cats seem to prefer me.

To hello there cat people.

Dan the Catman here along with Michelle the Meow Maven.

Welcome back the Stephen, Stephen Quant, Mr.

Producer, our cat behavior expert from catbehaviorhelp.com.

And welcome to the 70th episode of the Shelter Cats Podcast.

And I really wish I had a soundboard because I'd have a drum roll playing right now because joining us for our Season 4 premiere is Jackson Galaxy.

Hi, Jackson.

Hi, everybody.

We are the drum roll myself.

Like I could find a drummer on here somewhere, but.

We really we need to invest in a sound board because they wouldn't there would have been a yay sound effect right now.

Jackson before we get to speak to you or we just have a little business.

Michelle, take it away.

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Thank you.

I've been messing up that commercial for a week, so thank you Michelle for taking that back.

Jackson Galaxy is a two time New York Times bestselling author and the host of My Cat From Hell, Animal Planet's long riding hit show that helped millions of cat guardians solve feline behavior challenges and build stronger bonds with their pets.

Beyond television, Jackson is a leader in the animal welfare world, working directly with shelters and rescues to improve the lives of cats in their care.

He leads workshops, teaches classes, and consults with organizations to help create cat friendly spaces, practices and adoption programs.

As a prolific digital creator, Jackson has built a global community of almost 9 million followers.

I'm Jealous and averages over 3.5 million views monthly across YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, where he shares expert advice, cat friendly inspiration and unfiltered insights into his life as an animal lover and advocate.

Jackson, thank you so much for joining us.

We really appreciate it.

Thanks, Dan.

It's good to be here through power outages and everything.

So right out, right out of the gate, my, my first question is, I'm definitely interested in the origin story of how you became who you are today, how you became, how you got involved and passionate about cat behavior in the 1st place.

So what led you to become a cat behavior advocate?

I, I mean, as I, I think most of the people who wind up doing stuff like this, it's sort of serendipitous, but I was living in Boulder, Co at the time and I was, this is in the early 90s and I was a musician, which is to say I, I was a barista and a guy and all that shit.

And I, and I really was miserable.

And I saw The Wanted for, you know, just a bottom level pooper scooper person at the Humane Society in Boulder.

And I took it and, and it was, and, and I mean, I remember it being this, this sort of instant, like this is a great job.

And, and then it was like a few weeks later where I realized that, that my Co workers were starting to make fun of me because whenever I'd be sitting in, in the break room and we would let cats into the break room during our, our own lunches and they would all just sort of gather around me and bother me.

Fat boy and which is to this day, every time I tell somebody I was called cat boy, I'm like, oh, I just made it live for another couple of years, but nobody knew anything about these guys.

And I mean, to be honest, it kind of still only a little bit out of the starting gate in in that respect now, but we were, as everyone knows, we were killing a lot of animals in shelters back then.

And and if nobody, oh, I'm so sad.

Hold on, there's a car pulling up here.

If my dog actually, if my dog actually hears it, my dog is going to go crazy right here.

Yes, I have dogs.

This is why people live with cats because you don't have to be afraid of the delivery guy when the cats are around.

We win anyway.

Did you say 5 dogs?

Five dogs, Yeah.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah, so which which in in animal math equals 17 cats?

Pretty much.

That seems about right.

So I've done math for a while.

So yeah, anyway, I, I, I knew that I was in a position where because the cats sort of picked me, that I should learn as much as I possibly could about them because the threshold was really low.

You know, whether a cat makes it into the adoption area or gets euthanized out of impounds or surrender depended on very little.

Like, were they coming out from the back of their cage?

Because if they're not going to, you're not going anywhere.

So I, with a combination of the scant books that were out at that time, there really weren't that many.

And I talked to a good friend of mine who was, I'm a dog trainer and, and then I just spent a heck of a lot of time with them and, and learned my way around it.

And, you know, within a couple of months, I was the cat guy at the shelter.

And within a couple of years, I was teaching other shelters about the cats in their care and, and doing, and, and those, the home consoles that you've seen me do on the show, those I've started doing right around then as well.

Because we, we realized that people were calling and saying, Hey, I'm about to bring my cat down because he's been, you know, peeing on my bed for the last three years and I can't take it anymore.

And, and my boss at the time allowed me to go out to the community, go out there and go to people's houses and try to stop the cats from coming in, which turned out to be a pretty easy job.

You know, people just were misinterpreting and projecting terrible things onto their cats.

And, and so, yeah, that started back then too.

So yeah, everything started with me in sheltering.

So I've been doing sheltering longer technically than I've been, you know, working as the cat guy.

I think he kind of answered the question, but I I I've always wanted to know how the guitar case thing came about from the show.

It it came and it's so funny because for the first couple of years, all these like sort of, you know, I don't know, like I was going to say Monday morning quarterbacks, but it's the cab version of people like watching TV and going that's got to be some stick that they made-up.

And it totally was.

I actually did.

The reason that I wound up using a guitar case is I was an aforementioned musician.

I had guitars in my car for the most part of the time and I got to a point where every time I go to my consults, I was carrying arm loads of crap with me.

You know, like everything from mongo as to catnip and and treats and my the laser pointers and black lights and and all types of stuff to help me in my consults.

And it was, it was the blonde itself, which I have since manufactured another one that is a lot shorter pocket size.

This one was like this long and I had nothing to carry it in.

And there was a guitar case in the back of my car.

And it's like, hell yeah, let's do that.

And it just became a thing.

I mean, it wasn't half as pretty as the one that was on the show.

I mean, that's one of the things you get when you do TV's.

You get a nice guitar case, you know I.

