December 9, 2025 • 63 mins
Season Four Premiere!
Jackson Galaxy is a two-time New York Times bestselling author and the host of My Cat from Hell, Animal Planet’s long-running hit show that helped millions of cat guardians solve feline behavior challenges and build stronger bonds with their pets.
Beyond television, Jackson is a leader in the animal welfare world, working directly with shelters and rescues to improve the lives of cats in their care. He leads workshops, teaches classes, and consults with organizations to help create cat-friendly spaces, practices, and adoption programs.
Jackson’s expertise comes from over 30 years of hands-on experience—starting as a shelter worker at a large Colorado animal shelter, where he developed his deep understanding of cat behavior and his signature approach to cat wellness, which revolves around the Raw Cat—the instinctive, untamed spirit inside every feline. By honoring the Raw Cat, he teaches people how to create happier, more confident cats and more harmonious human-animal relationships.
As a prolific digital creator, Jackson has built a global community of almost 9 million followers and averages over 3.5 million views monthly across YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, where he shares expert advice, cat-friendly inspiration, and unfiltered insights into his life as an animal lover and advocate.
Find Jackson Galaxy on the web:
https://www.jacksongalaxy.com
Follow Michelle The Meow Maven on her personal TikTok for updates on her journey:
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Podcast hosts:
Dan The Cat Man.
Michelle The Meow Maven.
Stephen Quandt, Producer.
Editor: Jacob Haley
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Send us an email!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:14):
cats seem to prefer me. To hello there cat people.
Dan the Catman here along with Michelle the Meow Maven.
Welcome back the Stephen, Stephen Quant, Mr. Producer, our
cat behavior expert from catbehaviorhelp.com.
And welcome to the 70th episode of the Shelter Cats Podcast.
(00:36):
And I really wish I had a soundboard because I'd have a
drum roll playing right now because joining us for our
Season 4 premiere is Jackson Galaxy.
Hi, Jackson. Hi, everybody.
We are the drum roll myself. Like I could find a drummer on
here somewhere, but. We really we need to invest in a
(00:58):
sound board because they wouldn't there would have been a
yay sound effect right now. Jackson before we get to speak
to you or we just have a little business.
Michelle, take it away. Shelter Cuts podcast is part of
the Chewy Shelter and Rescue affiliate program.
Chewy's mission is to be the most trusted and convenient
online destination for pet parents everywhere.
(01:19):
Chewy is passionate about supporting animals and making a
positive impact in communities across the country.
Local shelters and rescues are oftentimes the first home or
provide continued support to pets.
That's why Chewy is committed tosupporting organizations that
benefit the overall health, safety, and well-being of
shelter and rescue animals. Please click the link in our
(01:40):
description. You'll not only be helping your
local shelter, you'll also be supporting our podcast.
Thank you, Chewie. Thank you.
I've been messing up that commercial for a week, so thank
you Michelle for taking that back.
Jackson Galaxy is a two time NewYork Times bestselling author
and the host of My Cat From Hell, Animal Planet's long
(02:00):
riding hit show that helped millions of cat guardians solve
feline behavior challenges and build stronger bonds with their
pets. Beyond television, Jackson is a
leader in the animal welfare world, working directly with
shelters and rescues to improve the lives of cats in their care.
He leads workshops, teaches classes, and consults with
(02:22):
organizations to help create catfriendly spaces, practices and
adoption programs. As a prolific digital creator,
Jackson has built a global community of almost 9 million
followers. I'm Jealous and averages over
3.5 million views monthly acrossYouTube, Facebook, TikTok and
Instagram, where he shares expert advice, cat friendly
(02:44):
inspiration and unfiltered insights into his life as an
animal lover and advocate. Jackson, thank you so much for
joining us. We really appreciate it.
Thanks, Dan. It's good to be here through
power outages and everything. So right out, right out of the
gate, my, my first question is, I'm definitely interested in the
(03:06):
origin story of how you became who you are today, how you
became, how you got involved andpassionate about cat behavior in
the 1st place. So what led you to become a cat
behavior advocate? I, I mean, as I, I think most of
the people who wind up doing stuff like this, it's sort of
(03:26):
serendipitous, but I was living in Boulder, Co at the time and I
was, this is in the early 90s and I was a musician, which is
to say I, I was a barista and a guy and all that shit.
And I, and I really was miserable.
(03:50):
And I saw The Wanted for, you know, just a bottom level pooper
scooper person at the Humane Society in Boulder.
And I took it and, and it was, and, and I mean, I remember it
being this, this sort of instant, like this is a great
job. And, and then it was like a few
(04:14):
weeks later where I realized that, that my Co workers were
starting to make fun of me because whenever I'd be sitting
in, in the break room and we would let cats into the break
room during our, our own lunchesand they would all just sort of
gather around me and bother me. Fat boy and which is to this
(04:35):
day, every time I tell somebody I was called cat boy, I'm like,
oh, I just made it live for another couple of years, but
nobody knew anything about theseguys.
And I mean, to be honest, it kind of still only a little bit
out of the starting gate in in that respect now, but we were,
(04:56):
as everyone knows, we were killing a lot of animals in
shelters back then. And and if nobody, oh, I'm so
sad. Hold on, there's a car pulling
up here. If my dog actually, if my dog
actually hears it, my dog is going to go crazy right here.
Yes, I have dogs. This is why people live with
(05:21):
cats because you don't have to be afraid of the delivery guy
when the cats are around. We win anyway.
Did you say 5 dogs? Five dogs, Yeah.
Wow. Wow.
Yeah, so which which in in animal math equals 17 cats?
(05:41):
Pretty much. That seems about right.
So I've done math for a while. So yeah, anyway, I, I, I knew
that I was in a position where because the cats sort of picked
me, that I should learn as much as I possibly could about them
because the threshold was reallylow.
You know, whether a cat makes itinto the adoption area or gets
(06:03):
euthanized out of impounds or surrender depended on very
little. Like, were they coming out from
the back of their cage? Because if they're not going to,
you're not going anywhere. So I, with a combination of the
scant books that were out at that time, there really weren't
(06:24):
that many. And I talked to a good friend of
mine who was, I'm a dog trainer and, and then I just spent a
heck of a lot of time with them and, and learned my way around
it. And, you know, within a couple
of months, I was the cat guy at the shelter.
And within a couple of years, I was teaching other shelters
(06:46):
about the cats in their care and, and doing, and, and those,
the home consoles that you've seen me do on the show, those
I've started doing right around then as well.
Because we, we realized that people were calling and saying,
Hey, I'm about to bring my cat down because he's been, you
know, peeing on my bed for the last three years and I can't
(07:08):
take it anymore. And, and my boss at the time
allowed me to go out to the community, go out there and go
to people's houses and try to stop the cats from coming in,
which turned out to be a pretty easy job.
You know, people just were misinterpreting and projecting
terrible things onto their cats.And, and so, yeah, that started
(07:33):
back then too. So yeah, everything started with
me in sheltering. So I've been doing sheltering
longer technically than I've been, you know, working as the
cat guy. I think he kind of answered the
question, but I I I've always wanted to know how the guitar
case thing came about from the show.
It it came and it's so funny because for the first couple of
(07:54):
years, all these like sort of, you know, I don't know, like I
was going to say Monday morning quarterbacks, but it's the cab
version of people like watching TV and going that's got to be
some stick that they made-up. And it totally was.
I actually did. The reason that I wound up using
a guitar case is I was an aforementioned musician.
(08:16):
I had guitars in my car for the most part of the time and I got
to a point where every time I goto my consults, I was carrying
arm loads of crap with me. You know, like everything from
mongo as to catnip and and treats and my the laser pointers
and black lights and and all types of stuff to help me in my
(08:39):
consults. And it was, it was the blonde
itself, which I have since manufactured another one that is
a lot shorter pocket size. This one was like this long and
I had nothing to carry it in. And there was a guitar case in
the back of my car. And it's like, hell yeah, let's
do that. And it just became a thing.
