May 14, 2025 • 33 mins
This week on Cattitude, Michelle Fern welcomes Dr. Lisa Radosta, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist and president of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists. Dr. Radosta shares her deep expertise on feline aggression, explaining the root causes and how pet parents—no matter how experienced—can better understand and support their cats. Her mission is to educate owners on how to help their cats feel safe, understood, and ultimately less reactive. Tune in for invaluable insights that could transform your relationship with your feline friend.
EPISODE NOTES: From Hiss to Harmony: Solving Cat Aggression
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EPISODE NOTES: From Hiss to Harmony: Solving Cat Aggression
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/cattitude-the-1-cat-podcast--6666768/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Live. This is pet Life Radio. Let's Talk Pets.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, cat levers, Hello, my feline friends. Welcome to Kata tud.
I'm your show host, Michelle Burn. So this is a
great topic for all of us cat parents. Cat aggression.
It happens. Even if you have the sweetest cat. It happens.
You'd probably dealt with it if you're a cat parent.
And my guest today has a new approach to cat aggression.
(00:46):
I cannot wait to introduce you to her. We will
be right back.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
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Speaker 4 (01:35):
Let's Talk pets on Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome doctor Lisa for Dosta.
She is a veterinary behaviorist. Welcome to Catitude.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I'm so glad to have you. So I'll call you
doctor Leafs. How you said that was okay, So I
appreciate that. Let's first define what is cat aggression because
it can be misconstrued. And as I see it, there's
cat agression between other cats, between cats and humans, between
(02:19):
cats and maybe other pets in the house or pets
around them. So how do you define, as your professional
how do you define cat agression?
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Yeah, that is a great question because where I sit
as a veterinary behavior so I'm a veterinary psychiatrist, and
where let's say an applied animal behaviors would sit. This
is a person with a PhD. Right, we're going to
sit in the same place in that we're going to
view aggression first as an ethological definition. That's going to
be aggression is a distance increasing signal. Now there's going
(02:51):
to be those We're getting a little science, ye, but
we're going to move out of this in just a second, right,
because it's good to understand the science before you actually
try to apply these things to your cat. So the
exception is going to be predatory aggression we call it,
which is obviously not distant increasing. When your kiddie catches
a lizard, they're not trying to increase the distance, right,
So that's a different kind of category in and of itself.
(03:14):
But other than that, we think of its distant increasing.
Even that language can feel weird. What is it really
is an ask for space? Okay, So it could be
an ask for the other cat in the household to
move out, right, Cat number one Fluffy needs cat number
two ted to move out of the house. So Fluffy
(03:35):
is aggressive to tent. Maybe Fluffy wants space from her
pet parents because her pet parents keep petting her, which
she really wants to sleep, So she's aggressive. So we're
going to defy it that way. But the way I
want to look at it, and I've kind of shifted
the way I speak to pet parents about it because
so many pet parents said to me, my cat gives
me love bites and for almost well, I've been a
(03:57):
veterinarian twenty five years. I've been a vet behavior is nineteen.
So I keep saying, no, cats don't bite you when
they love you. That is a crazy kind of love. Right, No,
that is not what they're doing. But I never really
was able to explain it to headparents in a way
that I think they really understood it until I lived
with a cat who bit me. And now I understand
(04:19):
that aggression in many cases is a cry for help
and in many cases is a form of communication because
the cat doesn't have any other way in that moment
in their mind to get their needs fulfill. Does that
make sense?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
That makes a lot of sense. And I'm glad you
said that because I agree with you. I've heard people
call it love bites or a little like smack or something,
and I agree with you. I don't think there's such
a thing as love bites. Not to go off on
a tangent, but calts mouths have a lot of bacteria.
Even a love bite is not that safe, and neither
(04:57):
are scratches. But I mean back to what we're talking about,
that's definitely you know, yeah, they're sending a message. They
don't talk. This is another reason why we need to
never declaw our cats. That's how they tell you leave
me alone. You don't want to antagonize them enough to
get the scratched or the bite, but that happens. Sometimes
(05:17):
they're not verbal. I mean, they me out for humans,
but they're not going to tell you leave me alone,
you're annoying me. Right now, they're gonna swipe exactly.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
And there's oh my gosh, there's so many things she
said that I just love so. Number one, the reason
we don't want to declaw cats, Yes, we don't want
to take away their communication defense backlist, but also, you
know it hurts and cats who don't have their cloth.
And I'm just not sure anybody's doing this anymore. So
I don't know if this is gonna kind of fall
on deaf ears because no one's doing these surgeries.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I hope they're not, but they're still doing it.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Oh holy cow.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Really there's a great show mention this. There's a great
movie called American Cat, The Good, the Bad. The Cuddy
Nala cat is in it. She's helped sponsor it. She's
a famous cat. But there's still so much going on
and people don't realize that. I think I know what
you're going to say, decline cats. Not only is it
very painful for them, but it actually makes them more
(06:11):
aggressive and more likely to bite. And from what I know,
biting is much more dangerous to us humans because there's
so much bacteria in their teeth as compared to you know,
a scratch one percent.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
So there are several studies that have looked at decline.
One study shows that the cats are not more likely
to be aggressive, one study shows that they are. And
there's a third study, and this is the study there's
not a retrospective like asking the pet parent, is your
pet declawed? Does your pet bite you? Those are good studies,
but those aren't the highest level of studies. This last
(06:45):
study is the one that probably is, you know, on
the forefront of your mind, where radiographs were examined looking
first a cat that are declawed to say how many
of you have a fragment left? So imagine first of
all that I'm going to take you toe off. That's
what we're doing. We're taking off the edge of your toe.
And anyone who's ever like I broke my toe, you
(07:06):
know how important those toes are. They are really important
for balance and for movement. So a lot of those
cats that should have had a clean cut to take
off the edge of the toe did not, like a
large over fifty percent did not. They had fragments left
ouch that hurts. And also the cats who were declouded
were more likely to be aggressive. But you know what,
(07:26):
they were more likely to have back pain, they were
more likely to peet and poop outside the box. So
let's not do this. And it does apply to what
we're talking about today because we don't want to hurt
cats because when beings, including human beings, are hurting, we're
more irritable, like of course we are. And also back
to love bites. Here's the thing. Whenever I wonder this normal,
(07:50):
like is this what cats should be doing, or dogs
or whatever animal and treating? I think, okay, which you
feral cats do? What is the wild state? Feral cats
don't love bite each other. Now, they do bite when copulating, okay,
but that's not love. That's copulation has a purpose and
to make a bunch of kittens. Right, So if we
just look at how cats who are BFFs treat each other,
(08:12):
they groom each other, they sleep in a pile of cats,
it's completely different than a bite that they give us.