Didn't.

I didn't realize they gave you a pretty guitar case for the IT was.

Actually, the, the amazing thing was that right after we started making the show, the, the, the company, the guy, I can't remember the name of the company, but one of the biggest guitar makers and guitar case makers in the world happened to be a huge cat guy saw the show and was like, I'm gonna build you a guitar case of your dreams, you know, and, and he did.

He and we wound up with, like, you know, 20 of them.

Wow.

Three of which I think were confiscated by TSA at some point.

You.

Know I was gonna say, did you get to keep any of those cases?

Struggle.

You can't dip.

Yeah, no, I.

Don't know, that sounds like a story.

The TSA thing.

God.

Well, you know what?

The good thing is that over time, my secret demographic, TSA flight attendants.

They they're cat people.

So interesting.

There's hidden benefits everywhere.

I I will admit that I once told a flight attendant the reason I was on the airplane was to go to a rescue case with ASPCA and I literally from wheels up to wheels down, there was a flight attendant sitting next to me the entire flight.

Not the same one they rotated.

Pictures of the cats and.

Yes, they didn't.

They didn't give up bums.

But what I was doing, you know, in, in wherever I was going.

But they wanted to show me their their cats.

Yeah.

There have been so many times where I've been like, because I always sit in the window and the flight attendant is like leaning over the person next to me to show me the pictures, you know, and, and you know, God help the person sitting next to me if they don't like cats because they're just like 1 after the other after the other.

It's great.

It's wonderful.

I mean, I think, but that's become my life period.

I mean, I don't, I can't walk down the street now without seeing a phone full of cats.

You know, it's which I the best fringe benefit ever.

It's.

Wonderful.

Nice.

So we already know Jackson that you have 5 dogs.

Do you want to tell us your your entire animal population at home?

What you've got little bit about them?

It's a lot and, and luckily we just, we just adopted out our our last foster cat, so that's cool.

Vincent went home yesterday.

But other than that, 3 cats and five dogs and it's yeah, it's a lot.

I mean, honestly, I mean, I'm the, The funny thing was, I had never favored cats over dogs.

I was never a cat person and I never quite got that thing.

But so I've always had dogs in the house.

It's just that got a lot more now, you know, but.

Five dogs and three cats.

Wow.

Say again.

Five dogs and three I have 6 cats in a 2 bedroom apartment.

Oh, that's something.

I mean, listen, we, you know, we can topped out at one point, I think it was 10 years ago, because we had all of the ferals and semi ferals in the neighborhood were in and out of our garage.

We had a catio that was epically sized and, and we were, you know, fostering it.

So I think at one point we had 12 cats and three dogs at 1.0 and 2 chickens and.

Nice and two chickens.

Partridge in a pear tree, Yeah.

I have 3 cats and a gecko.

Does that count for anything?

I wouldn't want to be the gecko man.

No, he lives in terror.

I think he's kind of gotten used to it because I recently got a kitten this year and the other two didn't even know the gecko existed until the new kitten came around.

And they all now they kind of give him a heart attack on a daily basis.

But it's the most exercise the thing has had since I've had him for two years and he's kind of gotten used to it.

He doesn't run around anymore.

They just sit up on top of his tank and just watch him and just sit there.

So yeah.

Guys, yeah, no, I, I I think that the funniest part is that out of all of the animals, the chicken who died, our last chicken died, I don't know, a year and a half ago.

And she was the the true ruler.

Like she would watch, she was like half house chicken.

So she would walk into a room and a little 2 LB Bantam chicken, she'd walk into him and she'd just bow up like, you know, like a gang number.

She'd like bow up like that.

And dog cat, 70 LB dog right here scattered.

Everybody's just like, oh.

That's great.

Chicken balls was here chicken.

Is that is that your next book?

Jackson chicken balls?

You're a.

Best seller I'm sure.

That sounds like a children's book right there, is what it sounds like.

I know, and that's about all it would be.

Actually, so I'll say so.

Speaking of books, I just recently finished listening to the audio book of Total Cat Mojo.

So I feel like I know you very intimately now, but So what was the motivation for writing that one?

Well, how did you come up with that?

I kind of know from listening to it, but I want to can we talk about that?

A little bit Mojo, I think, was me fulfilling a promise to my, my publishing company because they took a flyer on me when the, you know, the show was in its first season when they signed me on and, and they wanted me to write that book.

Everything I know about Kat's book, but what I was writing at the time was a memoir.

And so they had to take that and they did.

That was Cat Daddy.

And so after four books, I, I really just wanted to give them what they wanted.

Plus, I, I really, I just wanted to see what it would look like to put everything I know into a book.

I would hope that.

Honestly, I wished it was be a little fatter.

It was the first time I saw it.

I was like, that's it.

Well, it was, it was chock full information.

It was, there was a lot of stuff in there that I am as I was listening to as I'm driving and I'm taking mental notes.

I'm like, OK, let's think about that at home.

And I'm just trying to because like I said, I have 3 cats and I think each of them fits one of the categories that you had.

Can you can you talk about the categories like the, the, the overall like the wallflower and the?

Categories and again, I say these things being as you know, what is it like just putting a blanket over the whole thing, folks that just try to like grasp things and not.

I'm not saying that cats only come in three flavors, but the what we look to do with the concept of cat mojo, which is the that sort of, you know, just died in the wool kind of the confidence that cats are born with.

All cats have that sense of I know what I'm here for.

I know what I do.

I know what my ancestors did.

As long as I'm doing that thing, I'm good.