(09:02):
I mean, it wasn't half as prettyas the one that was on the show.
I mean, that's one of the thingsyou get when you do TV's.
You get a nice guitar case, you know I.
Didn't. I didn't realize they gave you a
pretty guitar case for the IT was.
Actually, the, the amazing thingwas that right after we started
making the show, the, the, the company, the guy, I can't
(09:27):
remember the name of the company, but one of the biggest
guitar makers and guitar case makers in the world happened to
be a huge cat guy saw the show and was like, I'm gonna build
you a guitar case of your dreams, you know, and, and he
did. He and we wound up with, like,
you know, 20 of them. Wow.
Three of which I think were confiscated by TSA at some
(09:49):
point. You.
Know I was gonna say, did you get to keep any of those cases?
Struggle. You can't dip.
Yeah, no, I. Don't know, that sounds like a
story. The TSA thing.
God. Well, you know what?
The good thing is that over time, my secret demographic, TSA
flight attendants. They they're cat people.
So interesting. There's hidden benefits
(10:12):
everywhere. I I will admit that I once told
a flight attendant the reason I was on the airplane was to go to
a rescue case with ASPCA and I literally from wheels up to
wheels down, there was a flight attendant sitting next to me the
entire flight. Not the same one they rotated.
Pictures of the cats and. Yes, they didn't.
(10:34):
They didn't give up bums. But what I was doing, you know,
in, in wherever I was going. But they wanted to show me their
their cats. Yeah.
There have been so many times where I've been like, because I
always sit in the window and theflight attendant is like leaning
over the person next to me to show me the pictures, you know,
(10:54):
and, and you know, God help the person sitting next to me if
they don't like cats because they're just like 1 after the
other after the other. It's great.
It's wonderful. I mean, I think, but that's
become my life period. I mean, I don't, I can't walk
down the street now without seeing a phone full of cats.
You know, it's which I the best fringe benefit ever.
(11:15):
It's. Wonderful.
Nice. So we already know Jackson that
you have 5 dogs. Do you want to tell us your your
entire animal population at home?
What you've got little bit aboutthem?
It's a lot and, and luckily we just, we just adopted out our
our last foster cat, so that's cool.
Vincent went home yesterday. But other than that, 3 cats and
(11:38):
five dogs and it's yeah, it's a lot.
I mean, honestly, I mean, I'm the, The funny thing was, I had
never favored cats over dogs. I was never a cat person and I
never quite got that thing. But so I've always had dogs in
the house. It's just that got a lot more
(12:00):
now, you know, but. Five dogs and three cats.
Wow. Say again.
Five dogs and three I have 6 cats in a 2 bedroom apartment.
Oh, that's something. I mean, listen, we, you know, we
can topped out at one point, I think it was 10 years ago,
because we had all of the feralsand semi ferals in the
neighborhood were in and out of our garage.
(12:21):
We had a catio that was epicallysized and, and we were, you
know, fostering it. So I think at one point we had
12 cats and three dogs at 1.0 and 2 chickens and.
Nice and two chickens. Partridge in a pear tree, Yeah.
(12:42):
I have 3 cats and a gecko. Does that count for anything?
I wouldn't want to be the gecko man.
No, he lives in terror. I think he's kind of gotten used
to it because I recently got a kitten this year and the other
two didn't even know the gecko existed until the new kitten
came around. And they all now they kind of
(13:04):
give him a heart attack on a daily basis.
But it's the most exercise the thing has had since I've had him
for two years and he's kind of gotten used to it.
He doesn't run around anymore. They just sit up on top of his
tank and just watch him and justsit there.
So yeah. Guys, yeah, no, I, I I think
that the funniest part is that out of all of the animals, the
chicken who died, our last chicken died, I don't know, a
(13:30):
year and a half ago. And she was the the true ruler.
Like she would watch, she was like half house chicken.
So she would walk into a room and a little 2 LB Bantam
chicken, she'd walk into him andshe'd just bow up like, you
know, like a gang number. She'd like bow up like that.
And dog cat, 70 LB dog right here scattered.
Everybody's just like, oh. That's great.
(13:52):
Chicken balls was here chicken. Is that is that your next book?
Jackson chicken balls? You're a.
Best seller I'm sure. That sounds like a children's
book right there, is what it sounds like.
I know, and that's about all it would be.
Actually, so I'll say so. Speaking of books, I just
(14:15):
recently finished listening to the audio book of Total Cat
Mojo. So I feel like I know you very
intimately now, but So what was the motivation for writing that
one? Well, how did you come up with
that? I kind of know from listening to
it, but I want to can we talk about that?
A little bit Mojo, I think, was me fulfilling a promise to my,
(14:36):
my publishing company because they took a flyer on me when
the, you know, the show was in its first season when they
signed me on and, and they wanted me to write that book.
Everything I know about Kat's book, but what I was writing at
the time was a memoir. And so they had to take that and
(14:56):
they did. That was Cat Daddy.
And so after four books, I, I really just wanted to give them
what they wanted. Plus, I, I really, I just wanted
to see what it would look like to put everything I know into a
book. I would hope that.
Honestly, I wished it was be a little fatter.
It was the first time I saw it. I was like, that's it.
(15:18):
Well, it was, it was chock full information.
It was, there was a lot of stuffin there that I am as I was
listening to as I'm driving and I'm taking mental notes.
I'm like, OK, let's think about that at home.
And I'm just trying to because like I said, I have 3 cats and I
think each of them fits one of the categories that you had.
Can you can you talk about the categories like the, the, the
overall like the wallflower and the?
Categories and again, I say these things being as you know,
(15:42):
what is it like just putting a blanket over the whole thing,
folks that just try to like grasp things and not.
I'm not saying that cats only come in three flavors, but the
what we look to do with the concept of cat mojo, which is
the that sort of, you know, justdied in the wool kind of the
(16:05):
confidence that cats are born with.
All cats have that sense of I know what I'm here for.
I know what I do. I know what my ancestors did.
As long as I'm doing that thing,I'm good.
You know, it's like, you know, somebody who's like, it's like
one of the Peyton family when you're all of your father's were
being grandfathers were quarterbacks and you're like,
(16:26):
OK, I'm a quarterback. That's what I'm supposed.
To be. Because we have done so
blessedly little to them over the course of our journey with
them over, you know, hundreds ofthousands of years.
They still have that connection to who I call the raw cat that
the, the ancestral. Like I'm here to hunt, you know,
(16:48):
and, and catch and kill and eat and groom and sleep.
That's what I'm here for. And so our cats, if there's a
cat in our lives that is really connected to that really
confident, I call them the Mojito cat.
The point was, I at the time when I came up with that name,
it wasn't, it wasn't connected to the word Mojo.
It was, it was because I pictured that cat like if
(17:11):
somebody came to your front door, they'd be standing there
with a, with a tray of drinks and they'd be like, come on in
and you know. Absolutely, you should show up
with the Troyo Mojitos. You are welcome any day of the
week. Troyo Mojitos.
Exactly. So that's the mojito cat who
people come into the house, they're completely, you know,
just centered and wonderful. They come up to you, they say hi
(17:32):
head bunks and everything like that.
The wallflower is on the other one end of the the spectrum and
the wallflower is that cat, thatthe cat who you know, when you
have guests over who have been over 10 times and they're like,
wait a minute, you have 3 cats. I had no idea.
The wallflower is the one I've never seen before.
(17:53):
The one who just sort of sneaks around going from under the bed
to the closet. That's the wallflower and and
which that condition is sort of anti mojo.
That is like, I don't believe I own anything in the world.
I don't have the right to any territory in the world, so I'm
just going to stay out of the way.
(18:15):
Then you have the the other side, which is the Napoleon cat.
And the Napoleon cat is the overowner, the one who just like, no
matter how many times the other cats in the room say, cool, you
want to take it, it's fine, it'syours.