And like you say, anybody is dangerous, but it can
become even more dangerous if you ignore that bite because
the cat doesn't have a way to talk to you,
so they might bite harder or do something worse, like
on your pillow, not because they hate you, but because
they don't know what else to do and they're freaked out. Right.
(08:34):
But also some pet parents return that quote unquote love bite,
which I'm just gonna call a light bite from here
on out. They return that with a smack, and then
the cat's like, oh, I see, I see what's happening.
I try to talk to you and then you're mean.
So obviously this relationship is not working. I can't trust you.
Now I'm getting afraid of you. Now we're increasing aggression, right,
(08:57):
so we got to pay attention to what the cats
are telling us.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Is obvious for body language to get an idea, you know,
how the cat's feeling and different things. But are their
keys to looking at the cat's body language other than
the obvious and realizing, oh, you know, this is a
sign of aggression, even if it's like a maybe if
it might be hidden.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Yeah, so you know as well as I do. But
pet parents probably don't know that. Cat pet parents and
dog pet parents too are not very good at reading
body language, even experienced ones, And so we want pet
parents to look for the obvious signals. So I'm going
to separate aggression out again. We're putting predatory aggression way
over here to the right. We're not talking about that,
(09:38):
the bird hunting aggression. Okay, we're talking about aggression towards
pets in the household people, things like that. I'm going
to separate them further into aggression that is intended to
increase distance, that's asking for space. Right, So we're going
to look for body language signals like pupils being dig
Your cat's pupils that's the black part of the eye.
(09:59):
You know, those should be really small, like a flit
or like an almond. If they're in a bright room,
like the kind of rooms we have in our homes,
typically in a moderately bright room or a dark room,
we're expecting those pupils to be wider. Okay, that's natural,
that's normal response to light within the body. Now, what
if your cat's pupils are round or not almond shaped
(10:21):
in a brightly colored room. Either your cat is blind,
that might happen in the blind cat. But if your
cat is sighted, what's happening is your cat's in fight
flight freezer fidget. Your cat is really freaked out right now,
and they are big prefrontal cortex. The part that tells
them to not bite you is turning off. Okay, tail
(10:41):
thumping ears. My friend calls them the devil horns, not
because cats are double, but because I think it really
helps people to understand when those ears partially turn back
and they're pointed, or when they're flat against the head.
If you see your cat, so there's the obvious one.
If you see your cat avert his gaze, he's getting worried.
So you're looking at him, he turns his head just
(11:04):
a little bit off to the left or right or
down or up. He's like, you're freaking me out right now.
You're intimidating me a little bit. I'm starting to get concerned.
If you see your cat deliberately get up, shift his
weight and turn away from you, he's sending you a
signal I'd like you to not pet me anymore. I'd
like you to give me a moment, right. So, we
certainly want people to pause. But the kind of bites
(11:25):
that are communication bites are a little different. I'll give
you an example from my own kiddy. My kitty requires
a lot of attention. He's a needy kitty and he
likes to hunt a lot. He likes to play a lot.
He likes to be on his CaTiO free cormly. And
I'm the person who pushes the button for the toys
and opens the door if I have the thoughts. So
when I'm typing on my computer, I'm working, he first
(11:48):
tries to sit and stare at me, so he's asking
me for something, but I'm too busy. So then he
will put his paw on my hand. Generally, I have
a cute picture of me typing with this little black
paw on my hand. If I do not pay attention
to that, he gently bites my hand. So this is
not a distance increasing. This is a I've tried to
ask you three ways, could you just hit the button
(12:10):
on my toy? Because I am not able to do
that myself. And so what I want people to do
is when your cat is staring at you, do something.
Think about the cat needs something. Because once you drive
him to bite, because you're the one driving the bus here,
once you drive him the bite and you get up
and press the toy, you have taught him that he
really should go for the bite because that is what's
(12:31):
most effective. And cats are very intelligent. Does that make sense?
Speaker 6 (12:34):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Absolutely, It reminds me of I'm listening to you thinking.
It's kind of like people. You know, you ask somebody,
they don't do it, then you yell at them, they
don't do it. Then you go over and say you
shake them, or you get their attention. Hey, I need
you to do this. Probably this would happen more. I
don't mean shake violently, but little shove. Hey, hello, wake up?
Do this right? If you had like a child or something,
(12:57):
you might do something like that. Talk first, talk louder,
then go over and say hello and get their attention.
You know, you don't bite people. But what about cats
and aggression when they live with each other?
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Yeah, so again we're going to think, okay, wait, what
if feral cats do well? I mean you know this.
Feral cats live in what we call matrilineal colonies. It's
moms and aunts and sisters and daughters and all the
girls live together. It sounds like an awesome way to
live in my opinion. And the boys come in and
out as they need to. They make some babies. They
(13:31):
eat at the food bowl at the barn, like you
know it's that kind of thing, but usually the usually
it's always an exception. Usually the boys are not hanging
out with girls, though not on a regular basis unless
there's babies to make.
Speaker 6 (13:43):
Right.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
So anyways, if you introduce an adult cat into a
feral colony and that cat is rejected, we would say
that is normal. And there's so much space outside. I'm
not advocating for all the kiddies to live outside. We're
just talking about what kitties got with outside. There's so
much space that other cat can get away, right, And
if you have a bar like I had a horse
(14:06):
and we had barn cats, cats would come together. You
could see they were all similar colors. They go, another
colony would come. Okay, So what do you and I do?
Let's just take me for example, because I think there's
people out there like me. I only adopt adult black
cats for the obvious reason because the most perfect cat
who ever graced this earth was an adult black cat
that I got from Animal care and control, and they
(14:28):
will never be another one like him. But yet that's
all we adopted my family ever since his passing.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
So i've that you adopt black cats. My cat's one's tuxedo.
My dogs that I adopted are always black. I didn't
even know. But there's a stigma against adopting black cats,
especially black dogs, by black cats especially, So thank you
for adopting black cat.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
Like, oh my gosh, black cats are the best. They actually,
you know, there is a gene connected to I'm going
on a tangent. There's a gene associated with the black color,
which also codes partially for a lovely personality. So black
cats are the best. But anyway, so I continue to
add black cats right, And that's not how they would
(15:11):
live in the wild. They'd never live with strangers. So
aggression toward each other is normal. If your cats are
aggressive when they first meet, there's a really good chance
that in a year, about a fifty percent chance that
they're still going to be fighting. So what does that mean?