You know, it's like, you know, somebody who's like, it's like one of the Peyton family when you're all of your father's were being grandfathers were quarterbacks and you're like, OK, I'm a quarterback.

That's what I'm supposed.

To be.

Because we have done so blessedly little to them over the course of our journey with them over, you know, hundreds of thousands of years.

They still have that connection to who I call the raw cat that the, the ancestral.

Like I'm here to hunt, you know, and, and catch and kill and eat and groom and sleep.

That's what I'm here for.

And so our cats, if there's a cat in our lives that is really connected to that really confident, I call them the Mojito cat.

The point was, I at the time when I came up with that name, it wasn't, it wasn't connected to the word Mojo.

It was, it was because I pictured that cat like if somebody came to your front door, they'd be standing there with a, with a tray of drinks and they'd be like, come on in and you know.

Absolutely, you should show up with the Troyo Mojitos.

You are welcome any day of the week.

Troyo Mojitos.

Exactly.

So that's the mojito cat who people come into the house, they're completely, you know, just centered and wonderful.

They come up to you, they say hi head bunks and everything like that.

The wallflower is on the other one end of the the spectrum and the wallflower is that cat, that the cat who you know, when you have guests over who have been over 10 times and they're like, wait a minute, you have 3 cats.

I had no idea.

The wallflower is the one I've never seen before.

The one who just sort of sneaks around going from under the bed to the closet.

That's the wallflower and and which that condition is sort of anti mojo.

That is like, I don't believe I own anything in the world.

I don't have the right to any territory in the world, so I'm just going to stay out of the way.

Then you have the the other side, which is the Napoleon cat.

And the Napoleon cat is the over owner, the one who just like, no matter how many times the other cats in the room say, cool, you want to take it, it's fine, it's yours.

That's like, I'm just going to do it again to make sure.

I'm just going to chase you on top of the fridge again, just to make sure.

Then we're going to chase you on top of the fridge.

I'm going to piss on the on the on the fridge door.

Just so you know who this belongs to.

That's the Napoleon.

So knowing where your cat fits in that spectrum helps you to design A life for them based on those needs and and how to remedy the anti mojo.

You know, that's that's the archetypes right there.

I, I really, I did find it fascinating.

Like I said, I have 3 cats and I and I don't know that I have, I have one that's kind of like, I think she's a hybrid.

She's a kitten.

She's barely six months old.

She's like a Napoleon, but she's not a bully.

She's just energetic.

She's just full kitten.

She's definitely the mojito cat.

She is all over the place.

I have one other.

She's an older cat.

She's probably 17.

We're not quite sure.

She just doesn't give a crap about anybody anymore, and she kind of just sits off to herself.

She's in the room.

She's not really a wallflower.

She's just over it.

You know more.

Like those?

Like you kids?

Yes, exactly.

You're rock'n'roll music, you know?

That's exactly it.

Get off my lawn, you know that.

And then I have a little another kitten that I got last year.

They're all three rescues and the one from last year is 1000% the wallflower cat.

So I've been trying to implement, I admit that I have not been as good at playing on a daily basis with them, especially the kitten.

I play with her, but it hasn't been as routine as you suggest in your book about that.

It should it needs to be every day.

It needs to be like a solid 15 minutes, 1015 minutes at least every day.

And then the way that you play and all these other things.

So I was really I'm really like focusing on that.

And I did you meet I have seen actually a difference already.

So I play with the the the mojito cat.

She's the kitten, the baby who needs the most play out of everybody.

So I.

Really focus on her and the other two just kind of watch The old lady just sits on, sits on the table and she just stares and she's like, OK, that's fun.

You, you kids have your fun.

And the, the other one, the wallflower one has just been like mostly sitting off to the side and just kind of watching and seeing what's going on.

But I took the, the note that you had in the book about how even when they're just watching, they're still activating their brains.

They're still, you know, using strategy and trying to figure out how they're.

So I, I'm paying attention to that.

And then I was actually able to, when I was kind of in the middle of playing with the kitten, I had, you know, the thing on the stick, it's got like 3 tentacles that come off of it.

So I'm, so I'm using that and I just like put it over near the, the, the wallflower.

I didn't throw it at her.

I wasn't aggressive.

I just gently kind of put it in front of her and like wiggled it around the floor.

And she was watching this thing like crazy.

She was so into it.

And then eventually she did actually reach out and start playing with it and start grabbing it.

And then she blankly stick out of my hand.

Yeah, she yanked, and I was like, all right, well, I guess that's over.

I mean, but you know what it's it's one of the working with wallflowers is one of the most satisfying things in the world because that moment that happens when they do the swat finally, you know, the best thing in the world is a is a wallflower who, well, they're playing, even if they are playing, they're up against the wall, you know, But the day that you get that cat to follow the toy into the middle of the room, yeah, you know, grab that toy and you can see the change in their body instantly, instantly the minute they are because the, you know, the theory being where I kill, I own, you know, that is a spot where now I own something.

And when they own something in the smack middle of the room, you see that thing going, I got it.

And then it's like, mm, hmm, I'm here, you know, and yeah, it's one of the beauties of playing with your cats.

Although I got this, I have learned something.

And I think this is just me mellowing out in my old age, but that I, I think I've been really hard on people for way too long.

I think I've, I've, I've demanded stuff from people so that when they when they meet me, half the time they're apologetic.

You're like, listen, I know and I think the expectation on the world that you have to do this and you have to do it this time and whatever puts everybody in a no woman situation because it's not possible.

You know, I mean, I think I tried to do that because nobody was ever playing with their cats and it pissed me off, you know, So it, it, the line that I would always give people is if you've got a dog, you've got a collar and a leash, because everybody knows you got to take your dog for a walk because that's how they explore the world.

