Mikel Delgado - The Big Problem? They Don't Understand Cats - S2 E11

Hi, I'm Barbara O'Brien. I'm an animal trainer and photographer, and I'd like to welcome you to the Empathetic Trainer. This is Barbara O'Brien and you're listening to the Empathetic Trainer podcast. Today's guest is Michael Muriel Delgado. She's a certified applied animal behaviorist and certified cat behavior consultant. She co-founded a cat consulting business called Feline Mines and her new book, play With your Cat, is available March 5, 2024. She also has a blog called what your Cat Wants, and she lives with three rescue cats named Coriander, ruby and Professor Scribbles. So we're pretty excited to have you here, michael, and I love the names of your cats.

Thank you.

I think we should start out with Professor Scribbles, because we need to know how did you get his name.

Well, actually Professor Scribbles is a she, so all of my cats are sisters and you know it's kind of funny. I had a client, a cat behavior client, who had a cat named Scribble and I just loved the name. And after I met with that client I talked to my boyfriend and I was like what do you think about the cat named Scribble? And he's like I love it. And so we just always had it in the back of our head. We had two cats at the time and we had it in the back of our head that when we had a future cat there would be a cat named Scribble or some variation of Scribble. And we kind of settled on.

I like cats to have a job. So my cat, coriander she's actually a Supreme Court justice, so her full name is justice coriander moonbeam and Ruby is a train conductor, so that's her job. And then Scribbles I think part of it was also because I got a PhD but did not get a job as a professor. So I thought someone in the house should be a professor. So Scribbles got the job of being the professor in the house A little vicarious.

That's how they got their jobs.

Yeah, exactly, it was like my failed career turned into a job for her, but her PhD is in Scribbling so it's not very useful.

Well, for a cat, though, it's pretty impressive, I think, naming cats. I mean, just to get on the subject of naming cats, I think it's really important and you may agree, that we give them names that we have affection for. So, like with all my cats over the years and I have a, I like we have cats and so they've had the girls have had glamour names, like Evelyn and Marilyn, and, you know, Louisa, beautiful 1930s, 40s actresses, you know, and for some reason, the boy cats, especially years ago, and my, my children were young. They're a lot of the house, but whatever they were studying in history, that's what the cats were named, you know. So we had a Churchill and we had a Roosevelt and we had, you know, some, and when John Adams was out, that was popular, we had, you know, some cats named for that. Eliza, you know that's fun, yeah, things like that. So, but having things you'd like that you feel good, saying that, you feel good about us, they're saying dumb cat, you know, or something.

Well, yeah, when I used to work in an animal shelter, I do remember, so part of my job was I worked in a private shelter and every day we would go to the public shelter, which was San Francisco Animal Care and Control, and pull cats from that shelter to be put up for adoption. And I do. I'll never forget this one cat. Her name was PETA, which I believe was short for pain in the ass, and yeah.

I do a dog name that was it kind of broke my heart a little bit, like you know. I just I do. I agree with you that you know these are names, their terms of endearment, and of course most of us have like 1000 nicknames for our cats that we use anyway.

But I feel like you should give your cats a you know acute name or a cool name, something that that respects them and doesn't cause derision, or even you know problems for like your veterinarian to call their name in the lobby right when you're at the clinic. So I didn't even thought of that. I do find it funny, though, when, when people give their cats very human names, like kind of cats named well, my friend, her cat's name is Josh, and I find that to be a very funny name. But given that you mentioned that you've given your cats some some names after, after people, I tend to lean towards the more like I don't know cutesy, I guess. Like are Professor Scribbles, right, it's kind of silly.

But no, I think that's wonderful because, like we have George, what his name is, king George, you know so good. Yeah, so they're always. They're always like that. But I think we're on the same path, same mindset, that they should have some, some good feeling when we say the name.

I mean, I think the same is true when we talk about animals in general.

Right, Like words matter this was again something that came up all the time in the animal shelter is we were writing plans for specific animals whether it was veterinary and writing notes or us writing behavior notes about the cat that we didn't use terms like mean or jerk when we were talking about the animals, even if they were maybe not what we would consider friendly, right.

So it was always really important, rather than using labels to describe the behaviors that we're observing so this cat is hiding, this cat may bite or scratch if you approach too quickly instead of saying this cat is a jerk because those labels do color how we work with that animal or how we perceive them, or even you know how we perceive their behavior. When I work with clients, it is something that I really have to get them to describe the problem in terms that are really about the behavior and not their interpretation of the behavior or their emotional response to the behavior, because it really does make it more difficult to, I think, understand the pet's perspective if you're just seeing them as a jerk or as jealous or trying to get with that Right.

No, in the horse world there is a shift in the horse world, and I think the dog world too, to do the same sort of things, because they'd be like, oh, this horse doesn't respect me or he's stubborn, or he's bad, or he's being a jerk, and that colors, like you said, our perception, and then from what I've learned from some other guests we've had that are work with energies or talk about energies it gives their. Your energy is in your words. Like you said, words have meaning and that meaning is our energy, like when we say the words, how we feel about it, and the animals can feel that right.

Yes, yeah, and I don't know why humans need respect so much from everyone that we deal with. I don't need my cats to respect me. I need my cats to be happy. It's more about the horse thing.

but yeah, for sure, but I hear it all, oh no, I hear it all the time from cat owners too. Yes, dog owners, cat owners. There is really this idea that if we're in charge, if we're the parent or the boss, that somehow our pets should respect us, and I find that very strange. That's not the mindset I have about animals and or even human relationships, I guess. Oh right, yeah. Yeah, that's not my go to, but humans do tend to be a little obsessed with hierarchies and who's in charge.