We had better introduce cats the right way up front,
because first impressions mean something. There's a reason why when
(15:34):
you first meet your new in laws, you you know,
make sure you're not a hot mess and you're not smelly,
and you take a shower like you.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
Want to look your best.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
First impressions mean something, So we want to introduce them,
you know, in a way that is low stress for everyone.
I think one of the big problems I see is
people just put cats in homes and expect everybody to share.
And it's just the most absolutely absurd idea I've ever heard,
because just to think about what that would feel like,
(16:03):
plot me in a home with some other people. I
have to share my plate with them. There's only one
place for me to get a drink, we have to
share the same cup, we have to sleep in the
same bed because there's only one of those. I would
really go crazy. That's an awful way for a person
to live. And for kiddies, it's the same. Every kiddy
needs a bowl, every kiddy needs a place to get water,
(16:26):
every kiddy needs a litter box, and not necessarily on
top of that other kitty's litter box or food or water.
Everybody needs their own space. That's just a basic need
in my mind. So if we do that, we'll reduce
aggression tremendously.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
That makes a lot of sense. Although two of my
cats are sisters from different misters that still don't like
each other. We're gonna take a your break and we'll
be right back. Molly, here's your dinner, Sace that's not
your food.
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Speaker 2 (18:02):
Welcome back everyone. We're talking to doctor Lisa Radosta. She
is a veterinary behaviorist and we're talking about cat aggression,
which we all have cats if we're listening to catch
or want to have cats. So this is a topic
near and dear to our heart. Let's talk about what
us humans could do better to not set off aggressive
(18:24):
behavior with our cats, because there could be things we're
doing that we don't realize we're doing that. Yeah, pick
off our cats, and you know we're past the love
bites and everything, but what are some other things we
do that cats just go you know, you're in their mind,
They're like, you know, you're pissing me off? Statcha.
Speaker 5 (18:42):
Yeah, there's three things that I can think of that
I really want pet parents to know. Number One, everyone
needs face and sometimes your cat doesn't want you to
touch them, and that's okay. And I tell people, I
ask my my pet parents who bring their cats to me,
(19:02):
do you believe that you have the right to say
no if someone tries to touch you? And one hundred percent
of the time, one hundred percent, the person, male, woman,
no matter who they are, they say, yes, I have
the right to say no. And I say, gutn't your
cat have the right? And they pause because we don't
(19:22):
think that little cute, fuzzy creatures ever would not want
us to pet them, right, but they have the right
to say no. So number one, respect your cat's boundaries
and look at the body language and make sure that
you know your cat wants to be petted. At that time,
(19:43):
when you're in doubt, pull your hand away. If your
cat wants it, they will come back and bunt your hand.
Number two, watch out for arousal aggression, because sometimes our
cats get so wild, oh my god, you're petting me
everywhere and I'm losing control, that they will kind of
lose it a little bit. Right, So, if you see
your cat's just quivering all over the place, not in
(20:05):
a trembling, scared way, but in a wild way. The
tail is straight up and it's twitching, and their back
is twitching, just take a pause, take a stuff away,
maybe toss a toy or turn on a motorized toy.
Step away from that. And then number three, noise phobia.
We have evidence in an uncopious study that we did
at my practice and in one other study that we
(20:27):
probably have about twenty five percent of cats who are
noise phobic. I think it's probably more like fifty percent.
If you turn on the smoothie machine and your cat
hall butt into your closet, if you vacuum, your cat,
you know, runs into the closet, storms in your neighborhood,
your cat's under your bed. We are looking at a
(20:48):
noise phobic cat. And when you go under that bed
to pull your cat out because you have loving you're
worried about your cat, your cat bites you, right, So
that's a fearful or defensive type of aggression. Noise phobia
is prominent. And I even had a cat who had
feline idiopathics of stitis or you might see it referred
(21:09):
to as feline lower urinary tract disease LOUTED, who was noisophobic.
It was thunderstorm for me, to be specific. And when
we treated that, we were able to get ahead of
the immaturia, the blood in the urine that is a
sign of looted or FIC. So this is a big deal.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I think the thing is cats they give you clues.
You just have to really pay attention and don't akin
them too which people do this all the time. They're
different from each other my cat crew, Charlotte is very
different from Mollie who's and Dennis is entirely different from
both of them. He's part main coon. He's like, you know,
(21:51):
a chill cat compared to the other two. I mean,
they're so different, so I think you have to keep
that in mind as well.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
Know your cats yeah know your cat's and what I
hear the tone that's running through your comments I feel
like is also, don't make assumptions like don't assume that
your cat is thinking this or that you know the
be curious what is my cat thinking? Instead of I'm
sure I know what my cat is thinking. Step back,
(22:21):
take a picture or video of your cat. You've got
a phone, and then look at that video and go, oh,
I missed that part. I missed that dumbing tail, didn't.
I like, what is my cat saying? Educate yourself. I
have videos on my YouTube channel, which is just my name,
Doctor Lisa Rodosta. I recommend often the batter sya website.
There are lots of ways to learn about cat body language.
(22:45):
And you, just like you said, you've got to be watching.
You've got to be curious. You have to not think
you no, and then you'll really see what's going on.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Doctor Lisa, how do you go about changing your cat's
behavior or is it not so much changing their behavior
but watching out for their what their behavior is going
to be and changing your behavior?
Speaker 5 (23:06):
Yeah, so that's where you may need extra help. So
if your cat has a pathologic problem, maybe that kitty
is so scared that there's just no way they could
fathom to not use aggression. In certain situations, you might
eat a veterinary behaviorist. Your pet might need medicine or supplement.
I see a lot of sick cats. I mean a
(23:29):
lot of painful and sick cats. So whenever a cat
comes to you with aggression, we work that kitty up,
which may start with medication. So the kitty can have
a vet visit that isn't terrifying for them. Right, So
there's all of that, and that feels complicated, and going
to the vet isn't fun, But my gosh, we cannot
miss a painful kitty and label it as a behavior problem.
(23:52):
And so in one study, which you may know about,
let's see, there were four studies done looking for arthritis
in cat's, four separate studies total of five hundred and
ninety two cats. If we include all four studies. In
these studies, they took cats who just went to the
bat hospital for something. But it wasn't for laneness, it
wasn't for pain. And if I combine all those studies
(24:14):
and just give you a range, they found that twenty
three to ninety five percent of the cats had arthritis
on the X rays thirteen percent. Thirteen percent of the
cat pet parents reported that their cat was lame ninety
five versus thirteen Are you kidding me? We are missing it.
There's a website for a product. I'm not paid by
(24:36):
this company, but this is really the best website you'd
learn about your cat and pain. It's the Salentsia website.
