wheat.

We want chickens to produce more meat.

Yeah.