Oh, that's true. That's true, yes, well, there we go. We've got the cat naming thing done. Give your cat a good name Fair enough, all right.

Please, okay. Well, michael, I'm really curious. How did did you know you were going to grow up and be a cat lady in this sense, where you were able to help other cat people? I mean, what was your path? Because I knew I was going to live on a farm and have animals. I just didn't know I was going to be an animal actor, trainer and a photographer. I just knew it was going to be something with animals. I just got real lucky. How did it? How did it start for you? How did you? What was the beginning of all this?

Yeah, I mean I wish I could say that I was one of those people that had a clear path from childhood, but I definitely did not. I have always loved cats and had cats, or family members have had cats throughout my life, but definitely was not one of those people who thought, oh, I'm going to be a veterinarian or I'm going to work in a zoo or anything like that. I mean I was pretty aimless as a kid and then I got into punk rock and actually, you know, like I said, had cats, but they were my companions and not my career. And I actually dropped out of college when I was 21 because I wanted to move to California and be in a punk band, and that's basically what I did.

Were you from originally, then if you moved to California yeah, I grew up in Maine oh, that is, you moved like as far as you could possibly go one ocean to another? Yes, and you're pretty young, pretty young, at this point.

I was young yeah, I was 21. So I mean, I moved out of my mom's house when I was 17. So I was kind of an early you know. This was back when you could actually afford to leave your parents home, when you were young and I was pretty independent kid. So I yeah I California was where I wanted to be. I wanted to live in the Bay Area. There was a really thriving punk scene and a lot of political activism that I wanted to be a part of. So I moved to California. I started working at a natural foods cooperative, which was a non hierarchical. Non hierarchical work structure. There were no managers, it was all democratically run and that was definitely a really formative place to work for a long period of time. And during that time I was also volunteering in some collectively run punk spaces and started a band.

And it wasn't until one of my cats passed away that that was kind of the where my life headed in a different direction. And that was because I still had another cat, so that my cat who passed away his name was Kiddoms, and I still had a cat named Jesus. He was a great little cat. But when Kiddoms passed away, a friend of mine had recently started volunteering at the local animal shelter and my friend Casey, and he was like you know, I think it would really help you get through your grief to volunteer at the shelter. So he wanted me to hang out at the shelter with him because he was having fun and I was like, yeah, that sounds great.

So I started volunteering at the animal shelter this was the San Francisco SPCA and pretty much as soon as I got there I noticed that they had this special ward of cats that were off limits to most volunteers and it was their behavior ward and these were cats who needed special, basically, support to cope with the stress of being in a shelter. They needed specially trained volunteers and I was like, oh, I want to work with those cats, how do I get to do that? And so I started volunteering in their behavior program, and so this was pretty amazing at the time because this was in 2000. So we're talking almost 24 years ago. Yeah, that the shelter had a whole department devoted to cat behavior, yeah, we stopped.

We stopped you right there because most shelters you know, I mean a lot of shelters, especially back then okay, out of necessity, if a cat was difficult, that was the end of the cat. Sure, I mean, you know it had to be at that time. I think it's getting better but, yeah, right, so that was a way ahead of its time where they were to actually try to help these cats so they could get adopted. Yeah, right.

Yeah, and even just having staff on hand to do the work to help these cats and also help cat owners. So I began volunteering with this program and basically I volunteered there so much that when one of the staff in the behavior department was going on maturity leave, they were like, oh, do you want a job? And I was like, yeah.

Yeah, sure.

So yeah, that was kind of that was that was it. I started working in their cat behavior program and learning a lot about cats, learning a lot about behavior, helping a lot of cat owners. So we would do matchmaking in the shelter. So someone came in and they were looking for help making a cat. We would help them. But we also had a behavior hotline so anybody in the world could call this free hotline if they had behavior questions.

Wow, so I got a lot of my my training on that hotline and we would get easily over 100 calls a month oh sure, yeah, from you. Know people all over the world with behavior problems, ranging from my cats peeing on my bed to my cats biting my husband, to we're having a baby and our cats freaking out. You know all kinds of the whole gamut of behavior things. And so I got a lot of training on the job and basically, when my coworkers the maturity leave was over, they decided to keep me. So I ended up working at the shelter for almost eight years.

Okay, when I left, the person who went on maternity leave was Dilara Perry. She is now my business partner at Feline Mines, so we both left the shelter around the same time to start our business and the point of that was really to kind of be able to devote more time to people who had behavior problems. So, operating a hotline, you don't have a lot of time to give people. It was really like here's some quick tips and here's some handouts and you know that's helpful.

Yeah, so you're going to be able to devote more to helping.

So we started doing, you know, home visits and spending more time with our clients, giving them, you know, much more personalized behavior modification plans so that they could solve behavior problems and hopefully keep cats in the home, because that's really the whole point of why we do behavior Well.

It's not just to keep kept at home. It's a big part of it, especially if you come from a shelter background is just like. We got to keep these cats in the home. We don't want them to end up in the shelter, but a lot of it is preserving the human animal bond. And then a huge part of it is also making sure that cats have good welfare, because I think a lot of companion animals may be loved, they may have basic care, but they don't have great welfare. Their lives are missing a lot of the things that they need, and so this is also an opportunity to educate cat owners about how to make their cats happy, or how to give them the things that they need to be both a good companion animal with good behavior, but also make sure they're a happy companion animal.