It's a it's a drug made by Zoettas, So I'm
not necessarily advocating or not for the drug. But go
to the website and you'll click on the little parts
like see if your cat is painful, whiz and then
Hi buddy, And then you'll see a group of animated
(24:56):
videos and maybe there's six videos and each one will
be like healthy cat jumping, unhealthy, that's painful cat jumping.
When you see that as a pet parent, I think
you're going to be shocked because so many of my
pet parents go, oh my gosh, that is the way
my cat jumps up. That is the way my cat
(25:18):
goes up and down the stairs. So we are missing
pain and cats. And I'll give you one more study,
because somehow we got on my big soapbox here painting cats.
That there's a study that looked at our ability as
veterinarians to find the signs of painting cats. So we
look for pain. We look for the feeling in our
(25:39):
hand as we're over the joint of crepitas friend genus,
and we look for the feeling of a jointy and swollen.
We call that a fusion, and we can get it
right about a quarter of the time, about a quarter
of the time because number one, that's have different skills
in that area. But number two, when a cat growls
that you were hisses at you in the vet's office,
(26:01):
are they afraid? Are they hurting?
Speaker 6 (26:03):
We don't know.
Speaker 5 (26:04):
So if you, as a pet parent, look at those
Silencia website videos and you believe your cat is painful,
you are probably right. Take videos of your cat, bring
the videos to the vet. If your vet dismisses you
or pooh poos you, I would strongly advise that you
have an honest conversation with that veterinarian and if they
still will not X ray your cat, that you find
(26:25):
a different veterinarian. Because we cannot tolerate kitties being painful
and doing nothing about it.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Absolutely, So what if you got your kitty taking care
of your cat's fine, they're not acting out for pain.
You need a cat behaviorist? Where should we look? Because
there's all types. There's people that are certified. There's people
that are veterinary behaviorists like yourself. There's people that are
you know, just work a lot with cats and are not,
(26:55):
you know, professionally certified, but they're good with cats. So
where do you look? And how do you find someone
to help you with your cat if you can't do it?
Speaker 5 (27:05):
Yeah, So a veterinary behaviorist is going to work with
some sort of professional behavior consultant or cat training professional.
Most likely some may employ them in their practice, but
most of us are going to refer. So that's a
good way to get kind of a complete team. It's
not one or the other, it's all of us on
(27:25):
the same team, along with the primary care veterinarian. So
if your cat is a serious aggression problem, find a
veterinary behaviorist. You can find one at DACBB dotorg or
you can go on my website and send me an
email and I'll send you that website for you to
find one near you. If you're looking for a cat
behavior consultant, we're looking for someone who has some sort
(27:46):
of certification, so we know that they have decided on
their own, of their own accord to get that extra
bit of learning, and that we know that they are
a part of a community where if your cat is
a really hard problem, they can call on their community
for advice. We all need community because we're all going
to get stumped. We're looking for someone who has positive
(28:07):
reinforcement dedicated. So no training is purely positive, because even
if you don't give your cat a treat, that could
be viewed as negative right by the cat. But what
we can say is we don't want any sports bottles,
we don't want any shock mats, we don't want any
loud noises. We don't want things thrown at kitties. We
(28:29):
don't want kitties smacked, we don't want water thrown on them.
Kitties don't have to be tormented to learn how to
do something. They're quite intelligent, honestly. So we're looking for
that kind of person. And sometimes when you go on socials,
you're on YouTube, you know, maybe people have a lot
of followers and they look really shiny and impressive, and
(28:49):
at the end of the day, it comes down to
or they skilled and just because they're famous, doesn't mean
they're skilled. And will they yeah, yeah? And will they
use positive reinforcement techniques with your kiddie? And if they
have to fall back on punishment techniques, that is a
testament to their skill set. That's what that is. They're
(29:11):
telling you. I don't have a complete skill set, so
I resort to things that hurt kitties in order to
try to teach them lessons. And we don't have to
do that. We just don't.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
No, Actually, I don't think you have to do that too. Cats.
I don't think some of us have. My dog's are
own dog. You haven't now, But you don't have to
do that too. I think any animal. I know that
there's some that believe in it, but I'm not a
big fan.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
Right, I always say to my clients that want to
do that, I'm like, what if your kiddy was a
killer whale and you had to actually outthink them instead
of being physically adversarial, you would find a way. But
just because the cat's smaller than you, it's easy to
pick up a squirre bottle or smack his booty, but
if it could kill you, you wouldn't do that, right,
(29:54):
And so we're taking advantage inadvertently because these are usually
very loving pet parents, so inadvertently we're being led down
a road. But we're taking advantage of someone smaller than us,
and that is not our style. We're not bullies by nature.
We're kind and we love our iddies and it can
be done a different way.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
That's great advice. So where can people go to find
out more information? I know you have a great website
with a lot of great information for our listeners.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
Thank you. Yeah, my website has some free resources and
I'm always adding to it and it's doctor Lisaredosta dot com.
I'm on socials at doctor Lisa Radosta. I don't do
TikTok oh goodness, but I do Facebook at Instagram and
YouTube and LinkedIn, and I recently did I would say,
three or four posts from a couple of weeks ago
(30:44):
on kitty stuff, but there's tons of posts from all
the years I've been on and so you know, hopefully
we will get the word out there that people can
help aggressive cats and live with them without being bitten.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I hope we do. And I'm fortunate that I have
lots of listeners on Catitude, and you know, it's all
about spreading the word because there are so many myths
out there, and you know, cats are hard to read,
and there's just again, so many misconceptions. So is there
anything you wanted to add?
Speaker 5 (31:16):
Just enjoy your cat today, learn something about your cat today.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
That's a great model. You should learn something about your
cat every day. I think that's definitely possible. They're bewitching,
there's so much to learn about them. Or mystical that's
a better word.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
Yeah, both of those things. I think there be witching
and mystical. I just think they're really interesting little creatures.
They really are that.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
They are very much so, Doctor Lisa, thank you so
much for coming on Catitude. I so appreciate all of
your information.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I hope you all enjoyed this show. Be sure to
check out doctor Lisa Fradosta dot com. That is doctor
Lisa's website. She has so much great information for you you.
The site is mobile as well as you know for
the desktop, like everything these days. Thanks to my listener,
thank you so much for listening to Ctitude all these years.