That's how they get their coffee.

Everybody knows that cats, you have a toy, you have a toy with a feather and a wand or whatever, at least have that or a cat dancer or something like that cat charmer where it's like a wire and a piece of cardboard.

I don't care, but it shouldn't be seen as a as a an option.

It's it's something that that gives them what they need as much as our dogs need walks.

So I guess I was trying to just really hammer that home and I might have over hammered.

I'm just admitting I.

I will tell you, Jackson, that shortly after we adopted 14 years ago, our blind from birth girl and I tossed a toy for her.

Even though she couldn't see it, she circled into it and I was stunned that she had that instinctive hunting technique built in, even though she, you know, could only hear the toy but.

Amazing because it's so important for her that like on the spot she did, she discovers what echolocation is because it's that important.

You know, I mean, it's it's it's so it is my and this is something we could talk about for four days.

I think Stephen, you and I started to, but the fact that we don't value the raw cat in cats anymore is something that's like, if I do anything for the rest of my time around cats, that might be it is to try to get us to, to appreciate the cats who are still out there doing their jobs.

Because the rest of the world seems to have forgotten that these cats have helped get us where we are.

And now they have their usefulness, you know, and now we just sort of, you know, they're pests or they're, you know, people get all pissed off because cats are walking around and leaving paw prints on their cars and whatever.

And, and the, the loss of the wild cat is something that I think we shouldn't be mourning when it's gone, You know, it's, it's something that I think we should fight for.

And that, to me, is fighting for the rights of community cats because that's where those guys are, you know?

And the more we fight for those guys, the more we ensure that, you know, the raw cat lives on.

I'm done.

And that actually brings me to a, a, a, what I think is an important topic and, and one that was eye opening for me.

Jackson and I, as you guys know, spoke at the Ultimate Cat conference a number of weeks ago and Jackson spoke before me.

And you start talking, Jackson, about this concept involving trauma in I'm not going to give it away.

I'm just setting you up, OK?

You start talking about trauma in shelter contexts.

And without kind of further ado, I want to turn it over to you to kind of bring that really interesting idea and the example that you gave to our listeners today, right?

The the faux adopt or the faux return with the role-playing and all of that.

You know, it's so important that, you know, when I we hit the stage at at the conference, I was going to be talking about a whole other thing.

But I think we we, you know, when I was talking to people backstage and I had touched base with a couple of the speakers and it just felt like, oh, I can just let go.

So I kind of let go.

I felt a little bit after because there was a lot of like I looked up at one point and there was like a big part of the crowd that was like this, like I was starting to scare them a little bit.

But I mean, what I was talking about at the time was we had just finished in like an 18 month program where we were touring the country and teaching Cat Mojo and teaching all about cats and shelters and how to make the experience different from everything from, you know, environmental enrichment to behavioral enrichment, to bettering their foster programs, to growing their foster programs, to bettering their TNR programs, to actually putting out marketing that was cat centric.

So the shelter themselves looks like cat experts.

All that we did 18 months of that, it was really a wonderful thing.

And but it started to get really frustrating because we started to come up against the same sort of baked in biases from shelter to shelter that, and I'm going to say all of them because God knows we met a lot of people.

But it was frustrating to know that that there were still policies in place that were ridiculous, that were based on fallacies or were that were, that showed a distinct lack of trust in their community.

Distinct lack of trust.

In fact, one of the things that we know during the, the teaching of of those classes, we would do this one class which was not even, it was an exploration.

It was, it was like we just had a starting point.

And then we were just leading the students through an exercise about their mindset and about the the mindset of the rescue and, and animal welfare community.

And almost all the time we would get to a place where in reference to the public, we would hear everyone lies and that that was baked in.

And when you think about the fact that, you know, with the pandemic and after the pandemic, we saw a massive turnover in in staffing at shelters, A lot of people who have been around a long time left.

I mean, really just got to the point where the just the experience of sheltering during the pandemic was just too much.

And the fact that we went as far backwards as we did and, and there's a lot of young people now in sheltering, but yet they still have these biases that seem to came out of nowhere.

So I, I kind of linked it to a concept that I call trauma policy.

Trauma policy is a policy that you've taken on at your organization born from trauma that you have had.

So the example that I think I was using when I was I think I'm not sure but it.

Was the the intake example and the person had that outdoor cat or the cat who got outside?

Yeah.

And so we were going through, we were doing a bunch of role-playing and so we were doing like, you know, mock intake and, and seeing how if I threw you a curveball, if I was surrendering a cat and I said a certain thing, would, what would you say if we were doing that during adoption?

Same thing.

And we were.

So we, I have come up with this sort of an imaginary cat.

And, and I think I had said something about I was trying to give them a cat who, when they asked me the question, was he indoors or outdoors?

I said he was both in and out and one of the people in the room raises their hands and they say, well, I mean, we wouldn't take that cat anyway.

I mean, any cat that has even stepped foot outside is not coming into this organization.

We're not going to adopt them out.

And it stopped me and my, my, my, my, my Co worker in in our tracks.

I said, what the hell do you mean you would never take a cat who's ever been in the in the outside?

She goes, well, here's what happened.

We had this cat at my organization had him for a long time.

He was, you know, everybody's favorite and and you know, he had come from the outside.

He he was a stray.

He was tipped when he was ear tipped when he came to us.

And but because we knew he had been outside and he could be a bit of an escape artist, we, I made sure to say whoever adopts him can never have him outdoors, can't do it, you know, and you know, we did the adoption.

I felt great about it.

There were no red flags whatsoever.