Oh, absolutely, and what a wonderful thing then. Do you feel that this is? So you go back a little bit in time to as well? Because I remember back it was like, you know, throw people through their cats outside, sure, and that's fine. If you have an outside, you know safety, whatever. I mean that can be done safely if you have this set up and whatever. But it was like, you know, nighttime, throw the cat out now where I live, you know coyotes would eat them, yeah, and where I live too, I mean I wouldn't be very smart.

But do you think it's changed what I'm trying to say? I guess my question is do you think that people are becoming more aware of how a cat might feel like caring, caring more about how to make things nice for their cats? Do you think people are more aware? I know they are more aware with horses. That's a growing trend. I know they're certainly getting more aware with dogs. That's been a growing trend. So I think it's getting better for animals. But, boy, there's still a lot for all of us to learn with right.

Yes, absolutely no. I do think that there have been improvements. Certainly, cats, social media really changed the public profile of cats. Right Now, you know, cat videos became the thing for good and bad. Sometimes these videos are not a positive thing for cats, but certainly no. You can tell the stress, yeah, yeah.

But I think it did elevate cats as a companion animal and I do think that when I don't like to sound like an old person or anything, but I do think the younger generations are more thoughtful in their pet parenting and more open to maybe less of that we were talking about early, like the need for respect and that kind of hierarchical approach and maybe more compassionate. And you know, I think there's there's probably different reasons for that, but I do think that there's there's movement in the right direction. We still have a lot of challenges and certainly, you know, cats populate very quickly. We still have an overpopulation issue. We still have a lot of issues with, you know, feral cats and the debate over birds and cats being outside, but I think that there is more interest. Certainly, my business has increased. There's a lot more people doing behavior consulting. When I started, if I told people what I did for a living, they were very confused and it was probably I don't remember what when the show my Cat from Hell came out.

That was a TV show, that was you know Jackson Galaxy show about behavior consulting and then suddenly people are like oh, this is a thing, like I can hire someone to help me with my cat. So that's actually in a lot of ways really beneficial to the field, because it did increase demand for the service. No, you're right. Yeah, so I think there's, there's. I think people don't feel as weird about hiring someone to help them with their cat as maybe they did when I started, at least seem very embarrassed.

Yeah, no, now I get it when I explained that I trained cats. Well, and we're not even training cats you know for to be on set to be an electric. We're shaping behaviors and rewarding behaviors and being happy about it, because I can't use them if they're not happy.

Yeah, so so it's like I've chosen cats that really enjoy this work, you know, and I keep them their whole lives because, gosh, our last cat, what the last cat we had to put down, was 19 because, you know, finally, finally, after everything, or kidneys, evelyn slept on my head every night and that was only been a couple months, so you understand that. But I mean I keep them their whole lives and so I choose them really carefully. But so when I say to people I train cats, they're like that's not possible. Oh, hey, you know, having a nice cat helps, but you can. You can help encourage behaviors that you're looking for and I want to. I went to your website in your blog and I want everyone that the links will be in the show notes and everything like that. Michael has a wonderful blog and Michael's very big on Instagram, which is where I found you. So that was fun, nice, excellent.

And I went to one of your most recent ones you talk about with your multiple cats. Okay, is here guilty multiple cat household? Here Sometimes you're opening yourself up for behavior problems because cats a resource they have, like they want to get, they can guard resources or want to be at the stairs staring at the one at the bottom of the stairs and what the bottom stairs can't get up to the litter box or whatever. So you need to have all those enough litter boxes, enough places to eat, enough places. But I had not thought of this and I've been doing this a while and I was really surprised and happy to see this. You're one of your recent blogs or post talks about having enough spaces in your bedroom for the cats to sleep comfortably on the same room because, as a rule, they want to be with you but as a rule, not all of them are going to get along. Say, you have four of them. Okay, don't be shocked people. Some people have four or five or 10.

Okay, and it's, it can be, it can be perfectly fine.

Yeah, and some have one and that's fine too. We're happy, the cats happy, but say you've got five of them and they're not killing each other. Okay, so we don't have that serious problem, but they certainly aren't always going to. There's some that don't cuddle with each other, they don't interact right, but they all want to sleep with you. You had that very clever but very basic idea Okay, they can all be on your bed, because there might be some hissing or fussing in the middle of the night. Make more beds. I was like oh yeah, put a cat bed on the nightstand. Put a cat bed like we have a radiators because we have an old house, so you put some cat beds on the radiator.

Wow, that's like heaven for a cat.

Oh yeah, they love it, you know, so like they can all interact peacefully because there's enough comfy places, but they're still near you.

You know and like. For instance, we have a slimy cat mix thing, cleo, and she likes to sleep on my head sometimes, but the rest of the night she sleeps on this pillow right next to my husband, like on this pillows on a nightstand. So it's like her bed Nice. She likes to move around. I don't know if she gets too warm or, and then the other one sleep at different places, you know, and then the dogs are really jealous, but we're not even going to get into that.

A lot of the things that I post on social media are inspired by clients, right? And I recently had a client, and you know, their cats are in that adjusting period where they're not hurting each other but they're not friendly, and I think it was really, you know, for a lot of people, especially if they have a cat who's used to sleeping on the bed with them and they adopt a new cat and the new cat kind of takes over the bed, people feel very guilty, they feel like the first cat is being displaced and sometimes we can't really control that. It's like well, the cats have worked out this arrangement, this cat is now sleeping on the bed, but you can increase the chances that they'll both be in the room with you and perhaps eventually get to both on the bed with you by adjusting, like as I mentioned the post, like out of cat tree near the bed. We have a storage chest at the foot of our bed. We call it the trundle because it increased the amount of space on. That's a bed level, right.