(32:10):
I so appreciate you your support of my show. Thank
you to my cat crew Dennis, Charlotte and Mollie guys,
keep me on your toes and keep me always learning
about cats. And the more I learn, the more I
can share with all of you listening, and the more
we can educate people. So thank you so much, and
especial thank you to my producer Mark Winter for working
(32:33):
is magic on every show of Catatude. Thank you, Mark,
and hey, remember lose the attitude, have catitude.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
Let's Talk pets every week on demand only on petlight
radio dot com
Live. This is pet Life Radio. Let's Talk Pets.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, cat levers, Hello, my feline friends. Welcome to Kata tud.
I'm your show host, Michelle Burn. So this is a
great topic for all of us cat parents. Cat aggression.
It happens. Even if you have the sweetest cat. It happens.
You'd probably dealt with it if you're a cat parent.
And my guest today has a new approach to cat aggression.
(00:46):
I cannot wait to introduce you to her. We will
be right back.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
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Speaker 4 (01:35):
Let's Talk pets on Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome doctor Lisa for Dosta.
She is a veterinary behaviorist. Welcome to Catitude.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I'm so glad to have you. So I'll call you
doctor Leafs. How you said that was okay, So I
appreciate that. Let's first define what is cat aggression because
it can be misconstrued. And as I see it, there's
cat agression between other cats, between cats and humans, between
(02:19):
cats and maybe other pets in the house or pets
around them. So how do you define, as your professional
how do you define cat agression?
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Yeah, that is a great question because where I sit
as a veterinary behavior so I'm a veterinary psychiatrist, and
where let's say an applied animal behaviors would sit. This
is a person with a PhD. Right, we're going to
sit in the same place in that we're going to
view aggression first as an ethological definition. That's going to
be aggression is a distance increasing signal. Now there's going
(02:51):
to be those We're getting a little science, ye, but
we're going to move out of this in just a second, right,
because it's good to understand the science before you actually
try to apply these things to your cat. So the
exception is going to be predatory aggression we call it,
which is obviously not distant increasing. When your kiddie catches
a lizard, they're not trying to increase the distance, right,
So that's a different kind of category in and of itself.
(03:14):
But other than that, we think of its distant increasing.
Even that language can feel weird. What is it really
is an ask for space? Okay, So it could be
an ask for the other cat in the household to
move out, right, Cat number one Fluffy needs cat number
two ted to move out of the house. So Fluffy
(03:35):
is aggressive to tent. Maybe Fluffy wants space from her
pet parents because her pet parents keep petting her, which
she really wants to sleep, So she's aggressive. So we're
going to defy it that way. But the way I
want to look at it, and I've kind of shifted
the way I speak to pet parents about it because
so many pet parents said to me, my cat gives
me love bites and for almost well, I've been a
(03:57):
veterinarian twenty five years. I've been a vet behavior is nineteen.
So I keep saying, no, cats don't bite you when
they love you. That is a crazy kind of love. Right, No,
that is not what they're doing. But I never really
was able to explain it to headparents in a way
that I think they really understood it until I lived
with a cat who bit me. And now I understand
(04:19):
that aggression in many cases is a cry for help
and in many cases is a form of communication because
the cat doesn't have any other way in that moment
in their mind to get their needs fulfill. Does that
make sense?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
That makes a lot of sense. And I'm glad you
said that because I agree with you. I've heard people
call it love bites or a little like smack or something,
and I agree with you. I don't think there's such
a thing as love bites. Not to go off on
a tangent, but calts mouths have a lot of bacteria.
Even a love bite is not that safe, and neither
(04:57):
are scratches. But I mean back to what we're talking about,
that's definitely you know, yeah, they're sending a message. They
don't talk. This is another reason why we need to
never declaw our cats. That's how they tell you leave
me alone. You don't want to antagonize them enough to
get the scratched or the bite, but that happens. Sometimes
(05:17):
they're not verbal. I mean, they me out for humans,
but they're not going to tell you leave me alone,
you're annoying me. Right now, they're gonna swipe exactly.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
And there's oh my gosh, there's so many things she
said that I just love so. Number one, the reason
we don't want to declaw cats, Yes, we don't want
to take away their communication defense backlist, but also, you
know it hurts and cats who don't have their cloth.
And I'm just not sure anybody's doing this anymore. So
I don't know if this is gonna kind of fall
on deaf ears because no one's doing these surgeries.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I hope they're not, but they're still doing it.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Oh holy cow.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Really there's a great show mention this. There's a great
movie called American Cat, The Good, the Bad. The Cuddy
Nala cat is in it. She's helped sponsor it. She's
a famous cat. But there's still so much going on
and people don't realize that. I think I know what
you're going to say, decline cats. Not only is it
very painful for them, but it actually makes them more
(06:11):
aggressive and more likely to bite. And from what I know,
biting is much more dangerous to us humans because there's
so much bacteria in their teeth as compared to you know,
a scratch one percent.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
So there are several studies that have looked at decline.
One study shows that the cats are not more likely
to be aggressive, one study shows that they are. And
there's a third study, and this is the study there's
not a retrospective like asking the pet parent, is your
pet declawed? Does your pet bite you? Those are good studies,
but those aren't the highest level of studies. This last
(06:45):
study is the one that probably is, you know, on
the forefront of your mind, where radiographs were examined looking
first a cat that are declawed to say how many
of you have a fragment left? So imagine first of
all that I'm going to take you toe off. That's
what we're doing. We're taking off the edge of your toe.
And anyone who's ever like I broke my toe, you
(07:06):
know how important those toes are. They are really important
for balance and for movement. So a lot of those
cats that should have had a clean cut to take
off the edge of the toe did not, like a
large over fifty percent did not. They had fragments left
ouch that hurts. And also the cats who were declouded
were more likely to be aggressive. But you know what,
(07:26):
they were more likely to have back pain, they were
more likely to peet and poop outside the box. So
let's not do this. And it does apply to what
we're talking about today because we don't want to hurt
cats because when beings, including human beings, are hurting, we're
more irritable, like of course we are. And also back
to love bites. Here's the thing. Whenever I wonder this normal,
(07:50):
like is this what cats should be doing, or dogs
or whatever animal and treating? I think, okay, which you
feral cats do? What is the wild state? Feral cats
don't love bite each other. Now, they do bite when copulating, okay,
but that's not love. That's copulation has a purpose and
to make a bunch of kittens. Right, So if we
just look at how cats who are BFFs treat each other,
(08:12):
they groom each other, they sleep in a pile of cats,
it's completely different than a bite that they give us.
And like you say, anybody is dangerous, but it can
become even more dangerous if you ignore that bite because
the cat doesn't have a way to talk to you,
so they might bite harder or do something worse, like
on your pillow, not because they hate you, but because
they don't know what else to do and they're freaked out. Right.