2 weeks later, animal control finds a cat on the side of the road dead.

Microchip traced him back to us.

It was that cat.

And I learned my lesson.

And the lesson was never even intake a cat who's been on the outside because then they're going to want to get back out again.

And when I think about how terrible I felt being the person who adopted that cat out what, what part did I play in the death of that cat?

This is the thinking, what can I beat myself up about, about the death of this cat?

And she discovered, because I, I, I shouldn't know from that day forward, that organization, which was not a small one, by the way, would never intake a cat from the public who had lived one day outside.

The, the cool part about this is that it took this person saying it, uncovering the PTSD element of it.

And she broke open like an egg in terms of the recognition of, Oh my God, what have I been doing?

You know, and, and could see why she had to change her policy because it made no sense.

And you know, we we were on to teaching a whole other generation of shelter workers about never adopting out a cat whoever set foot outside.

So it the the good news in that is, yes, we passed down some toxic shit from one generation of sheltering to the next.

We also passed down amazing things as well.

So please don't, you know, get me wrong, but these things that are outdated or toxic or just plain, you know, silly not to, you know, be glib about somebody else's trauma, but it, it will lead to more animals dying, you know, and, and we, we do owe it to ourselves and to our community to, to, to self check ourselves as organizations.

So my, I think the way I ended this whole thing was if you are running, whether it's a small rescue, whether it is just a shelter to adopt, I mean, a foster to adopt network or a brick and mortar shelter, Cat Cafe, whatever it is, every single thing that you do needs to be a choice.

If you inherited something, ask why.

That's what we owe ourselves is, is every decision that we make, we ask why are we doing the thing right now?

That is, you know, best practices as opposed to, you know, and I think another example that I said Stephen was A and this always stops people in their tracks because I do know people are still doing this.

But it's the the fact that so many shelters pull their black hats during Halloween and will not allow cats to be adopted during Halloween, which was proven to be a fallacy years ago, years ago.

And then, you know, back in Boulder, we pulled the Black Cats then we were, we were told no, because, you know, these satanic rituals, they'll use white cats too.

So then we pulled the white cats too.

Then we're pulling white cats and Black Cats and black and white cats and Oreo cats and moo cats and everyone being pulled.

And it was the silliest thing ever because it never existed.

The same thing goes for, you know, we got to work extra hard and do these like, you know, home visits and, and, and landlord checks.

And because, you know, Class B dealers will come in here and round up A and, and make them into, you know, lab cats.

Silliness.

It's silliness.

It's not, it doesn't happen.

What, what Class B dealer would bother to go into a shelter and pay, even if it's 20 bucks for a cat, scoop them off the street?

It's just, it's, it's, it all goes back to everybody lies.

It all comes back to that.

We don't trust our communities.

And I think it's really worth everybody doing those exercises of going do we do we trust our community?

Do we actually want to be an ally in this community?

You know, and there are amazing, amazing, amazing individuals and groups working right now.

And it makes me so happy about what the future of sheltering is because I don't want to sound like a grumpy old man.

I really don't.

But because I really do believe that we have a lot to be thankful for right now.

But that was man, that was a long story.

But.

But a good one.

And and I just want to thank you.

And you know, you also made the point that you felt that every shelter has some policy in place that comes from someone's trauma.

And when you said that at the conference, it was just, it just hit me.

It was really big.

So thank you for sharing all of that.

It's impossible, Steven.

It's impossible to to work welfare as long as we have and not carry around trauma.

It's impossible.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's, it's often times people will say, you know, they'll to people that work in shelters or rescues.

Oh my gosh, that must be a dream job.

And I imagine in some ways it is a dream job, but then in other ways it is it's it's traumatic.

It's devastating on a daily basis.

You know, when when you can't save an animal or unfortunately, an animal has to be put down or there's, you know, people adopt, but then they have to return for one reason or another.

It's got to be heartbreaking on on a daily basis.

And then to see all the animals that you can't rescue that you just, you know, you just you don't have the bandwidth to rescue.

It's it's.

Right.

I mean, I think that one of the things that and This is why I still love doing the work in my say the work.

I mean, you know, when I go to a shelter, I'm doing half cat work, half human work, and I love the human part of it because people who do what we do do it because they love the animals, you know, And somewhere along the line that that phrase that we hear, oh, I love animals, I hate people, but I love animals starts to make its way through the rank, you know, but but The thing is, I mean, that's what leads to, you know, you can't trust anybody.

But I do think that there is things that we're learning right now that are so, you know, eye opening and, and as long as we keep our ear to the ground about what is best practices.

And, and also I, the other thing I try to tell people is, look, if you use me as an example, I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't have a job, I wouldn't have had a career and been on TV and all that stuff if I didn't go to my boss at the shelter that day.

And I, and I, and I said to her, listen, people are calling, can I just go out to their house?

And this is on her dime.

And she goes, yeah, we're killing cats here.

Yeah, go do it.

What if she said no, no, we need to hear you get.

I wouldn't have had a job.

I wouldn't have.

We have to reward out-of-the-box thinking.

We have to reward thinking that's based in in entrepreneurial thinking.

You know, we got to think more like a business.

And that's how we, you know, lots of fun stuff.

I mean, I'd love talking about it, but.

But I think it is very important to start by acknowledging that there's no way that you could do this without holding onto a lot of trauma, you know?

So.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're, we, we're in New York.

We are all in New York where the trauma, the drama of the rescue community is, is something we've talked about dedicating an episode to at some point is just trying to, like you said, crack the egg open of of the trauma and just what everyone has experienced and how that dictates how they proceed with cat rescue.