That's like, I'm just going to do it again to make sure.
I'm just going to chase you on top of the fridge again, just to
make sure. Then we're going to chase you on
(18:36):
top of the fridge. I'm going to piss on the on the
on the fridge door. Just so you know who this
belongs to. That's the Napoleon.
So knowing where your cat fits in that spectrum helps you to
design A life for them based on those needs and and how to
remedy the anti mojo. You know, that's that's the
(18:59):
archetypes right there. I, I really, I did find it
fascinating. Like I said, I have 3 cats and I
and I don't know that I have, I have one that's kind of like, I
think she's a hybrid. She's a kitten.
She's barely six months old. She's like a Napoleon, but she's
not a bully. She's just energetic.
She's just full kitten. She's definitely the mojito cat.
(19:20):
She is all over the place. I have one other.
She's an older cat. She's probably 17.
We're not quite sure. She just doesn't give a crap
about anybody anymore, and she kind of just sits off to
herself. She's in the room.
She's not really a wallflower. She's just over it.
You know more. Like those?
Like you kids? Yes, exactly.
You're rock'n'roll music, you know?
That's exactly it. Get off my lawn, you know that.
(19:44):
And then I have a little anotherkitten that I got last year.
They're all three rescues and the one from last year is 1000%
the wallflower cat. So I've been trying to
implement, I admit that I have not been as good at playing on a
daily basis with them, especially the kitten.
I play with her, but it hasn't been as routine as you suggest
in your book about that. It should it needs to be every
(20:04):
day. It needs to be like a solid 15
minutes, 1015 minutes at least every day.
And then the way that you play and all these other things.
So I was really I'm really like focusing on that.
And I did you meet I have seen actually a difference already.
So I play with the the the mojito cat.
She's the kitten, the baby who needs the most play out of
everybody. So I.
(20:25):
Really focus on her and the other two just kind of watch The
old lady just sits on, sits on the table and she just stares
and she's like, OK, that's fun. You, you kids have your fun.
And the, the other one, the wallflower one has just been
like mostly sitting off to the side and just kind of watching
and seeing what's going on. But I took the, the note that
you had in the book about how even when they're just watching,
(20:47):
they're still activating their brains.
They're still, you know, using strategy and trying to figure
out how they're. So I, I'm paying attention to
that. And then I was actually able to,
when I was kind of in the middleof playing with the kitten, I
had, you know, the thing on the stick, it's got like 3 tentacles
that come off of it. So I'm, so I'm using that and I
just like put it over near the, the, the wallflower.
(21:09):
I didn't throw it at her. I wasn't aggressive.
I just gently kind of put it in front of her and like wiggled it
around the floor. And she was watching this thing
like crazy. She was so into it.
And then eventually she did actually reach out and start
playing with it and start grabbing it.
And then she blankly stick out of my hand.
Yeah, she yanked, and I was like, all right, well, I guess
that's over. I mean, but you know what it's
(21:30):
it's one of the working with wallflowers is one of the most
satisfying things in the world because that moment that happens
when they do the swat finally, you know, the best thing in the
world is a is a wallflower who, well, they're playing, even if
they are playing, they're up against the wall, you know, But
the day that you get that cat tofollow the toy into the middle
(21:53):
of the room, yeah, you know, grab that toy and you can see
the change in their body instantly, instantly the minute
they are because the, you know, the theory being where I kill, I
own, you know, that is a spot where now I own something.
And when they own something in the smack middle of the room,
you see that thing going, I got it.
(22:14):
And then it's like, mm, hmm, I'mhere, you know, and yeah, it's
one of the beauties of playing with your cats.
Although I got this, I have learned something.
And I think this is just me mellowing out in my old age, but
that I, I think I've been reallyhard on people for way too long.
(22:37):
I think I've, I've, I've demanded stuff from people so
that when they when they meet me, half the time they're
apologetic. You're like, listen, I know and
I think the expectation on the world that you have to do this
and you have to do it this time and whatever puts everybody in a
(23:00):
no woman situation because it's not possible.
You know, I mean, I think I tried to do that because nobody
was ever playing with their catsand it pissed me off, you know,
So it, it, the line that I wouldalways give people is if you've
got a dog, you've got a collar and a leash, because everybody
knows you got to take your dog for a walk because that's how
(23:22):
they explore the world. That's how they get their
coffee. Everybody knows that cats, you
have a toy, you have a toy with a feather and a wand or
whatever, at least have that or a cat dancer or something like
that cat charmer where it's likea wire and a piece of cardboard.
I don't care, but it shouldn't be seen as a as a an option.
(23:44):
It's it's something that that gives them what they need as
much as our dogs need walks. So I guess I was trying to just
really hammer that home and I might have over hammered.
I'm just admitting I. I will tell you, Jackson, that
shortly after we adopted 14 years ago, our blind from birth
girl and I tossed a toy for her.Even though she couldn't see it,
(24:08):
she circled into it and I was stunned that she had that
instinctive hunting technique built in, even though she, you
know, could only hear the toy but.
Amazing because it's so important for her that like on
the spot she did, she discovers what echolocation is because
it's that important. You know, I mean, it's it's it's
(24:28):
so it is my and this is something we could talk about
for four days. I think Stephen, you and I
started to, but the fact that wedon't value the raw cat in cats
anymore is something that's like, if I do anything for the
rest of my time around cats, that might be it is to try to
get us to, to appreciate the cats who are still out there
(24:53):
doing their jobs. Because the rest of the world
seems to have forgotten that these cats have helped get us
where we are. And now they have their
usefulness, you know, and now wejust sort of, you know, they're
pests or they're, you know, people get all pissed off
because cats are walking around and leaving paw prints on their
(25:15):
cars and whatever. And, and the, the loss of the
wild cat is something that I think we shouldn't be mourning
when it's gone, You know, it's, it's something that I think we
should fight for. And that, to me, is fighting for
the rights of community cats because that's where those guys
are, you know? And the more we fight for those
(25:36):
guys, the more we ensure that, you know, the raw cat lives on.
I'm done. And that actually brings me to
a, a, a, what I think is an important topic and, and one
that was eye opening for me. Jackson and I, as you guys know,
spoke at the Ultimate Cat conference a number of weeks ago
and Jackson spoke before me. And you start talking, Jackson,
(25:59):
about this concept involving trauma in I'm not going to give
it away. I'm just setting you up, OK?
You start talking about trauma in shelter contexts.
And without kind of further ado,I want to turn it over to you to
kind of bring that really interesting idea and the example
(26:20):
that you gave to our listeners today, right?
The the faux adopt or the faux return with the role-playing and
all of that. You know, it's so important
that, you know, when I we hit the stage at at the conference,
I was going to be talking about a whole other thing.
But I think we we, you know, when I was talking to people
(26:40):
backstage and I had touched basewith a couple of the speakers
and it just felt like, oh, I canjust let go.
So I kind of let go. I felt a little bit after
because there was a lot of like I looked up at one point and
there was like a big part of thecrowd that was like this, like I
was starting to scare them a little bit.
But I mean, what I was talking about at the time was we had
(27:03):
just finished in like an 18 month program where we were
touring the country and teachingCat Mojo and teaching all about
cats and shelters and how to make the experience different
from everything from, you know, environmental enrichment to
behavioral enrichment, to bettering their foster programs,
(27:25):
to growing their foster programs, to bettering their TNR
programs, to actually putting out marketing that was cat
centric. So the shelter themselves looks
like cat experts. All that we did 18 months of
that, it was really a wonderful thing.
And but it started to get reallyfrustrating because we started
(27:45):
to come up against the same sortof baked in biases from shelter
to shelter that, and I'm going to say all of them because God
knows we met a lot of people. But it was frustrating to know
that that there were still policies in place that were
(28:08):
ridiculous, that were based on fallacies or were that were,
that showed a distinct lack of trust in their community.