(08:34):
But also some pet parents return that quote unquote love bite,
which I'm just gonna call a light bite from here
on out. They return that with a smack, and then
the cat's like, oh, I see, I see what's happening.
I try to talk to you and then you're mean.
So obviously this relationship is not working. I can't trust you.
Now I'm getting afraid of you. Now we're increasing aggression, right,
(08:57):
so we got to pay attention to what the cats
are telling us.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Is obvious for body language to get an idea, you know,
how the cat's feeling and different things. But are their
keys to looking at the cat's body language other than
the obvious and realizing, oh, you know, this is a
sign of aggression, even if it's like a maybe if
it might be hidden.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Yeah, so you know as well as I do. But
pet parents probably don't know that. Cat pet parents and
dog pet parents too are not very good at reading
body language, even experienced ones, And so we want pet
parents to look for the obvious signals. So I'm going
to separate aggression out again. We're putting predatory aggression way
over here to the right. We're not talking about that,
(09:38):
the bird hunting aggression. Okay, we're talking about aggression towards
pets in the household people, things like that. I'm going
to separate them further into aggression that is intended to
increase distance, that's asking for space. Right, So we're going
to look for body language signals like pupils being dig
Your cat's pupils that's the black part of the eye.
(09:59):
You know, those should be really small, like a flit
or like an almond. If they're in a bright room,
like the kind of rooms we have in our homes,
typically in a moderately bright room or a dark room,
we're expecting those pupils to be wider. Okay, that's natural,
that's normal response to light within the body. Now, what
if your cat's pupils are round or not almond shaped
(10:21):
in a brightly colored room. Either your cat is blind,
that might happen in the blind cat. But if your
cat is sighted, what's happening is your cat's in fight
flight freezer fidget. Your cat is really freaked out right now,
and they are big prefrontal cortex. The part that tells
them to not bite you is turning off. Okay, tail
(10:41):
thumping ears. My friend calls them the devil horns, not
because cats are double, but because I think it really
helps people to understand when those ears partially turn back
and they're pointed, or when they're flat against the head.
If you see your cat, so there's the obvious one.
If you see your cat avert his gaze, he's getting worried.
So you're looking at him, he turns his head just
(11:04):
a little bit off to the left or right or
down or up. He's like, you're freaking me out right now.
You're intimidating me a little bit. I'm starting to get concerned.
If you see your cat deliberately get up, shift his
weight and turn away from you, he's sending you a
signal I'd like you to not pet me anymore. I'd
like you to give me a moment, right. So, we
certainly want people to pause. But the kind of bites
(11:25):
that are communication bites are a little different. I'll give
you an example from my own kiddy. My kitty requires
a lot of attention. He's a needy kitty and he
likes to hunt a lot. He likes to play a lot.
He likes to be on his CaTiO free cormly. And
I'm the person who pushes the button for the toys
and opens the door if I have the thoughts. So
when I'm typing on my computer, I'm working, he first
(11:48):
tries to sit and stare at me, so he's asking
me for something, but I'm too busy. So then he
will put his paw on my hand. Generally, I have
a cute picture of me typing with this little black
paw on my hand. If I do not pay attention
to that, he gently bites my hand. So this is
not a distance increasing. This is a I've tried to
ask you three ways, could you just hit the button
(12:10):
on my toy? Because I am not able to do
that myself. And so what I want people to do
is when your cat is staring at you, do something.
Think about the cat needs something. Because once you drive
him to bite, because you're the one driving the bus here,
once you drive him the bite and you get up
and press the toy, you have taught him that he
really should go for the bite because that is what's
(12:31):
most effective. And cats are very intelligent. Does that make sense?
Speaker 6 (12:34):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Absolutely, It reminds me of I'm listening to you thinking.
It's kind of like people. You know, you ask somebody,
they don't do it, then you yell at them, they
don't do it. Then you go over and say you
shake them, or you get their attention. Hey, I need
you to do this. Probably this would happen more. I
don't mean shake violently, but little shove. Hey, hello, wake up?
Do this right? If you had like a child or something,
(12:57):
you might do something like that. Talk first, talk louder,
then go over and say hello and get their attention.
You know, you don't bite people. But what about cats
and aggression when they live with each other?
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Yeah, so again we're going to think, okay, wait, what
if feral cats do well? I mean you know this.
Feral cats live in what we call matrilineal colonies. It's
moms and aunts and sisters and daughters and all the
girls live together. It sounds like an awesome way to
live in my opinion. And the boys come in and
out as they need to. They make some babies. They
(13:31):
eat at the food bowl at the barn, like you
know it's that kind of thing, but usually the usually
it's always an exception. Usually the boys are not hanging
out with girls, though not on a regular basis unless
there's babies to make.
Speaker 6 (13:43):
Right.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
So anyways, if you introduce an adult cat into a
feral colony and that cat is rejected, we would say
that is normal. And there's so much space outside. I'm
not advocating for all the kiddies to live outside. We're
just talking about what kitties got with outside. There's so
much space that other cat can get away, right, And
if you have a bar like I had a horse
(14:06):
and we had barn cats, cats would come together. You
could see they were all similar colors. They go, another
colony would come. Okay, So what do you and I do?
Let's just take me for example, because I think there's
people out there like me. I only adopt adult black
cats for the obvious reason because the most perfect cat
who ever graced this earth was an adult black cat
that I got from Animal care and control, and they
(14:28):
will never be another one like him. But yet that's
all we adopted my family ever since his passing.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
So i've that you adopt black cats. My cat's one's tuxedo.
My dogs that I adopted are always black. I didn't
even know. But there's a stigma against adopting black cats,
especially black dogs, by black cats especially, So thank you
for adopting black cat.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
Like, oh my gosh, black cats are the best. They actually,
you know, there is a gene connected to I'm going
on a tangent. There's a gene associated with the black color,
which also codes partially for a lovely personality. So black
cats are the best. But anyway, so I continue to
add black cats right, And that's not how they would
(15:11):
live in the wild. They'd never live with strangers. So
aggression toward each other is normal. If your cats are
aggressive when they first meet, there's a really good chance
that in a year, about a fifty percent chance that
they're still going to be fighting. So what does that mean?
We had better introduce cats the right way up front,
because first impressions mean something. There's a reason why when
(15:34):
you first meet your new in laws, you you know,
make sure you're not a hot mess and you're not smelly,
and you take a shower like you.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
Want to look your best.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
First impressions mean something, So we want to introduce them,
you know, in a way that is low stress for everyone.
I think one of the big problems I see is
people just put cats in homes and expect everybody to share.