Side note, I have, I do prefer cats to people.

I have, I, I've had cats for 25 years.

I cannot tell you how many dates I've canceled because I'd rather spend time home with my cats.

But anyway, and I'm proud, I am proud of that fun fact, I'm I'm the origin story person.

I'm the I'm the big picture question person on the show.

How did my cat from hell come about?

I had just moved to LA, this is back in, I think O 7 and I had moved here and I just was doing my thing.

I was, you know, making as many inroads as I could try to get jobs, going to people's houses and working with their cats, teaching and classes or whatever.

And I don't know, it was maybe a month after I moved here and I was with a friend who, I mean, everybody in their, you know, sister-in-law works in the industry here.

So there's always eyes on you somewhere.

And I was in LA at a PetSmart, I think, and talking to the adoption group who was there.

And I started getting kind of animated the way I am now.

But I was like moving around and demonstrating things and whatever.

And then this little crowd formed around us as we were doing it.

And then the friend I was with was like, you know, I always think of like Fred Flintstone when he had like the, the gambling addiction.

And all of a sudden he'd be like, you know, bet, bet, bet, you know, like this is that's very much the TV we have ATV show here.

And I never, I realize now how lucky I was.

I didn't really do much and kept getting introduced to other people.

And within six months we had a deal and I never, I literally like now knowing how hard people have to work to get things off the ground.

I, I realized how intensely lucky I was.

But that said, Animal Planet gave us 3 episodes to, you know, sink or swim.

And so I had to like, call in every cat person, you know, using the old Dixie cup and a string method, you know, like getting in touch with everybody to try to get us a second season, which we got.

But yeah, no, it was, it was.

I was very lucky.

What year was that, Jackson?

When did it first air?

I believe the first episode was in 11 I'm pretty sure.

OK.

Because it I think Cat Daddy came out in 12, so that makes sense.

That's about when it would have been.

Yeah, I do.

I feel like too.

It also satisfied A niche like what you were talking about earlier that there was no real, you know, not not significant amounts anyway, but no real information out there for cat owners.

There's very little, I mean so much about dogs for decades, generations even about dogs and and so little about cats that I think your your show came along at the right time for that.

Well, here's the thing.

It's funny because network wise they assumed that nobody wanted it, you know, because it happened yet, you know, and we even the first two seasons we couldn't find sponsors.

I think the only one we had the first season was like Swiffer I.

Can't remember that have anything to do with.

It but like it was so interesting to which is why they picked the name my cat from hell.

Nothing to do with that one.

I almost dropped dead the day they told me that's what it was going to be.

But they said we wanted so that people who actually don't give a RIP about cats or who actually don't like them, we'll still be flicking around the channels and go, oh, I got to watch a show like that, you know, whatever the name is, I got to watch that.

And it absolutely actually worked, you know?

What would you, what would you have called it if you if it was up to you?

Oh.

I was just going to call it Cat Daddy, just that it was going to be called Cat Daddy and it was.

And we had come up with, I mean, as long as I stayed away from Cat Whisperer and something like my cat from hell, I was fine.

I didn't have my bar was pretty low.

I just, I mean, I swear to you when they said the name I, I started to hyperventilate, you know, I was like, Oh my God, my, my shelter pass is going to be completely revoked my life, you know, but we are a forgiving lot, so that's good.

Yeah, I mean, I, I, I was drawn to your vibe with the cats.

I was.

I was drawn to the guitar case.

I play drums twice.

I could do funk 49.

That's about as good as I could do for drums.

I was played that for like 10 minutes with with my landlord.

I was drawn to your vibe.

I was drawn to just your the kind of cool, chill vibe you had with the cats.

I mean, there were many times I would look at the owners and I would want to throw the remote at the TV, you know, like how do you not know this?

You know, there was a lot of that from me personally from having cats, but just the way you kind of you kind of guided them with your with your cool nature is what definitely drew me to the show.

Whatever, whatever the name would have been, you know, the draw was you for me.

Well.

Good.

Thank you.

I mean, it, it was it, it worked to a certain degree, you know, I mean, it's funny how like, it's still reality TV.

So they're not happy unless I bled or, you know, unless something happened that they could be.

But I think the, the beautiful part of it was that it was clear to everybody watching the show within 5 minutes of watching the show that this had nothing to do with the cat, you know, always, you know, and, and it was so funny the other day.

I don't watch the show, period.

I don't, I, I was there, I was there a producer on the show.

I watched every episode probably 40 times before it ever aired.

I never want to see it again.

And a person I met started recounting this one episode that was, you would watch it now and you'd go, you guys totally staged that.

There's no way.

And the funny part was this woman and her daughter.

It was a, a woman and her daughter and the woman had two little Chihuahuas and daughter had a cat.

And I remember walking out three times the first day because I thought that my producers were playing like were punking me that they were playing a trick on me because it was so crazy.

She was so nuts.

And I and I was like, I no, this is not real.

This is not happening.

I'm leaving.

And it wasn't until like the the the woman actually and trying to convince me allowed me to talk to her therapist.

Oh wow, therapy.

For like 10 minutes and I'll say it's real.

Wow.

But wow, it was, there was a lot of, I mean, yeah, there was a lot of crazy, but I, I, it was a great time, but ten years of it was plenty.

So no, no more other shows?

Would you do another show?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I've been developing a few different things that.

The good thing is that for a while anyway, YouTube was so much more of a liberating thing, something that I had control over, something where, you know, I don't have to fight with anybody about it.

It's just mine and our viewing public and YouTube run circles around TV.

But I do miss the the ability to tell cinematic stories.