Distinct lack of trust. In fact, one of the things that
we know during the, the teachingof of those classes, we would do
this one class which was not even, it was an exploration.
It was, it was like we just had a starting point.
(28:30):
And then we were just leading the students through an exercise
about their mindset and about the the mindset of the rescue
and, and animal welfare community.
And almost all the time we wouldget to a place where in
reference to the public, we would hear everyone lies and
(28:50):
that that was baked in. And when you think about the
fact that, you know, with the pandemic and after the pandemic,
we saw a massive turnover in in staffing at shelters, A lot of
people who have been around a long time left.
(29:11):
I mean, really just got to the point where the just the
experience of sheltering during the pandemic was just too much.
And the fact that we went as farbackwards as we did and, and
there's a lot of young people now in sheltering, but yet they
still have these biases that seem to came out of nowhere.
(29:32):
So I, I kind of linked it to a concept that I call trauma
policy. Trauma policy is a policy that
you've taken on at your organization born from trauma
that you have had. So the example that I think I
was using when I was I think I'mnot sure but it.
(29:54):
Was the the intake example and the person had that outdoor cat
or the cat who got outside? Yeah.
And so we were going through, wewere doing a bunch of
role-playing and so we were doing like, you know, mock
intake and, and seeing how if I threw you a curveball, if I was
(30:16):
surrendering a cat and I said a certain thing, would, what would
you say if we were doing that during adoption?
Same thing. And we were.
So we, I have come up with this sort of an imaginary cat.
And, and I think I had said something about I was trying to
give them a cat who, when they asked me the question, was he
(30:39):
indoors or outdoors? I said he was both in and out
and one of the people in the room raises their hands and they
say, well, I mean, we wouldn't take that cat anyway.
I mean, any cat that has even stepped foot outside is not
coming into this organization. We're not going to adopt them
out. And it stopped me and my, my,
(31:01):
my, my, my Co worker in in our tracks.
I said, what the hell do you mean you would never take a cat
who's ever been in the in the outside?
She goes, well, here's what happened.
We had this cat at my organization had him for a long
time. He was, you know, everybody's
favorite and and you know, he had come from the outside.
(31:27):
He he was a stray. He was tipped when he was ear
tipped when he came to us. And but because we knew he had
been outside and he could be a bit of an escape artist, we, I
made sure to say whoever adopts him can never have him outdoors,
can't do it, you know, and you know, we did the adoption.
(31:48):
I felt great about it. There were no red flags
whatsoever. 2 weeks later, animal control finds a cat on
the side of the road dead. Microchip traced him back to us.
It was that cat. And I learned my lesson.
And the lesson was never even intake a cat who's been on the
outside because then they're going to want to get back out
again. And when I think about how
(32:09):
terrible I felt being the personwho adopted that cat out what,
what part did I play in the death of that cat?
This is the thinking, what can Ibeat myself up about, about the
death of this cat? And she discovered, because I,
I, I shouldn't know from that day forward, that organization,
(32:32):
which was not a small one, by the way, would never intake a
cat from the public who had lived one day outside.
The, the cool part about this isthat it took this person saying
it, uncovering the PTSD element of it.
(32:55):
And she broke open like an egg in terms of the recognition of,
Oh my God, what have I been doing?
You know, and, and could see whyshe had to change her policy
because it made no sense. And you know, we we were on to
teaching a whole other generation of shelter workers
about never adopting out a cat whoever set foot outside.
(33:17):
So it the the good news in that is, yes, we passed down some
toxic shit from one generation of sheltering to the next.
We also passed down amazing things as well.
So please don't, you know, get me wrong, but these things that
are outdated or toxic or just plain, you know, silly not to,
(33:43):
you know, be glib about somebodyelse's trauma, but it, it will
lead to more animals dying, you know, and, and we, we do owe it
to ourselves and to our community to, to, to self check
ourselves as organizations. So my, I think the way I ended
this whole thing was if you are running, whether it's a small
(34:07):
rescue, whether it is just a shelter to adopt, I mean, a
foster to adopt network or a brick and mortar shelter, Cat
Cafe, whatever it is, every single thing that you do needs
to be a choice. If you inherited something, ask
why. That's what we owe ourselves is,
is every decision that we make, we ask why are we doing the
(34:31):
thing right now? That is, you know, best
practices as opposed to, you know, and I think another
example that I said Stephen was A and this always stops people
in their tracks because I do know people are still doing
this. But it's the the fact that so
many shelters pull their black hats during Halloween and will
not allow cats to be adopted during Halloween, which was
(34:53):
proven to be a fallacy years ago, years ago.
And then, you know, back in Boulder, we pulled the Black
Cats then we were, we were told no, because, you know, these
satanic rituals, they'll use white cats too.
So then we pulled the white catstoo.
Then we're pulling white cats and Black Cats and black and
white cats and Oreo cats and moocats and everyone being pulled.
(35:13):
And it was the silliest thing ever because it never existed.
The same thing goes for, you know, we got to work extra hard
and do these like, you know, home visits and, and, and
landlord checks. And because, you know, Class B
dealers will come in here and round up A and, and make them
into, you know, lab cats. Silliness.
(35:36):
It's silliness. It's not, it doesn't happen.
What, what Class B dealer would bother to go into a shelter and
pay, even if it's 20 bucks for acat, scoop them off the street?
It's just, it's, it's, it all goes back to everybody lies.
It all comes back to that. We don't trust our communities.
(35:57):
And I think it's really worth everybody doing those exercises
of going do we do we trust our community?
Do we actually want to be an ally in this community?
You know, and there are amazing,amazing, amazing individuals and
groups working right now. And it makes me so happy about
what the future of sheltering isbecause I don't want to sound
(36:18):
like a grumpy old man. I really don't.
But because I really do believe that we have a lot to be
thankful for right now. But that was man, that was a
long story. But.
But a good one. And and I just want to thank
you. And you know, you also made the
point that you felt that every shelter has some policy in place
(36:38):
that comes from someone's trauma.
And when you said that at the conference, it was just, it just
hit me. It was really big.
So thank you for sharing all of that.
It's impossible, Steven. It's impossible to to work
welfare as long as we have and not carry around trauma.
It's impossible. Yeah, I don't know.
(36:59):
It's, it's often times people will say, you know, they'll to
people that work in shelters or rescues.
Oh my gosh, that must be a dreamjob.
And I imagine in some ways it isa dream job, but then in other
ways it is it's it's traumatic. It's devastating on a daily
basis. You know, when when you can't
save an animal or unfortunately,an animal has to be put down or
(37:19):
there's, you know, people adopt,but then they have to return for
one reason or another. It's got to be heartbreaking on
on a daily basis. And then to see all the animals
that you can't rescue that you just, you know, you just you
don't have the bandwidth to rescue.
It's it's. Right.
I mean, I think that one of the things that and This is why I
still love doing the work in my say the work.
I mean, you know, when I go to ashelter, I'm doing half cat
(37:42):
work, half human work, and I love the human part of it
because people who do what we dodo it because they love the
animals, you know, And somewherealong the line that that phrase
that we hear, oh, I love animals, I hate people, but I
love animals starts to make its way through the rank, you know,
(38:04):
but but The thing is, I mean, that's what leads to, you know,
you can't trust anybody. But I do think that there is
things that we're learning rightnow that are so, you know, eye
opening and, and as long as we keep our ear to the ground about
what is best practices. And, and also I, the other thing
(38:25):
I try to tell people is, look, if you use me as an example, I
wouldn't be here, I wouldn't have a job, I wouldn't have had
a career and been on TV and all that stuff if I didn't go to my
boss at the shelter that day. And I, and I, and I said to her,
listen, people are calling, can I just go out to their house?
And this is on her dime. And she goes, yeah, we're
(38:46):
killing cats here. Yeah, go do it.
What if she said no, no, we needto hear you get.