So I personally am a light sleeper and you know I love it when our cats all sleep in the bed with us. But I also sometimes hate it because, like you know, last night Coriander was weighing down the bed between my legs. It was like a bowling ball. I couldn't move all night right, and I sometimes get restless legs syndrome. So I was like, oh, my legs really want to like move right now, but they're like pinned down by a cat and I love her. So I, you know, I appreciate and love the closeness, so I didn't move her. I just didn't get as much sleep as I would like to. But you know, sometimes if you have eight cats you either have a very big bed or you don't have a lot of room to sleep if they're all in the bed with you. So sometimes just getting the territory around the bed can help with that.

It was such a simple solution. You know it didn't require anything extra. It was such a simple solution. I thought like, oh, she's, she's good, so what would?

you say the most. I try to come up with solutions that are workable. Yeah, sorry, I try to come up with solutions that my clients can do right, because it's just if you give them things that are too hard or too many things to do, they get overwhelmed, and so sometimes, luckily, there's some really easy things you can do to make life better for you and your cats.

Yeah, Okay then. Um, so I'm wondering uh, do some people say, like you know, oh, my cat must be lonely, I'm going to get him another cat. What if? I mean, I love the fact if someone wants to get multiple cats because that's more homes for cats, right, so that's great. Sure, Do cats in general? You know, I've always felt that this is just a personal opinion Cats would rather have somebody to like. You know, these, look at them be completely, 100% alone. Now, whether that's another dog or something else, but, like, if you're here to leave your cat all day to have something to else human, not human, something else living to interact with, hopefully something that gets along with. Um, you know, do do cat, because what's their nature? Do they want to be solitary? I mean, I know that my cats groom each other, hang out together, you know, they're all really social with each other, but not everybody has that situation. What do you? Uh, how do you know? Does your cat tell you he's lonely or he's not lonely, or what are?

you coming down? It's a great question and that it's come up a lot, I think. Certainly, like during the pandemic and as people return to work, I think people started having some guilt about leaving their cats home alone all day when they were returning to the office, even though, you know, before COVID a lot of cats somehow survived with people working out of the home right.

And then but it was like once we started working from home, it's just like well, but can't possibly leave the cat home alone all day, like that's. You know that's not not going to work. But cats are what we consider faculty and of least social meaning.

Their socialities are both sorry, say that word one more time slower, so we faculty the least social, sorry.

So sociology for them is a spectrum, right, it's, it's. It really is dependent on several things. It's dependent on the cat's early life experiences with other animals. It's dependent on to make like.

To an extent, domestication has allowed cats to be more flexible about being social, but it's also highly dependent on resources. So when we look at feral colonies of cats, which are naturally occurring or, you know, maybe it's unnaturally, because a lot of them occur because of human behavior, but these are, these are aggregations of cats that form kind of on their own. They typically are able to do so because there's a lot of food, whether it's human provided or prey, there's a lot of shelter, there is space for them to decide if they want to leave or not. So that is how cats naturally form groups, right is?

they kind of do it of their own volition, they choose so so I hang out with the not necessarily wired to be solitary.

No, their closest related ancestors are a solitary animal and cats are a solitary hunter, but they do have the flexibility I guess is what I would say. They're flexible. The challenge is that in the home environment we are choosing their social partners. We are providing either enough resources, not enough resources, abundant resources. We have control over how much territory those cats have. Do they need to go outside? Is our house 900 square feet or 3000 square feet? So we're imposing a lot of limitations on them and often making poor choices about who we bring into the home as a companion for our cats, how we introduce them and how we provide for them, and that causes a lot of strife. Actually, the most common reason I'm called for help is that someone has adopted a new cat and that cat and the resident cat are currently fighting. That is a big issue for a lot of people. It causes a lot of stress or cat in the light.

Yeah, well, in my experience, when I want to get a new cat, I'll adopt two kittens together. Nice, yeah. And then I have my adult cat and the two kittens put their energy into each other instead of their eyes and are picking on or trying to interact too much with the adult cat, and then they love each other, the two kittens, but eventually the adult cat accepts them. Now that adult cat's pretty accepting in general, but it was like the two kittens were young enough so they weren't causing any issues with being a full grown adult cat.

I can't bring in a full grown adult cat because everyone's spayed and neutered, of course. But say, I brought an adult spayed or adult neutered cat, that would be a problem 99% of the time, based on my group Right. But in my home if I bring in two kittens it's like oh dang, those kittens are so annoying, but there's two of them, so they're putting the energy into each other, not bothering that one cat by himself, and eventually they all kind of work. Now I'm a unique situation because I've been doing this a long time and I know that we're doing me. Not everyone can run out and adopt two kittens, but I think we should.

I 100% agree. I am not a fan of single kitten adoptions for various reasons. Certainly if you have an older cat in the home and you get one kitten, that one kitten is at their kind of peak social period so they're very interested in interacting with other cats at that time, and so you're really just setting them up for failure because they are probably going to pester that adult cat constantly to play.

Yeah like to cuddle. You did me, you did me.

Yeah, exactly, and depending on the age of the older cat, that can be problematic. I will say there's one of the problems we have is that there's been very little research on why cats and homes get along and what facilitates those relationships. It's just a topic that has not been studied and so we really don't have a lot to go on. And so when we're talking about choosing a new cat, you know a lot of it is anecdotal, like well, this makes sense, like get two kittens together. They can play with each other. They're very similar. If you have a 15 year old cat, don't get a single kitten, because they're just mismatched in energy and life stage.