And, you know, stuff's not cheap.

You know, making those stories is not cheap.

And so, yeah, no, I would.

If the right thing came along, I'd absolutely do it again.

Awesome.

Well, we, we, we look forward to that.

Me.

Too.

So Jackson, do you want to talk about any of the products that you sell?

I recently came across one that piqued my interest.

It was the the bowls that you have designed that are a little slanted that are meant to ease whisker fatigue.

And I had never heard of whisker fatigue before.

So, So what is that like?

How first of all, how do we recognize what that is?

And then how did you come up with the product?

I mean, whisker fatigue is, is, you know, and again, once you start thinking about every muscle, hair, whisker, everything on a cat's body serving a purpose in terms of their their one raison d'etre, you know, to be able to hunt or surveil or kill or be killed, you know, and whiskers do everything from tell you, OK, this space is too tight.

I can't fit here.

They're so sensitive that they actually can tell you the temperature and the barometric pressure.

They are incredible.

They're like another set of fingers, eyes, the whole thing.

So when a cat is putting their face in a bowl, it is our that their anatomy is telling us that it's an unnatural way to eat because their screws hit and sort of fold back.

Now, for the most part, cats get over it.

You know, they'll do what they got to do to eat, but why make them do that?

And I think that that was the point behind the, the manufacturing of that bowl was why make them do something if they don't have to do it, you know?

And so, yeah, that's, that's the that bowl itself.

I mean, I make, I was lucky enough after a couple of years, I, I partnered with Petmate huge company and we released my line of products and they were great partners.

They, they allowed me to, to pursue patents that I wanted to have for years and years.

And, and we sold a lot of product and then I was able to take over once our deal expired.

Then I took over the patents and now I manufacture them.

And I think that there are certain things that I make that that I'm proud of.

You know, I keep wanting to make them better.

Like, you know, my gotcha Wanda is something that I think that I've gotten everybody should have.

It's, you know, the Wanda I was telling you about that becomes pocket size.

So you never have an excuse not to play with your cat because they can always be hanging in your pocket.

You don't have to have a guitar case or anything.

You're you're.

But we also make a variety of different beds.

We make probiotic for cats, vitamin B12 supplement that I love.

The whole thing got built on, You know, the one thing that floated the boat for years and years was we, when I first left the shelter, I, I partnered with a holistic veterinarian and we partnered on a consulting company and also on this line of flour essence remedies for cats, like Bock flower remedies, but for cats.

And we wound up coming up with 20, I think different variations of, of these remedies for different situations for cats to sort of back to, you know, energy clearing for cats, as woo as that sound.

It's worked for what now?

We just celebrated our 25th year and wow, those are the the things that have really just loaded the boat for all these years and people still use them.

And it's no wonder like our best selling 1 is called Bully Remedy.

So I know that there's a lot of Napoleons out there.

And as long as there's a Napoleon, there will be selling something.

But yeah, everything from, and we have a whole lot of other stuff that's in the, in the, the, what's it called, you know, on the runway that's gonna be coming out in the next year or two.

That's exciting.

Nice.

Nobody else does it.

That's the thing, you know, I mean, we should revolt.

You go into like, Target and you're still looking at half an aisle of terrible cat stuff, miles and aisles of dog stuff.

You take away the litter and the food, You got nothing.

You know nothing.

It's true.

Every time I go into a pet store, I have that dilemma and I stand in front of the the toy like I'd like to get new toys every once in a while and I stand in front of the toys.

I'm like, well, I have that one already.

They don't like it.

I have that one.

They don't like it.

I have that one.

They don't like it you.

Go home and you like, you know, put some stuff in the paper roll.

I mean, we, we've been doing stuff like that for for years and years.

The one thing that's blessedly changing because there's so many more cats in adoptive homes now than there were before.

And one of the great things is the, the largest spike in guardianship over the past couple years has been Gen.

Z men.

So that means that like, you know, from I, I, I, they just spend money and which is great, you know, so it just means that we have more of a market out there.

And so hopefully these toys and, and, you know, better food, better treats will, will get a, a better audience.

But everyone knows now cat people spend money.

You know, I think that the industry in general was like, the only reason a cat person's going to leave their house is for food or litter.

You know, they don't spend money, they don't leave their basement, They don't come a long way.

I'm.

I'm going to shift gears slightly as one behavior consultant to another.

Ask a two-part question, one of which is do you have guiding principles that you like to apply to common behavior challenges and cats and, and Part 2 of that question is do you have any favorite cat behavior questions that you would like to share with us?

I mean, in terms of my approach, I think that anybody who has seen me on TV or whatever, that's the approach.

I mean, I go into every situation now, assuming I'm going into a home and not to a shelter, but in a home.

I'm looking, I'm a I'm a family systems therapist.

That's what I am.

I mean, I just happen to work with the four legged and the two legged at the same time.

And you I just what the one thing I never liked thinking about things in terms of like, oh, I'm a, you know, whisper.

I'm a whatever.

I think the older I get, the more I realize that I, I do have this sort of thing in terms of insight into, you know, body language.

And I don't communicate with them the way you might think about it.

Like the, you know, Fluffy wants a bigger litter box.

She told me, you know, type of thing.

It's more I can feel, and I think this is more of an empath thing than anything else.

I can just feel disease.

I can feel anxiety in, in, in body language.

And so from there, looking at the system itself and then watching the cat move through their territory, I know where to start.

I in terms of my favorite thing, I, the thing that gives me hope is when people ask me to help them because they just want to make their cat's life better and they can tell that they're not having their best life and that's it.