I wouldn't have had a job. I wouldn't have.
We have to reward out-of-the-boxthinking.
We have to reward thinking that's based in in
entrepreneurial thinking. You know, we got to think more
like a business. And that's how we, you know,
(39:07):
lots of fun stuff. I mean, I'd love talking about
it, but. But I think it is very important
to start by acknowledging that there's no way that you could do
this without holding onto a lot of trauma, you know?
So. Yeah.
Yeah, we're, we, we're in New York.
(39:28):
We are all in New York where thetrauma, the drama of the rescue
community is, is something we'vetalked about dedicating an
episode to at some point is justtrying to, like you said, crack
the egg open of of the trauma and just what everyone has
experienced and how that dictates how they proceed with
(39:50):
cat rescue. Side note, I have, I do prefer
cats to people. I have, I, I've had cats for 25
years. I cannot tell you how many dates
I've canceled because I'd ratherspend time home with my cats.
But anyway, and I'm proud, I am proud of that fun fact, I'm I'm
(40:12):
the origin story person. I'm the I'm the big picture
question person on the show. How did my cat from hell come
about? I had just moved to LA, this is
back in, I think O 7 and I had moved here and I just was doing
(40:37):
my thing. I was, you know, making as many
inroads as I could try to get jobs, going to people's houses
and working with their cats, teaching and classes or
whatever. And I don't know, it was maybe a
month after I moved here and I was with a friend who, I mean,
everybody in their, you know, sister-in-law works in the
(40:58):
industry here. So there's always eyes on you
somewhere. And I was in LA at a PetSmart, I
think, and talking to the adoption group who was there.
And I started getting kind of animated the way I am now.
But I was like moving around anddemonstrating things and
whatever. And then this little crowd
formed around us as we were doing it.
And then the friend I was with was like, you know, I always
(41:20):
think of like Fred Flintstone when he had like the, the
gambling addiction. And all of a sudden he'd be
like, you know, bet, bet, bet, you know, like this is that's
very much the TV we have ATV show here.
And I never, I realize now how lucky I was.
I didn't really do much and keptgetting introduced to other
(41:43):
people. And within six months we had a
deal and I never, I literally like now knowing how hard people
have to work to get things off the ground.
I, I realized how intensely lucky I was.
But that said, Animal Planet gave us 3 episodes to, you know,
sink or swim. And so I had to like, call in
(42:06):
every cat person, you know, using the old Dixie cup and a
string method, you know, like getting in touch with everybody
to try to get us a second season, which we got.
But yeah, no, it was, it was. I was very lucky.
What year was that, Jackson? When did it first air?
I believe the first episode was in 11 I'm pretty sure.
(42:28):
OK. Because it I think Cat Daddy
came out in 12, so that makes sense.
That's about when it would have been.
Yeah, I do. I feel like too.
It also satisfied A niche like what you were talking about
earlier that there was no real, you know, not not significant
amounts anyway, but no real information out there for cat
owners. There's very little, I mean so
(42:50):
much about dogs for decades, generations even about dogs and
and so little about cats that I think your your show came along
at the right time for that. Well, here's the thing.
It's funny because network wise they assumed that nobody wanted
it, you know, because it happened yet, you know, and we
even the first two seasons we couldn't find sponsors.
(43:11):
I think the only one we had the first season was like Swiffer I.
Can't remember that have anything to do with.
It but like it was so interesting to which is why they
picked the name my cat from hell.
Nothing to do with that one. I almost dropped dead the day
they told me that's what it was going to be.
(43:33):
But they said we wanted so that people who actually don't give a
RIP about cats or who actually don't like them, we'll still be
flicking around the channels andgo, oh, I got to watch a show
like that, you know, whatever the name is, I got to watch
that. And it absolutely actually
worked, you know? What would you, what would you
have called it if you if it was up to you?
Oh. I was just going to call it Cat
(43:53):
Daddy, just that it was going tobe called Cat Daddy and it was.
And we had come up with, I mean,as long as I stayed away from
Cat Whisperer and something likemy cat from hell, I was fine.
I didn't have my bar was pretty low.
I just, I mean, I swear to you when they said the name I, I
started to hyperventilate, you know, I was like, Oh my God, my,
(44:16):
my shelter pass is going to be completely revoked my life, you
know, but we are a forgiving lot, so that's good.
Yeah, I mean, I, I, I was drawn to your vibe with the cats.
I was. I was drawn to the guitar case.
I play drums twice. I could do funk 49.
(44:40):
That's about as good as I could do for drums.
I was played that for like 10 minutes with with my landlord.
I was drawn to your vibe. I was drawn to just your the
kind of cool, chill vibe you hadwith the cats.
I mean, there were many times I would look at the owners and I
would want to throw the remote at the TV, you know, like how do
(45:03):
you not know this? You know, there was a lot of
that from me personally from having cats, but just the way
you kind of you kind of guided them with your with your cool
nature is what definitely drew me to the show.
Whatever, whatever the name would have been, you know, the
draw was you for me. Well.
Good. Thank you.
I mean, it, it was it, it workedto a certain degree, you know, I
(45:28):
mean, it's funny how like, it's still reality TV.
So they're not happy unless I bled or, you know, unless
something happened that they could be.
But I think the, the beautiful part of it was that it was clear
to everybody watching the show within 5 minutes of watching the
(45:48):
show that this had nothing to dowith the cat, you know, always,
you know, and, and it was so funny the other day.
I don't watch the show, period. I don't, I, I was there, I was
there a producer on the show. I watched every episode probably
40 times before it ever aired. I never want to see it again.
(46:12):
And a person I met started recounting this one episode that
was, you would watch it now and you'd go, you guys totally
staged that. There's no way.
And the funny part was this woman and her daughter.
It was a, a woman and her daughter and the woman had two
little Chihuahuas and daughter had a cat.
(46:34):
And I remember walking out threetimes the first day because I
thought that my producers were playing like were punking me
that they were playing a trick on me because it was so crazy.
She was so nuts. And I and I was like, I no, this
is not real. This is not happening.
I'm leaving. And it wasn't until like the the
(46:56):
the woman actually and trying toconvince me allowed me to talk
to her therapist. Oh wow, therapy.
For like 10 minutes and I'll sayit's real.
Wow. But wow, it was, there was a lot
of, I mean, yeah, there was a lot of crazy, but I, I, it was a
(47:18):
great time, but ten years of it was plenty.
So no, no more other shows? Would you do another show?
Oh, yeah. I mean, I've been developing a
few different things that. The good thing is that for a
while anyway, YouTube was so much more of a liberating thing,
something that I had control over, something where, you know,
(47:40):
I don't have to fight with anybody about it.
It's just mine and our viewing public and YouTube run circles
around TV. But I do miss the the ability to
tell cinematic stories. And, you know, stuff's not
cheap. You know, making those stories
is not cheap. And so, yeah, no, I would.
(48:03):
If the right thing came along, I'd absolutely do it again.
Awesome. Well, we, we, we look forward to
that. Me.
Too. So Jackson, do you want to talk
about any of the products that you sell?
I recently came across one that piqued my interest.
It was the the bowls that you have designed that are a little
slanted that are meant to ease whisker fatigue.
(48:26):
And I had never heard of whiskerfatigue before.
So, So what is that like? How first of all, how do we
recognize what that is? And then how did you come up
with the product? I mean, whisker fatigue is, is,
you know, and again, once you start thinking about every
muscle, hair, whisker, everything on a cat's body
(48:47):
serving a purpose in terms of their their one raison d'etre,
you know, to be able to hunt or surveil or kill or be killed,
you know, and whiskers do everything from tell you, OK,
this space is too tight. I can't fit here.
They're so sensitive that they actually can tell you the
(49:08):
temperature and the barometric pressure.