Yeah, but certainly there's always exceptions to the rule, and the one study that has been done looking at introducing a new cat into a household that already has cats suggests that about 60 70% of those introductions within a month will be fine, like those cats will accept each other, and then there's going to be a handful that are going to take longer. And then there's a smaller amount, probably closer to 10%, where you could have some problems, where the cat actually do not get along. Maybe you're fighting or just causing others Right On that point.

I just read a study, or looked or read about a study about how dogs that of course it's really important to socialize puppies and all those things you know that you need to do with a dog right, same with the kitten, but some dogs, through genetics and just you know what, are born with the temperament that not going to handle this. Handle change, handle, change. So the whole point is like, when you're looking for a puppy, look for a puppy that is adaptable and can handle noise and things and stuff happening around them, instead of a puppy that is like in the same litter, but he's going to be more worried about change, he's more neurotic in a sense. You know so, are there in general, is there? There must be a range in cats, because I know that for animal actors, I can't work with a cat who's scared of the environment or, you know, no matter where he was born or how he was raised. Okay, so say he had optimum conditions in his litter. Okay, yeah so. But in that litter there's going to be the outgoing bold ones that are self confident and they walk with their tail straight up and they're curious about the world. And there's in the same litter.

There could be one that goes not, I don't want to interact so much, I'm going to be over here Now. That could be a fine house cat. I'll buy himself someone's wonderful pet for animal acting. This would not be happy, he would not be happy, but I have enough experience to see that. Do you think it's similar in cats that even with optimum raising okay, you know, say it was foster cat, it was a foster cat and you know part of the shelter and the cat at someone's home. So they had the kittens, so they had like socialization and all the proper things done nutrition, no fighting, blah, blah, blah. Some of those, some of those cats are going to be better suited being the only cat and some of those other cats will be suited to be hey, you know, and some are suited to be acting cats. Not that that's a big call, but you know.

Yeah, I mean, I'm really interested in the impacts of early life experience on kittens through adulthood and some of my research at UC Davis was was looking at some of these issues. And, to be clear, yes, every cat has a personality, right, they have individual differences and things that make them unique, and some of that is based on genetics. And there's some evidence that, for example, the trait boldness is inherited from the father and within a litter you can have kittens know that. That is interesting. So so, right, right, so you. And it's very interesting because male cats do not provide any paternal care for their kittens under normal circumstances, so there's no influence of care. It really is their genes.

And, of course, kittens also have a socialization window that's very early and short. So their socialization windows considered two to seven weeks, so that's early. I do not get kittens before their seven weeks of age unless they're fostering. So it's it's a really important time where they can be exposed to you, know different, you know noises, people, you know other animals etc. And they'll be more likely to cope with those things as adults. But that can't explain everything right.

Like socialization genetics, there could be things that happen in the womb. If the mother's stressed the kittens are in the womb, there could be an impact on their HPA axis, which moderate stress responses. So there's all kinds of possibilities. And so when people are adopting kittens, you know, I think we can, we can use different things to help mold them into our dream kitten, right. We can socialize them well. Maybe if you are purchasing a kitten from a responsible breeder, you might be able to meet the parents right, and you know there's some influence there. We can use training and positive reinforcement to further change behavior. We can provide them with a great environment to optimize the chances that they will, you know, use a scratching post instead of scratching or furniture and those sorts of things. But I still think there's a certain amount that we can't control and, yeah, that is kind of the the personality bit that we just don't have. We just don't know why.

Certainly, I've seen enough litters and interacted with enough cats to know that, yeah, you can do everything right and you can still have a cat that's afraid when the doorbell rings, and you can have a kid that maybe didn't get all of the socialization that you would have liked and they end up being very bold anyway. But socialization is very important. I would never downplay its importance. I think every kitten you know needs good socialization to be a good companion for most cat owners. I've had under socialized cats in my past. I'd say the three I have now are actually a little bit on the under socialized side because they grew up in a garden and by the time they were rescued they were already probably three months old, which is way past the socialization window. There was a lady who was caring for them, so I know that they were exposed to people, but they probably didn't expose. They weren't exposed to being in the home or anything like that. Right, I'm very comfortable with cats who are not bold like I like shy cats, I like that type of thing.

Yeah, you're early beginning there, yeah.

But certainly some people, if they had kids or a very loud, active household, that would not be a good fit for them. So I think it is. It helps to certainly to meet, and it sounds like you spend a lot of time thinking about who's the right kitten for my next star.

Oh right, because I keep them.

Right right.

And I want them to be happy because I could make a cat stay on set, I could shape it, but it may not be happy, so why would I do that? Yeah, you know, it's like there's no point, because A you wouldn't look happy, so then it's not a good result.

And B, I don't think it's fair. I just don't want to treat animals like that, you know so, like if I had a kid and I mean you ask my own kids I never put them into modeling Because it's like, you know, bad enough. I have the cats and my you know, my dogs and other animals weren't, but no, because it's like you want them to have fun with it and you know so. But anyway, but no, I think what you're saying about the cats raising the garden can be true, because my boldest, some of my boldest, well, all my cats are rescues, you know, from from a shelter or, or my neighbor or not, but a neighboring farm.

Okay, so those cats are totally raised outside. But also, because they were raised outside, they were fed, take care of their nice people, but they were very brave because they've they've been in the world their entire lives, you know. But I do get them at about seven weeks, Um, you know. So I see what you're saying there, that that, that socialization. Well, this is a good segue to your book. Let's talk about your upcoming book, because that making a nice environment for your cats you play with your cat sounds really fun and it's enjoyable. I know I enjoy throwing the mouse because that side Cleo retrieves, so we spent a lot of time when I'm watching you throw in the mouse.