And it's just the most absolutely absurd idea I've ever heard,
because just to think about what that would feel like,
(16:03):
plot me in a home with some other people. I
have to share my plate with them. There's only one
place for me to get a drink, we have to
share the same cup, we have to sleep in the
same bed because there's only one of those. I would
really go crazy. That's an awful way for a person
to live. And for kiddies, it's the same. Every kiddy
needs a bowl, every kiddy needs a place to get water,
(16:26):
every kiddy needs a litter box, and not necessarily on
top of that other kitty's litter box or food or water.
Everybody needs their own space. That's just a basic need
in my mind. So if we do that, we'll reduce
aggression tremendously.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
That makes a lot of sense. Although two of my
cats are sisters from different misters that still don't like
each other. We're gonna take a your break and we'll
be right back. Molly, here's your dinner, Sace that's not
your food.
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Speaker 1 (17:40):
A y dot com. Let's talk, Let's dunk petal Headline Radio.
Speaker 6 (17:49):
Cat Light radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Welcome back everyone. We're talking to doctor Lisa Radosta. She
is a veterinary behaviorist and we're talking about cat aggression,
which we all have cats if we're listening to catch
or want to have cats. So this is a topic
near and dear to our heart. Let's talk about what
us humans could do better to not set off aggressive
(18:24):
behavior with our cats, because there could be things we're
doing that we don't realize we're doing that. Yeah, pick
off our cats, and you know we're past the love
bites and everything, but what are some other things we
do that cats just go you know, you're in their mind,
They're like, you know, you're pissing me off? Statcha.
Speaker 5 (18:42):
Yeah, there's three things that I can think of that
I really want pet parents to know. Number One, everyone
needs face and sometimes your cat doesn't want you to
touch them, and that's okay. And I tell people, I
ask my my pet parents who bring their cats to me,
(19:02):
do you believe that you have the right to say
no if someone tries to touch you? And one hundred percent
of the time, one hundred percent, the person, male, woman,
no matter who they are, they say, yes, I have
the right to say no. And I say, gutn't your
cat have the right? And they pause because we don't
(19:22):
think that little cute, fuzzy creatures ever would not want
us to pet them, right, but they have the right
to say no. So number one, respect your cat's boundaries
and look at the body language and make sure that
you know your cat wants to be petted. At that time,
(19:43):
when you're in doubt, pull your hand away. If your
cat wants it, they will come back and bunt your hand.
Number two, watch out for arousal aggression, because sometimes our
cats get so wild, oh my god, you're petting me
everywhere and I'm losing control, that they will kind of
lose it a little bit. Right, So, if you see
your cat's just quivering all over the place, not in
(20:05):
a trembling, scared way, but in a wild way. The
tail is straight up and it's twitching, and their back
is twitching, just take a pause, take a stuff away,
maybe toss a toy or turn on a motorized toy.
Step away from that. And then number three, noise phobia.
We have evidence in an uncopious study that we did
at my practice and in one other study that we
(20:27):
probably have about twenty five percent of cats who are
noise phobic. I think it's probably more like fifty percent.
If you turn on the smoothie machine and your cat
hall butt into your closet, if you vacuum, your cat,
you know, runs into the closet, storms in your neighborhood,
your cat's under your bed. We are looking at a
(20:48):
noise phobic cat. And when you go under that bed
to pull your cat out because you have loving you're
worried about your cat, your cat bites you, right, So
that's a fearful or defensive type of aggression. Noise phobia
is prominent. And I even had a cat who had
feline idiopathics of stitis or you might see it referred
(21:09):
to as feline lower urinary tract disease LOUTED, who was noisophobic.
It was thunderstorm for me, to be specific. And when
we treated that, we were able to get ahead of
the immaturia, the blood in the urine that is a
sign of looted or FIC. So this is a big deal.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I think the thing is cats they give you clues.
You just have to really pay attention and don't akin
them too which people do this all the time. They're
different from each other my cat crew, Charlotte is very
different from Mollie who's and Dennis is entirely different from
both of them. He's part main coon. He's like, you know,
(21:51):
a chill cat compared to the other two. I mean,
they're so different, so I think you have to keep
that in mind as well.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
Know your cats yeah know your cat's and what I
hear the tone that's running through your comments I feel
like is also, don't make assumptions like don't assume that
your cat is thinking this or that you know the
be curious what is my cat thinking? Instead of I'm
sure I know what my cat is thinking. Step back,
(22:21):
take a picture or video of your cat. You've got
a phone, and then look at that video and go, oh,
I missed that part. I missed that dumbing tail, didn't.
I like, what is my cat saying? Educate yourself. I
have videos on my YouTube channel, which is just my name,
Doctor Lisa Rodosta. I recommend often the batter sya website.
There are lots of ways to learn about cat body language.
(22:45):
And you, just like you said, you've got to be watching.
You've got to be curious. You have to not think
you no, and then you'll really see what's going on.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Doctor Lisa, how do you go about changing your cat's
behavior or is it not so much changing their behavior
but watching out for their what their behavior is going
to be and changing your behavior?
Speaker 5 (23:06):
Yeah, so that's where you may need extra help. So
if your cat has a pathologic problem, maybe that kitty
is so scared that there's just no way they could
fathom to not use aggression. In certain situations, you might
eat a veterinary behaviorist. Your pet might need medicine or supplement.
I see a lot of sick cats. I mean a
(23:29):
lot of painful and sick cats. So whenever a cat
comes to you with aggression, we work that kitty up,
which may start with medication. So the kitty can have
a vet visit that isn't terrifying for them. Right, So
there's all of that, and that feels complicated, and going
to the vet isn't fun, But my gosh, we cannot
miss a painful kitty and label it as a behavior problem.
(23:52):
And so in one study, which you may know about,
let's see, there were four studies done looking for arthritis
in cat's, four separate studies total of five hundred and
ninety two cats. If we include all four studies. In
these studies, they took cats who just went to the
bat hospital for something. But it wasn't for laneness, it
wasn't for pain. And if I combine all those studies
(24:14):
and just give you a range, they found that twenty
three to ninety five percent of the cats had arthritis
on the X rays thirteen percent. Thirteen percent of the
cat pet parents reported that their cat was lame ninety
five versus thirteen Are you kidding me? We are missing it.
There's a website for a product. I'm not paid by
(24:36):
this company, but this is really the best website you'd
learn about your cat and pain. It's the Salentsia website.
It's a it's a drug made by Zoettas, So I'm
not necessarily advocating or not for the drug. But go
to the website and you'll click on the little parts
like see if your cat is painful, whiz and then
Hi buddy, And then you'll see a group of animated
(24:56):
videos and maybe there's six videos and each one will
be like healthy cat jumping, unhealthy, that's painful cat jumping.
