When Good Intentions Go Sideways for Cats

You know, w- we've got mice.

Um, you know, the house feels a little off.

It smells weird.

Our floors don't feel clean.

You know, I, I don't wanna have to do all the chores.

All kinds of things like that, and, and we're gonna talk about those today because cats don't live in a human world, they live in a sensory world, you know, that, and that sensory world is one we can't hear, and they s- hear all kinds of things we can't hear, and they smell smells we barely notice.

And when you start layering solutions sometimes, you know, the, the home becomes more efficient for us, but sometimes more confusing, overwhelming, and stressful for your cats.

So today I wanna walk through some very common household solutions, um, and fixes to the problem.

And I'm not saying you should panic or throw everything out, but, um, just to kinda give you a different lens like we try to do on this show.

A cat's lens, of course.

And, um, this all started when I went to trim nails for a, a client here in Santa Fe, and I mentioned that, you know, Pico brought in mice.

I was playing with their cat.

That's what happened.

I trimmed the nails, and then I was running a string over her comforter to make sure the nails, you know, we hadn't missed any, and they were short enough, and it wasn't snagging the comforter.

And he was really good at it.

He was just jumping at that string, and I said, "Boy, he would be a good mouser," and explained that our Pico, you know, is a good mouser.

He brings them in the house, and he thinks they're toys, and he won't kill them, and he won't eat them, and they end up living, you know, behind our washer and dryer.

And she goes, "Oh, you know, the place next to me is vacant, and the only mice I've seen are actually coming, you know, from that unit that must be mouse infested, and he did get some." And she said, "But I found this really great light that I plugged in, and we haven't had a mouse problem since." I said, "Well, show it to me," 'cause, you know, if there's just a light that'll make them go away, I, uh, I need to know about that 'cause we have a mouse problem.

And she went and showed it to me, and it wasn't the light.

It was one of those ultrasonic pest repellers that, repellents that had a nightlight built into it.

And you know, I thought, "Well, [laughs] that's a, that's a good solution." You know, we're deterring them.

We're not killing them, and we're not poisoning them, and you know, potentially our cat, obviously.

And, uh, it, uh, on the surface it looks like a really good solution.

We just plug in this little thing and get a free nightlight, and poof, the, the mice are gone.

But what we don't understand is that cats hear frequencies up to 64 to 85 megahertz, depending on which study you read and how old your cat is and that.