Um, you know, uh and oh. Let's also talk about laser pointers too, because I know cats enjoy them. But I've read, and I believe it, that it's very frustrating for cats to play with them. Is that right? Because there's no physical grabbing it and that's just like anxiety causing maybe. So let's talk about your book and maybe that too.

Okay, no, that sounds good, um, yeah. So my book play with your cat comes out on March 5th this year, 2024, on Tarture Paragate and it really was inspired by, I think, working with so many clients who told me that their cats didn't play. And with any cases it was because they were saying that, because I was recommending play as part of their baby modification plan, because I would recognize that their cat was either bored or frustrated or stressed. And to me, um, play is an obvious antidote to a lot of those psychological ills. For the same reasons that, like exercise, is beneficial to us in that it releases good endorphins and can take our mind off our troubles, but also because it is for cats, especially indoor cats, an expression of predatory behavior. Their play is really the same as predatory behavior. It's motivated by the same things like the uh, the shape and size of the toy and how hungry they are, and it is kind of fits into the animal welfare models which really put emphasis on allowing animals to express natural behaviors. So for cats, um, play is allowing them to express predatory behaviors.

So clients would be like, oh yeah, he doesn't play. Oh, he's, you know, he's five, he doesn't play, as if somehow, you know, if you're over four and you're a cat, you just stop. You lose all interest in life, um, so that was really. I just kept you know. So what would happen is if I was doing a home visit and people be like, oh, my cat doesn't play, I'd be like, let's step aside, let me get a toy and let me show you. And then they would always be like, oh my God, like we've never seen him do this, because I would be able to get the cap to play, um, partly because I was, I knew what I was doing, um, and but also because they just hadn't tried in a really long time. So so it was really like again and again seeing people be like Whoa, you know, fluffy likes to play.

So it was cool and that, tapping into that connection that I was able to create and following up with them later, they're like oh yeah, he really loves playing, like, thank you so much for you know, showing us that you know he really does like to play. That I thought, okay, this is a topic that I'm passionate about. I ended up writing a scientific paper with my friend, julie Hecht, about play. So we reviewed all the scientific literature that we could find about cat play and synthesized this into a scientific review paper, and so I already had the theoretical stuff kind of in the back of my mind. And then I had the applied part of working with clients and seeing the problems they had with play, the reasons that they didn't play, that I thought, okay, this could be a cool book, and yeah. So that's kind of how that idea was born, okay, and now it's coming out soon. I mean it's funny because I finished writing the book almost a year and a half ago, so the whole publishing thing is just a very slow machine.

Oh yeah, no, I have a book out too. It took a year, I think, yeah yeah, it takes a long time.

So it's been, you know, for me. I'm like, oh my God. Well, this book just come out already, but now it's almost a year, so it's I think it's seven weeks from today, the date of this recording, that that it will be on the shelf. So that's very exciting, and I swear when people they will.

it's going to be a great book. Where can they find? We'll have a. We'll have a link to your preorder for now, but in general, because this podcast will live forever, so say the book's out, where will they find it?

Yeah, so it's on the Penguin Random House website and it will hopefully be in lots of bookstores and libraries near you. You can always go to one of my websites and I will have links to.

That's great. You got Penguin Random House because my oddly enough, my book was published to them and they were great to work with as far as publicizing it. And you know, I mean I'm sure this will lead to wonderful things for you because you've got a major well, I think the biggest one a major publisher. Very exciting, that's very cool, besides just sorry, book nerd thing.

But no, no, yeah, no, it's great, and I just found out today it's going to come out in Dutch in the Netherlands and it's going to come out in Italy, so so it'll just be nice to kind of see how it goes. But the so the point of the book is it's like half science about why cats play, why animals play. You know what we know about cat health and play and why. You know hunting behavior and how that ties into how your cat plays. And then the other half is really practical, like here's how to pick toys for your cat and here's when you should play with your cat, and here's the you know other supplies you might want to use, like cardboard boxes and paper bags Right, everyone knows that.

Right, yeah, yeah.

And and some things beyond that. And then it's like you know what to do if you have multiple cats, or what if your cat has a disability. How can you modify the play to accommodate? I mean it's out of that so yeah, so I'm really trying to you, can't?

can't wait to see that. You know that's, that's fantastic.

It's illustrated by Lily Chin. I don't know if you're familiar with her work, but she's at doggiedrawingsnet and she's done a lot of amazing animal illustrations. She's a good friend of mine, so it's it's got really cute illustrations. So my goal is that it's a really fun book, but it also is informative, helps people have a better relationship with their cat and hopefully gets a lot more cats playing. And you know, in this case I'm really focused on the interactive play, which is, you know human holding a stick with a you know string and something on the end and moving it in a way that really inspires their cats predatory behavior.

Oh yeah, we wouldn't get cat modeling. We couldn't get them to model if they weren't playful. You know, for like what I do, because I can't get the focus on the camera. Look at the camera. Unless there's, they don't care about the camera.

Get them feather around yeah.

They're watching. They're watching either the feather or the toy, you know, depending on their age and stuff, or they're to the level of shaped behavior that they're watching the bit of turkey that I'm holding. That is going to be yummy. So it just kind of depends on on where we are with their shaping, but totally because it's got to be fun. Well, that's pretty exciting, okay.

Well then, the one of the other things I wanted to ask you out before we move on to, kind of, the closing section. I want to ask you about the. What would be the when people come to you with a problem about their cats, like what is the? The main question, the main thing, the main reason they've come to you over all the other reasons? I'm going to guess one, but I want you to say what's causing people the most problem? And it's probably not causing the cat a problem at all. It's probably a lot of human stuff. I mean, if you fixed it for the cat and what I'm trying to say cats just being a cat, that's what I'm trying to say. Sure, yeah, I mean, what would be the number one problem that people are faced with?