They are incredible. They're like another set of
fingers, eyes, the whole thing. So when a cat is putting their
face in a bowl, it is our that their anatomy is telling us that
it's an unnatural way to eat because their screws hit and
(49:30):
sort of fold back. Now, for the most part, cats get
over it. You know, they'll do what they
got to do to eat, but why make them do that?
And I think that that was the point behind the, the
manufacturing of that bowl was why make them do something if
they don't have to do it, you know?
And so, yeah, that's, that's thethat bowl itself.
(49:51):
I mean, I make, I was lucky enough after a couple of years,
I, I partnered with Petmate hugecompany and we released my line
of products and they were great partners.
They, they allowed me to, to pursue patents that I wanted to
have for years and years. And, and we sold a lot of
(50:14):
product and then I was able to take over once our deal expired.
Then I took over the patents andnow I manufacture them.
And I think that there are certain things that I make that
that I'm proud of. You know, I keep wanting to make
them better. Like, you know, my gotcha Wanda
(50:35):
is something that I think that I've gotten everybody should
have. It's, you know, the Wanda I was
telling you about that becomes pocket size.
So you never have an excuse not to play with your cat because
they can always be hanging in your pocket.
You don't have to have a guitar case or anything.
You're you're. But we also make a variety of
different beds. We make probiotic for cats,
(50:56):
vitamin B12 supplement that I love.
The whole thing got built on, You know, the one thing that
floated the boat for years and years was we, when I first left
the shelter, I, I partnered witha holistic veterinarian and we
partnered on a consulting company and also on this line of
flour essence remedies for cats,like Bock flower remedies, but
(51:18):
for cats. And we wound up coming up with
20, I think different variationsof, of these remedies for
different situations for cats tosort of back to, you know,
energy clearing for cats, as wooas that sound.
It's worked for what now? We just celebrated our 25th year
and wow, those are the the things that have really just
(51:42):
loaded the boat for all these years and people still use them.
And it's no wonder like our bestselling 1 is called Bully
Remedy. So I know that there's a lot of
Napoleons out there. And as long as there's a
Napoleon, there will be selling something.
But yeah, everything from, and we have a whole lot of other
stuff that's in the, in the, the, what's it called, you know,
(52:05):
on the runway that's gonna be coming out in the next year or
two. That's exciting.
Nice. Nobody else does it.
That's the thing, you know, I mean, we should revolt.
You go into like, Target and you're still looking at half an
aisle of terrible cat stuff, miles and aisles of dog stuff.
You take away the litter and thefood, You got nothing.
(52:26):
You know nothing. It's true.
Every time I go into a pet store, I have that dilemma and I
stand in front of the the toy like I'd like to get new toys
every once in a while and I stand in front of the toys.
I'm like, well, I have that one already.
They don't like it. I have that one.
They don't like it. I have that one.
They don't like it you. Go home and you like, you know,
put some stuff in the paper roll.
I mean, we, we've been doing stuff like that for for years
(52:48):
and years. The one thing that's blessedly
changing because there's so manymore cats in adoptive homes now
than there were before. And one of the great things is
the, the largest spike in guardianship over the past
couple years has been Gen. Z men.
So that means that like, you know, from I, I, I, they just
(53:11):
spend money and which is great, you know, so it just means that
we have more of a market out there.
And so hopefully these toys and,and, you know, better food,
better treats will, will get a, a better audience.
But everyone knows now cat people spend money.
You know, I think that the industry in general was like,
the only reason a cat person's going to leave their house is
(53:33):
for food or litter. You know, they don't spend
money, they don't leave their basement, They don't come a long
way. I'm.
I'm going to shift gears slightly as one behavior
consultant to another. Ask a two-part question, one of
which is do you have guiding principles that you like to
(53:55):
apply to common behavior challenges and cats and, and
Part 2 of that question is do you have any favorite cat
behavior questions that you would like to share with us?
I mean, in terms of my approach,I think that anybody who has
seen me on TV or whatever, that's the approach.
I mean, I go into every situation now, assuming I'm
(54:17):
going into a home and not to a shelter, but in a home.
I'm looking, I'm a I'm a family systems therapist.
That's what I am. I mean, I just happen to work
with the four legged and the twolegged at the same time.
And you I just what the one thing I never liked thinking
(54:41):
about things in terms of like, oh, I'm a, you know, whisper.
I'm a whatever. I think the older I get, the
more I realize that I, I do havethis sort of thing in terms of
insight into, you know, body language.
And I don't communicate with them the way you might think
(55:05):
about it. Like the, you know, Fluffy wants
a bigger litter box. She told me, you know, type of
thing. It's more I can feel, and I
think this is more of an empath thing than anything else.
I can just feel disease. I can feel anxiety in, in, in
(55:26):
body language. And so from there, looking at
the system itself and then watching the cat move through
their territory, I know where tostart.
I in terms of my favorite thing,I, the thing that gives me hope
is when people ask me to help them because they just want to
(55:46):
make their cat's life better andthey can tell that they're not
having their best life and that's it.
That's not because the thing about cats from the human
perspective, you know, I mean, there's a long story, but like
we didn't Co evolve with cats. We didn't have that.
We don't have the same journey with them as we did with dogs.
So their behavior, their modes of expression outside of things
(56:09):
like a meow, which they've fashioned for human consumption,
is completely foreign to us. It's not they, they've never
used any of those skills in order to work with us, you know,
in order to do something so thatwe live together.
They they never had to do that before.
But to that end, we project likecrazy all over our cast.
(56:33):
They'll just, they're giving youa blank look and you're like,
you know what, what did I do? You know, I mean, I, I put a
roof over your head and I feed you and I and I even cuddle with
you and you get your stinky button my face and I don't care.
And then you look at me like that.
Like there's this whole like story that gets built from this
thing that I can't tell you how many times I've seen cats lose
(56:57):
their homes over this. You know, I've seen cats break
up marriages. I've seen, and I mean for real
break up marriages. Like there's what power they
hold that is built on misinformation.
And so I'd rather somebody come to me and say I can tell
something with Sparky's not right.
(57:19):
What do I do as opposed to he's shitting my shoe again.
If he does it one more time, he's out of here.
Like if there's that, like if myshoe, you did something here,
you're out. You know, I think I was telling
the story maybe at the thing we were doing where the one episode
of the show was convincing this woman who the cat was adopted by
(57:41):
a guy and his ex-wife. They broke up, he kept the cat.
He has a new girlfriend. Girlfriend moves in and the cat
had started throwing up and the cat was throwing up on her side
of the bed. So she was convinced that it
(58:01):
was. I had to actually say to her
with like, a straight face, you know, there's no such thing as
revenge puke. There's just not a thing, you
know, And that that is how crazywe can get around our cats.
So, yeah, if, I mean, if it could be somebody who's just
like, you know, I don't. If I were him and I was sleeping
(58:24):
on the fridge all the time, I would think it would be because
I wasn't happy. Is that right, Jackson?
Break up the confetti. We have something we can work
with, you know. We literally had a cat
surrendered recently at the shelter where I work.
Very, very sweet cat who was aggressive with the people when
she had newborn kittens in theirhome.
(58:45):
And so right she was having maternal aggression.
And then the people said he thentried to apologize to me.
I'm like, cats don't apologize, you know?
And now we've got this. That should be a T-shirt right
there, man. Right, cats don't apologize.
I'm wondering how exactly that happened.
Like did did the cat bring them flowers?
(59:05):
Did it chocolates? Don't know.
I do not know. Yeah.
Brought a gift like a dead. That's amazing.
I'm going to disagree with you all.
My my Tucker has almost apologized to me because he
puked in the bed accidentally and I had to Oh well, pretty
(59:27):
much buy a new comforter. And I could tell you he was
extra sweet for the next week. I think he knew I should have
tried to make it to the floor orthe rug or at least the chair,
but he didn't and somehow, you know, it got all over the bed.
I could tell you he was extra attentive for the next week.