That's not because the thing about cats from the human perspective, you know, I mean, there's a long story, but like we didn't Co evolve with cats.

We didn't have that.

We don't have the same journey with them as we did with dogs.

So their behavior, their modes of expression outside of things like a meow, which they've fashioned for human consumption, is completely foreign to us.

It's not they, they've never used any of those skills in order to work with us, you know, in order to do something so that we live together.

They they never had to do that before.

But to that end, we project like crazy all over our cast.

They'll just, they're giving you a blank look and you're like, you know what, what did I do?

You know, I mean, I, I put a roof over your head and I feed you and I and I even cuddle with you and you get your stinky butt on my face and I don't care.

And then you look at me like that.

Like there's this whole like story that gets built from this thing that I can't tell you how many times I've seen cats lose their homes over this.

You know, I've seen cats break up marriages.

I've seen, and I mean for real break up marriages.

Like there's what power they hold that is built on misinformation.

And so I'd rather somebody come to me and say I can tell something with Sparky's not right.

What do I do as opposed to he's shitting my shoe again.

If he does it one more time, he's out of here.

Like if there's that, like if my shoe, you did something here, you're out.

You know, I think I was telling the story maybe at the thing we were doing where the one episode of the show was convincing this woman who the cat was adopted by a guy and his ex-wife.

They broke up, he kept the cat.

He has a new girlfriend.

Girlfriend moves in and the cat had started throwing up and the cat was throwing up on her side of the bed.

So she was convinced that it was.

I had to actually say to her with like, a straight face, you know, there's no such thing as revenge puke.

There's just not a thing, you know, And that that is how crazy we can get around our cats.

So, yeah, if, I mean, if it could be somebody who's just like, you know, I don't.

If I were him and I was sleeping on the fridge all the time, I would think it would be because I wasn't happy.

Is that right, Jackson?

Break up the confetti.

We have something we can work with, you know.

We literally had a cat surrendered recently at the shelter where I work.

Very, very sweet cat who was aggressive with the people when she had newborn kittens in their home.

And so right she was having maternal aggression.

And then the people said he then tried to apologize to me.

I'm like, cats don't apologize, you know?

And now we've got this.

That should be a T-shirt right there, man.

Right, cats don't apologize.

I'm wondering how exactly that happened.

Like did did the cat bring them flowers?

Did it chocolates?

Don't know.

I do not know.

Yeah.

Brought a gift like a dead.

That's amazing.

I'm going to disagree with you all.

My my Tucker has almost apologized to me because he puked in the bed accidentally and I had to Oh well, pretty much buy a new comforter.

And I could tell you he was extra sweet for the next week.

I think he knew I should have tried to make it to the floor or the rug or at least the chair, but he didn't and somehow, you know, it got all over the bed.

I could tell you he was extra attentive for the next week.

You 2 behaviorist.

I'm sure I'm projecting my my own.

We're both sitting here either shaking her head, not shaking her head, or coming up with a line that we could feed to.

Yeah.

I'm sure he was.

More than I'd like to try my hand at that.

I feel like maybe the cat just wasn't feeling well and he just needed more love and he, the cat, needed more attention from you.

It wasn't about you, it's about what he needed.

That's what I said.

Sorry again, the show to shut her up.

As I said, could you imagine a world in which the cat really likes you and he's not feeling well, So he comes to your side because your smell is something that's giving him a little bit of comfort and he just happens to throw up there and to watch like the look and her face change over, you know, I mean, look, it's, I'm not saying that, that, that the world is, is free of, of anthropomorphization and that some of it works.

But unless we, and this is, I guess, you know, to go all the way back to your question, Michelle, about why I wrote Total Cat Mojo, that's the reason.

Read the book, not saying that I'm the be all end all, but start here and at least you're equipped with enough language that you can then start saying this is what my cat is doing, feeling this is what they're trying to get across.

But you have to go over to their side of the commutative fence to get that information.

And that's the least we could do for them is, is make that sacrifice and go over to their end.

Learn their language.

You know, it's like you start dating somebody from, you know, Uzbekistan and you are going to learn the language.

If you really want to be together, it's the same kind of thing.

Yeah, Jackson, we could talk to you for hours and hours.

If you want to be a Co, if you want to be a Co host, you're more than welcome to come back anytime you want one, one last one last.

You, the animals, they're all welcome to join us anytime.

We want to hit some big topics coming up.

Can you talk about your foundation as a last kind of question?

Well, I am after what I was talking about before.

I was working with greater good charities for for a number of years with something called the Jackson Galaxy Project.

We put that one to bed about a year ago.

And I am, I am launching a new nonprofit, God help me.

And some days I can't quite figure out why I'm doing this again, but there's good stuff coming.

It's just I haven't announced yet.

But when I do announce it, you guys will be among the first to know.

Amazing.

I can't wait to hear about it.

Jack Jackson Galaxy, This has been the honor of a lifetime to be able to have you on our humble little podcast about cats.

We were all nervous.

I know I was more nervous than I'd probably ever been.

And we almost had Tony Todd on the show before he unfortunately passed away because he was a big cat fan.

But I was I am more nervous than I was talking, trying to try to work with his schedule, with his let with his movies.

Jackson, thank you so much for being on the show.

We'll have your socials, you know, in our in our podcast description.

I mean, if you don't know how to find Jackson Galaxy on the web and on YouTube, I mean, come on.

But we'll have your links in the podcast description.

Jackson, thank you for making our Season 4 debut.

Fabulous and amazing.

Thank you so much for your time.

Before you guys, congratulations.

I will see you all in the next episode, bye for now.

Jackson.

I used to hate cats.

Used to be dogs