Yeah, so the number one reason people call for help is what I call intracat aggression, right, so aggression between cats in the home, yeah, number two is litter box avoidance.

That's the one that's what I thought would be number one. I have to write, but wouldn't litter box avoidance also be from not doing the resources properly?

Yeah, so everything, yeah so many of the issues are really about the environment. So, whether it's the level of for the number of resources we provide, do we provide enough litter boxes right, provide enough scratching posts? Do we clean the litter box? Do the cats have things to keep them busy during the day so that they're not up all night or getting bored and frustrated and destructive?

So there's so many kind of basic things that don't necessarily have to do with the problem itself, but it's just about providing the things that our cats need, and there's a model that I really like called the five pillars of a healthy feline environment that this organization called iCatCare and the American Association of feline practitioners collaborated on, and it really is about providing things like safe spaces for our cats and having multiple and separated resources for our cats, giving them outlets for predatory behavior, giving them appropriate social interactions, whether that's with humans or other animals.

And also a big one that people don't think about is respecting their sense of smell, because they have a very sensitive factory scent and they also use scent a lot for their everyday life, right Like communicating and marking their territory. So really just getting people understanding why their cat does the thing that is bothering them Sometimes it's sufficient to address the problem right, just changing how the person feels about the problem and giving them more empathy for their cat, giving them more of an understanding of what's natural for cats, and also the cats are not humans or dogs.

So that is like a big part of what I'm doing, you know, and then there's certainly other things that involve, you know. A lot of it is changing with humans behavior, but also we're doing behavior modification with the cats. So I do have a lot of my clients do training with their cats using the thought of the reinforcement method. So sometimes that's something functional, like training their cat to go in a carrier on their own so that they don't have to chase their cat around when they need to go to the vet. It could be training a cat, you're trying to put him in the crate.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, a lot of stress.

No, I get it, yeah it could be training their cat to sit on a mat instead of chasing the other cat in the home. So we're doing a lot of like relaxation exercises, a lot of that stuff that's derived probably from some of the horse and dog literature I'm sure we're using increasingly the cats. So it is, you know, big picture, what's the problem? The problem is that they don't understand cats. That gets down to you, okay, your cats, like you're gonna call this using waterbox.

Let's just call the podcast that. Well, just you know. Here's the big problem they don't understand cats the way that's. That's nails it right there.

Well, this has been really cool. I didn't want to speak to the laser pointer in question. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, I'll give a quick answer.

We can edit this in, so that's earlier, but no problem so okay, cool.

So you asked about laser pointers and you know laser pointers. I'm kind of I guess I'm not as rabidly against them as a lot of people are Certainly in dogs. There's been a lot of documentation of compulsive behaviors that start up with laser pointers With cats. I think they should not be the main tool in your toolbox if for play, so you can use it sparingly as long as your cat doesn't seem to have any type of light obsession that you know those behaviors that we see in dogs, like air snapping or kind of repeated looking for the light after it goes away. And I'd say my approach is if you are going to use the laser pointer, treat it like you would or treat it like it's a real physical object. So have it follow the laws of physics. Don't make it go halfway up the wall and then just disappear. Have it go under a doorway so it kind of disappears naturally, like prey with like a mask went under the door. Okay, and then I recommend following that with a real toy.

Exactly.

A treat for your cat. So there's kind of you're completing the entire hunting cycle, of you know stocking, that's kind of what I was trying to get to.

Yeah, yeah, so it's teasing the poor thing, yeah.

I think people, people gravitate toward it because they don't have to get off the couch and that's like a poor amazing cat toy. Yeah, so it's not my favorite, but I'm not. I'm not throwing it out of the toolbox, it's just at the bottom of the toolbox and it's not my go to for sure.

Okay, well, now the time that what we call this part of the podcast is called treat time and questions, and so if you were here, I just dropped them all over my keyboard. I have these cornmeal blueberry muffins and we're gonna snarf from Don one after we're done because my crew have to feed my crew. But it just kind of marks a treat time, kind of marks the part of the podcast where we ask you the five questions. Now these five questions come from. I copied the idea from Warwick Schiller, who has a wonderful podcast about horses, and he copied this concept from Tim Ferriss book tribe of mentors, and so I sent you 20 questions and out of them you picked five and we're going to ask those questions.

Okay, Okay, hopefully I don't regret my choices. It was not a test.

It's not a test, so it's okay, all right. First question what is the most valuable thing that you've put your time into that has changed the course of your life?

Yeah, I would say the day I walked into that animal shelter to volunteer, you know it was very much about helping the community and helping the community animals and it turned into a career path.

Yeah, but that sounds pretty remarkable. I believe that. Okay, what accomplishment are you most proud of, and why?

I mean, right now it'd be easy to save my book, but I think it was getting a PhD. I started grad school when I was 38, 39 years old, so I was very much like I mentioned before. I dropped out of college, right, I didn't really say what happened later, but I went back to college in 2008 to finish my bachelor's degree and decided that I wanted to pursue research and a PhD, and it took seven years. It was a lot of work, it was really fun and it was very mind expanding and really really just a very positive experience for me. I mean, academia is hard. There certainly were tears, there were problems, but overall it was just very mentally stimulating and a great learning experience. I definitely am very appreciative that I went through that time and that I worked with a mentor who was really supportive Dr Lucia Jacobs, and I'm yeah, so I'd say I'm very proud of getting that PhD. It was a lot of work, it was fun.