(59:48):
You 2 behaviorist. I'm sure I'm projecting my my
own. We're both sitting here either
shaking her head, not shaking her head, or coming up with a
line that we could feed to. Yeah.
I'm sure he was. More than I'd like to try my
hand at that. I feel like maybe the cat just
wasn't feeling well and he just needed more love and he, the
cat, needed more attention from you.
It wasn't about you, it's about what he needed.
(01:00:11):
That's what I said. Sorry again, the show to shut
her up. As I said, could you imagine a
world in which the cat really likes you and he's not feeling
well, So he comes to your side because your smell is something
that's giving him a little bit of comfort and he just happens
to throw up there and to watch like the look and her face
change over, you know, I mean, look, it's, I'm not saying that,
(01:00:35):
that, that the world is, is freeof, of anthropomorphization and
that some of it works. But unless we, and this is, I
guess, you know, to go all the way back to your question,
Michelle, about why I wrote Total Cat Mojo, that's the
reason. Read the book, not saying that
I'm the be all end all, but start here and at least you're
(01:00:58):
equipped with enough language that you can then start saying
this is what my cat is doing, feeling this is what they're
trying to get across. But you have to go over to their
side of the commutative fence toget that information.
And that's the least we could dofor them is, is make that
sacrifice and go over to their end.
(01:01:20):
Learn their language. You know, it's like you start
dating somebody from, you know, Uzbekistan and you are going to
learn the language. If you really want to be
together, it's the same kind of thing.
Yeah, Jackson, we could talk to you for hours and hours.
If you want to be a Co, if you want to be a Co host, you're
(01:01:40):
more than welcome to come back anytime you want one, one last
one last. You, the animals, they're all
welcome to join us anytime. We want to hit some big topics
coming up. Can you talk about your
foundation as a last kind of question?
Well, I am after what I was talking about before.
(01:02:00):
I was working with greater good charities for for a number of
years with something called the Jackson Galaxy Project.
We put that one to bed about a year ago.
And I am, I am launching a new nonprofit, God help me.
And some days I can't quite figure out why I'm doing this
(01:02:22):
again, but there's good stuff coming.
It's just I haven't announced yet.
But when I do announce it, you guys will be among the first to
know. Amazing.
I can't wait to hear about it. Jack Jackson Galaxy, This has
been the honor of a lifetime to be able to have you on our
humble little podcast about cats.
(01:02:44):
We were all nervous. I know I was more nervous than
I'd probably ever been. And we almost had Tony Todd on
the show before he unfortunatelypassed away because he was a big
cat fan. But I was I am more nervous than
I was talking, trying to try to work with his schedule, with his
let with his movies. Jackson, thank you so much for
(01:03:08):
being on the show. We'll have your socials, you
know, in our in our podcast description.
I mean, if you don't know how tofind Jackson Galaxy on the web
and on YouTube, I mean, come on.But we'll have your links in the
podcast description. Jackson, thank you for making
our Season 4 debut. Fabulous and amazing.
Thank you so much for your time.Before you guys,
(01:03:29):
congratulations. I will see you all in the next
episode, bye for now. Jackson.
I used to hate cats. Used to be dogs
cats seem to prefer me. To hello there cat people.
Dan the Catman here along with Michelle the Meow Maven.
Welcome back the Stephen, Stephen Quant, Mr. Producer, our
cat behavior expert from catbehaviorhelp.com.
And welcome to the 70th episode of the Shelter Cats Podcast.
(00:36):
And I really wish I had a soundboard because I'd have a
drum roll playing right now because joining us for our
Season 4 premiere is Jackson Galaxy.
Hi, Jackson. Hi, everybody.
We are the drum roll myself. Like I could find a drummer on
here somewhere, but. We really we need to invest in a
(00:58):
sound board because they wouldn't there would have been a
yay sound effect right now. Jackson before we get to speak
to you or we just have a little business.
Michelle, take it away. Shelter Cuts podcast is part of
the Chewy Shelter and Rescue affiliate program.
Chewy's mission is to be the most trusted and convenient
online destination for pet parents everywhere.
(01:19):
Chewy is passionate about supporting animals and making a
positive impact in communities across the country.
Local shelters and rescues are oftentimes the first home or
provide continued support to pets.
That's why Chewy is committed tosupporting organizations that
benefit the overall health, safety, and well-being of
shelter and rescue animals. Please click the link in our
(01:40):
description. You'll not only be helping your
local shelter, you'll also be supporting our podcast.
Thank you, Chewie. Thank you.
I've been messing up that commercial for a week, so thank
you Michelle for taking that back.
Jackson Galaxy is a two time NewYork Times bestselling author
and the host of My Cat From Hell, Animal Planet's long
(02:00):
riding hit show that helped millions of cat guardians solve
feline behavior challenges and build stronger bonds with their
pets. Beyond television, Jackson is a
leader in the animal welfare world, working directly with
shelters and rescues to improve the lives of cats in their care.
He leads workshops, teaches classes, and consults with
(02:22):
organizations to help create catfriendly spaces, practices and
adoption programs. As a prolific digital creator,
Jackson has built a global community of almost 9 million
followers. I'm Jealous and averages over
3.5 million views monthly acrossYouTube, Facebook, TikTok and
Instagram, where he shares expert advice, cat friendly
(02:44):
inspiration and unfiltered insights into his life as an
animal lover and advocate. Jackson, thank you so much for
joining us. We really appreciate it.
Thanks, Dan. It's good to be here through
power outages and everything. So right out, right out of the
gate, my, my first question is, I'm definitely interested in the
(03:06):
origin story of how you became who you are today, how you
became, how you got involved andpassionate about cat behavior in
the 1st place. So what led you to become a cat
behavior advocate? I, I mean, as I, I think most of
the people who wind up doing stuff like this, it's sort of
(03:26):
serendipitous, but I was living in Boulder, Co at the time and I
was, this is in the early 90s and I was a musician, which is
to say I, I was a barista and a guy and all that shit.
And I, and I really was miserable.
(03:50):
And I saw The Wanted for, you know, just a bottom level pooper
scooper person at the Humane Society in Boulder.
And I took it and, and it was, and, and I mean, I remember it
being this, this sort of instant, like this is a great
job. And, and then it was like a few
(04:14):
weeks later where I realized that, that my Co workers were
starting to make fun of me because whenever I'd be sitting
in, in the break room and we would let cats into the break
room during our, our own lunchesand they would all just sort of
gather around me and bother me. Fat boy and which is to this
(04:35):
day, every time I tell somebody I was called cat boy, I'm like,
oh, I just made it live for another couple of years, but
nobody knew anything about theseguys.
And I mean, to be honest, it kind of still only a little bit
out of the starting gate in in that respect now, but we were,
(04:56):
as everyone knows, we were killing a lot of animals in
shelters back then. And and if nobody, oh, I'm so
sad. Hold on, there's a car pulling
up here. If my dog actually, if my dog
actually hears it, my dog is going to go crazy right here.
Yes, I have dogs. This is why people live with
(05:21):
cats because you don't have to be afraid of the delivery guy
when the cats are around. We win anyway.
Did you say 5 dogs? Five dogs, Yeah.
Wow. Wow.
Yeah, so which which in in animal math equals 17 cats?
(05:41):
Pretty much. That seems about right.
So I've done math for a while. So yeah, anyway, I, I, I knew
that I was in a position where because the cats sort of picked
me, that I should learn as much as I possibly could about them
because the threshold was reallylow.
You know, whether a cat makes itinto the adoption area or gets
(06:03):
euthanized out of impounds or surrender depended on very
little. Like, were they coming out from
the back of their cage? Because if they're not going to,
you're not going anywhere. So I, with a combination of the
scant books that were out at that time, there really weren't
(06:24):
that many. And I talked to a good friend of
mine who was, I'm a dog trainer and, and then I just spent a
heck of a lot of time with them and, and learned my way around
it. And, you know, within a couple
of months, I was the cat guy at the shelter.