When you see that as a pet parent, I think
you're going to be shocked because so many of my
pet parents go, oh my gosh, that is the way
my cat jumps up. That is the way my cat
(25:18):
goes up and down the stairs. So we are missing
pain and cats. And I'll give you one more study,
because somehow we got on my big soapbox here painting cats.
That there's a study that looked at our ability as
veterinarians to find the signs of painting cats. So we
look for pain. We look for the feeling in our
(25:39):
hand as we're over the joint of crepitas friend genus,
and we look for the feeling of a jointy and swollen.
We call that a fusion, and we can get it
right about a quarter of the time, about a quarter
of the time because number one, that's have different skills
in that area. But number two, when a cat growls
that you were hisses at you in the vet's office,
(26:01):
are they afraid? Are they hurting?
Speaker 6 (26:03):
We don't know.
Speaker 5 (26:04):
So if you, as a pet parent, look at those
Silencia website videos and you believe your cat is painful,
you are probably right. Take videos of your cat, bring
the videos to the vet. If your vet dismisses you
or pooh poos you, I would strongly advise that you
have an honest conversation with that veterinarian and if they
still will not X ray your cat, that you find
(26:25):
a different veterinarian. Because we cannot tolerate kitties being painful
and doing nothing about it.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Absolutely, So what if you got your kitty taking care
of your cat's fine, they're not acting out for pain.
You need a cat behaviorist? Where should we look? Because
there's all types. There's people that are certified. There's people
that are veterinary behaviorists like yourself. There's people that are
you know, just work a lot with cats and are not,
(26:55):
you know, professionally certified, but they're good with cats. So
where do you look? And how do you find someone
to help you with your cat if you can't do it?
Speaker 5 (27:05):
Yeah, So a veterinary behaviorist is going to work with
some sort of professional behavior consultant or cat training professional.
Most likely some may employ them in their practice, but
most of us are going to refer. So that's a
good way to get kind of a complete team. It's
not one or the other, it's all of us on
(27:25):
the same team, along with the primary care veterinarian. So
if your cat is a serious aggression problem, find a
veterinary behaviorist. You can find one at DACBB dotorg or
you can go on my website and send me an
email and I'll send you that website for you to
find one near you. If you're looking for a cat
behavior consultant, we're looking for someone who has some sort
(27:46):
of certification, so we know that they have decided on
their own, of their own accord to get that extra
bit of learning, and that we know that they are
a part of a community where if your cat is
a really hard problem, they can call on their community
for advice. We all need community because we're all going
to get stumped. We're looking for someone who has positive
(28:07):
reinforcement dedicated. So no training is purely positive, because even
if you don't give your cat a treat, that could
be viewed as negative right by the cat. But what
we can say is we don't want any sports bottles,
we don't want any shock mats, we don't want any
loud noises. We don't want things thrown at kitties. We
(28:29):
don't want kitties smacked, we don't want water thrown on them.
Kitties don't have to be tormented to learn how to
do something. They're quite intelligent, honestly. So we're looking for
that kind of person. And sometimes when you go on socials,
you're on YouTube, you know, maybe people have a lot
of followers and they look really shiny and impressive, and
(28:49):
at the end of the day, it comes down to
or they skilled and just because they're famous, doesn't mean
they're skilled. And will they yeah, yeah? And will they
use positive reinforcement techniques with your kiddie? And if they
have to fall back on punishment techniques, that is a
testament to their skill set. That's what that is. They're
(29:11):
telling you. I don't have a complete skill set, so
I resort to things that hurt kitties in order to
try to teach them lessons. And we don't have to
do that. We just don't.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
No, Actually, I don't think you have to do that too. Cats.
I don't think some of us have. My dog's are
own dog. You haven't now, But you don't have to
do that too. I think any animal. I know that
there's some that believe in it, but I'm not a
big fan.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
Right, I always say to my clients that want to
do that, I'm like, what if your kiddy was a
killer whale and you had to actually outthink them instead
of being physically adversarial, you would find a way. But
just because the cat's smaller than you, it's easy to
pick up a squirre bottle or smack his booty, but
if it could kill you, you wouldn't do that, right,
(29:54):
And so we're taking advantage inadvertently because these are usually
very loving pet parents, so inadvertently we're being led down
a road. But we're taking advantage of someone smaller than us,
and that is not our style. We're not bullies by nature.
We're kind and we love our iddies and it can
be done a different way.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
That's great advice. So where can people go to find
out more information? I know you have a great website
with a lot of great information for our listeners.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
Thank you. Yeah, my website has some free resources and
I'm always adding to it and it's doctor Lisaredosta dot com.
I'm on socials at doctor Lisa Radosta. I don't do
TikTok oh goodness, but I do Facebook at Instagram and
YouTube and LinkedIn, and I recently did I would say,
three or four posts from a couple of weeks ago
(30:44):
on kitty stuff, but there's tons of posts from all
the years I've been on and so you know, hopefully
we will get the word out there that people can
help aggressive cats and live with them without being bitten.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I hope we do. And I'm fortunate that I have
lots of listeners on Catitude, and you know, it's all
about spreading the word because there are so many myths
out there, and you know, cats are hard to read,
and there's just again, so many misconceptions. So is there
anything you wanted to add?
Speaker 5 (31:16):
Just enjoy your cat today, learn something about your cat today.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
That's a great model. You should learn something about your
cat every day. I think that's definitely possible. They're bewitching,
there's so much to learn about them. Or mystical that's
a better word.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
Yeah, both of those things. I think there be witching
and mystical. I just think they're really interesting little creatures.
They really are that.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
They are very much so, Doctor Lisa, thank you so
much for coming on Catitude. I so appreciate all of
your information.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I hope you all enjoyed this show. Be sure to
check out doctor Lisa Fradosta dot com. That is doctor
Lisa's website. She has so much great information for you you.
The site is mobile as well as you know for
the desktop, like everything these days. Thanks to my listener,
thank you so much for listening to Ctitude all these years.
(32:10):
I so appreciate you your support of my show. Thank
you to my cat crew Dennis, Charlotte and Mollie guys,
keep me on your toes and keep me always learning
about cats. And the more I learn, the more I
can share with all of you listening, and the more
we can educate people. So thank you so much, and
especial thank you to my producer Mark Winter for working
(32:33):
is magic on every show of Catatude. Thank you, Mark,
and hey, remember lose the attitude, have catitude.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
Let's Talk pets every week on demand only on petlight
radio dot com
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