For sure, and then look at how we all benefit from you doing that and then all the other stuff you did and how the cats are benefiting. So good on you. That was a good thing. Okay, well, I always liked this one. What is the worst advice given in your profession or the bad idea that you hear in your field of expertise?

I think the thing that I'm well it ties back into the respect thing right. It's really the idea that we should change behavior using aversive negative experiences. So in the cat world, what's been kind of decided is a not so bad behavior change technique. Is the spray model right, like every cat owner's got a spray bottle that they point at their cat when their cat's doing something they don't like and it's, you know, it's innocuous, right? The water is not going to like cause your cat to bleed or no, but does it make?

sense to them? Does it make sense?

No, and you know we're using a. I personally use spray bottles in my house to like clean things and people use them to water plants. Why are we also using it to punish cats? So I think it really is getting back to like people don't understand behavior. They don't understand behavior change, and certainly changing behavior in humans is much harder than it is in animals. I would much rather train the cat than a human in the hands down. So for me, I think the bad advice that goes around is really around that you know, oh, a little spray of water is going to fix this, to eat your problem.

So yeah, no, he just won't do it when you're there.

Yeah, I think exactly. Yeah, there's yeah. They'll either stop caring or they'll just do it as soon as you turn around. So I think it is really just trying to help people understand why those of us who rely on positive reinforcement methods for behavior change have landed on that philosophy and how it's based in science and it's based in animal welfare science. So it's not necessarily just about behavior change, but it's about changing behavior in ways that are ethical and kind and effective.

And I mean empathy, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Perfect, Okay. What inspires and motivates you to do what you do? What is your true? Excuse me, what inspires and motivates you to do what you do and what is your true purpose in the world?

Yeah, I mean, I'm not. I'm not really a spiritual person and you know, I guess I could consider myself a bit of like. I'm a very positive person, but I also go through periods where I think there there isn't really like, there doesn't have to be a purpose in our life so much as like we try to like get through it.

But yeah on a good day. I mean, I think you know my what gives my life purpose is helping cats be happy and helping cat owners have a better relationship with their cat so that their cats are happier. So yeah, it really is about trying to really help the cat human bond survive and thrive.

Well, that sounds sounds great to me. Sounds sounds like a good thing. Okay, and then the last question of the question part is what have you become better at saying no to?

Oh, I say no a lot more than I used to. I see fewer clients than I could Like. I say no to reviewing a lot of scientific papers. So when you're in academia you get asked to. You know the peer review process is other scientists review scientific publications. You don't get paid for that work and so I've just become a lot pickier about what papers are of you. So a lot of it is kind of this like busy work, that kind of sneaks into your life, and I adopted the you know mindset of if I say yes to this, what am I going to have to say no to? So it has okay, good, so I do try to say no to things that don't excite me, that don't pay me. I mean I do some free things but I say yeah, I get it less of them.

So it is really about. And the other thing is just. For example, couple years ago I decided I was going to stop working on weekends.

I used to see clients on the weekend and I just was, like I need two days off, like to just not work and not think about work, and I just want to read a novel and watch TV and go for a walk and bake cookies and hang out with my cats. And that used to be very hard for me. I used to be definitely. Like you know, my idea of a vacation is to, like you know, stay at home and like catch up on all the like you know busy work and tech stuff.

that same thing, yeah no same, your self employed, there's not ever a vacation. Yep.

There really isn't. So I've really worked hard to try to take more time off, and that means saying no sometimes and limiting what I can do. But I do feel like I do better, like I'm bringing a better me to the clients that I do see in the work that I do take on.

No, healthy boundaries are good and we are extremely grateful that you said yes to this, because it's been really wonderful. You know, speaking with you today, I think I, you know, I'm somewhat knowledgeable about cats, right, but I know that just in the short time I've learned some things like how the father's temperament can be passed on or it's important you know, genetically from the father. That's I'm going to look into that. That's fascinating to me. Yeah, because my cats are all straight. I never know the father.

Yeah, I mean most of us don't right.

I mean it's just yeah that's so interesting, among other, among other great stuff that you shared with us today. This has been super cool. I feel like we don't have enough time. I wish we had more time because there's like I'd love to do this again after your book comes out. You will give it some time, but there's more stuff that I'm sure people want to know about. You know what kind of litter box is best you know, but also more about about your life and how your cats, how you. I wish I had time to ask you how you found each individual cat, like their individual story and all that kind of stuff. But good on you. And how exciting about the book. We will make sure to link everything up. I'm going to give you a few minutes here to tell us how we find you. Now we'll have all this stuff listed in the show notes. But what's if somebody wants to hire you to talk to you about the their cat? You know where do they go. How do we find you?

Okay, yes, well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. It's been really great talking to you. It's been a really lovely conversation, so I appreciate that If people are interested in finding me, probably the easiest way is to go to Michael delgadocom and from there you can get to my business consulting website, which is felinemindscom, and my blog, which is what your cat, or opscom. I have too many websites. That's probably something I should have cut back on, but I didn't. But yeah, so that I'm on the internet, I'm on the gram.

Oh yeah, you're on Instagram. You post a lot I mean, that's where I found you and there's always something useful. Like every, you know you must do that. You're really good at it because you've got this great information all the time. I'm always learning when I'm on your Instagram account. So, besides the other places, so that's pretty cool. That's it, thank you. Well, thank you so much, michael. This has been a delight. I just want to go pet my cats.

I don't know what it is, but I hope everyone else is feeling the same way. Well, thank you so much for having me.

Okay.