And within a couple of years, I was teaching other shelters
(06:46):
about the cats in their care and, and doing, and, and those,
the home consoles that you've seen me do on the show, those
I've started doing right around then as well.
Because we, we realized that people were calling and saying,
Hey, I'm about to bring my cat down because he's been, you
know, peeing on my bed for the last three years and I can't
(07:08):
take it anymore. And, and my boss at the time
allowed me to go out to the community, go out there and go
to people's houses and try to stop the cats from coming in,
which turned out to be a pretty easy job.
You know, people just were misinterpreting and projecting
terrible things onto their cats.And, and so, yeah, that started
(07:33):
back then too. So yeah, everything started with
me in sheltering. So I've been doing sheltering
longer technically than I've been, you know, working as the
cat guy. I think he kind of answered the
question, but I I I've always wanted to know how the guitar
case thing came about from the show.
It it came and it's so funny because for the first couple of
(07:54):
years, all these like sort of, you know, I don't know, like I
was going to say Monday morning quarterbacks, but it's the cab
version of people like watching TV and going that's got to be
some stick that they made-up. And it totally was.
I actually did. The reason that I wound up using
a guitar case is I was an aforementioned musician.
(08:16):
I had guitars in my car for the most part of the time and I got
to a point where every time I goto my consults, I was carrying
arm loads of crap with me. You know, like everything from
mongo as to catnip and and treats and my the laser pointers
and black lights and and all types of stuff to help me in my
(08:39):
consults. And it was, it was the blonde
itself, which I have since manufactured another one that is
a lot shorter pocket size. This one was like this long and
I had nothing to carry it in. And there was a guitar case in
the back of my car. And it's like, hell yeah, let's
do that. And it just became a thing.
(09:02):
I mean, it wasn't half as prettyas the one that was on the show.
I mean, that's one of the thingsyou get when you do TV's.
You get a nice guitar case, you know I.
Didn't. I didn't realize they gave you a
pretty guitar case for the IT was.
Actually, the, the amazing thingwas that right after we started
making the show, the, the, the company, the guy, I can't
(09:27):
remember the name of the company, but one of the biggest
guitar makers and guitar case makers in the world happened to
be a huge cat guy saw the show and was like, I'm gonna build
you a guitar case of your dreams, you know, and, and he
did. He and we wound up with, like,
you know, 20 of them. Wow.
Three of which I think were confiscated by TSA at some
(09:49):
point. You.
Know I was gonna say, did you get to keep any of those cases?
Struggle. You can't dip.
Yeah, no, I. Don't know, that sounds like a
story. The TSA thing.
God. Well, you know what?
The good thing is that over time, my secret demographic, TSA
flight attendants. They they're cat people.
So interesting. There's hidden benefits
(10:12):
everywhere. I I will admit that I once told
a flight attendant the reason I was on the airplane was to go to
a rescue case with ASPCA and I literally from wheels up to
wheels down, there was a flight attendant sitting next to me the
entire flight. Not the same one they rotated.
Pictures of the cats and. Yes, they didn't.
(10:34):
They didn't give up bums. But what I was doing, you know,
in, in wherever I was going. But they wanted to show me their
their cats. Yeah.
There have been so many times where I've been like, because I
always sit in the window and theflight attendant is like leaning
over the person next to me to show me the pictures, you know,
(10:54):
and, and you know, God help the person sitting next to me if
they don't like cats because they're just like 1 after the
other after the other. It's great.
It's wonderful. I mean, I think, but that's
become my life period. I mean, I don't, I can't walk
down the street now without seeing a phone full of cats.
You know, it's which I the best fringe benefit ever.
(11:15):
It's. Wonderful.
Nice. So we already know Jackson that
you have 5 dogs. Do you want to tell us your your
entire animal population at home?
What you've got little bit aboutthem?
It's a lot and, and luckily we just, we just adopted out our
our last foster cat, so that's cool.
Vincent went home yesterday. But other than that, 3 cats and
(11:38):
five dogs and it's yeah, it's a lot.
I mean, honestly, I mean, I'm the, The funny thing was, I had
never favored cats over dogs. I was never a cat person and I
never quite got that thing. But so I've always had dogs in
the house. It's just that got a lot more
(12:00):
now, you know, but. Five dogs and three cats.
Wow. Say again.
Five dogs and three I have 6 cats in a 2 bedroom apartment.
Oh, that's something. I mean, listen, we, you know, we
can topped out at one point, I think it was 10 years ago,
because we had all of the feralsand semi ferals in the
neighborhood were in and out of our garage.
(12:21):
We had a catio that was epicallysized and, and we were, you
know, fostering it. So I think at one point we had
12 cats and three dogs at 1.0 and 2 chickens and.
Nice and two chickens. Partridge in a pear tree, Yeah.
(12:42):
I have 3 cats and a gecko. Does that count for anything?
I wouldn't want to be the gecko man.
No, he lives in terror. I think he's kind of gotten used
to it because I recently got a kitten this year and the other
two didn't even know the gecko existed until the new kitten
came around. And they all now they kind of
(13:04):
give him a heart attack on a daily basis.
But it's the most exercise the thing has had since I've had him
for two years and he's kind of gotten used to it.
He doesn't run around anymore. They just sit up on top of his
tank and just watch him and justsit there.
So yeah. Guys, yeah, no, I, I I think
that the funniest part is that out of all of the animals, the
chicken who died, our last chicken died, I don't know, a
(13:30):
year and a half ago. And she was the the true ruler.
Like she would watch, she was like half house chicken.
So she would walk into a room and a little 2 LB Bantam
chicken, she'd walk into him andshe'd just bow up like, you
know, like a gang number. She'd like bow up like that.
And dog cat, 70 LB dog right here scattered.
Everybody's just like, oh. That's great.
(13:52):
Chicken balls was here chicken. Is that is that your next book?
Jackson chicken balls? You're a.
Best seller I'm sure. That sounds like a children's
book right there, is what it sounds like.
I know, and that's about all it would be.
Actually, so I'll say so. Speaking of books, I just
(14:15):
recently finished listening to the audio book of Total Cat
Mojo. So I feel like I know you very
intimately now, but So what was the motivation for writing that
one? Well, how did you come up with
that? I kind of know from listening to
it, but I want to can we talk about that?
A little bit Mojo, I think, was me fulfilling a promise to my,
(14:36):
my publishing company because they took a flyer on me when
the, you know, the show was in its first season when they
signed me on and, and they wanted me to write that book.
Everything I know about Kat's book, but what I was writing at
the time was a memoir. And so they had to take that and
(14:56):
they did. That was Cat Daddy.
And so after four books, I, I really just wanted to give them
what they wanted. Plus, I, I really, I just wanted
to see what it would look like to put everything I know into a
book. I would hope that.
Honestly, I wished it was be a little fatter.
It was the first time I saw it. I was like, that's it.
(15:18):
Well, it was, it was chock full information.
It was, there was a lot of stuffin there that I am as I was
listening to as I'm driving and I'm taking mental notes.
I'm like, OK, let's think about that at home.
And I'm just trying to because like I said, I have 3 cats and I
think each of them fits one of the categories that you had.
Can you can you talk about the categories like the, the, the
overall like the wallflower and the?
Categories and again, I say these things being as you know,
(15:42):
what is it like just putting a blanket over the whole thing,
folks that just try to like grasp things and not.
I'm not saying that cats only come in three flavors, but the
what we look to do with the concept of cat mojo, which is
the that sort of, you know, justdied in the wool kind of the
(16:05):
confidence that cats are born with.
All cats have that sense of I know what I'm here for.
I know what I do. I know what my ancestors did.
As long as I'm doing that thing,I'm good.
You know, it's like, you know, somebody who's like, it's like
one of the Peyton family when you're all of your father's were
being grandfathers were quarterbacks and you're like,
(16:26):
OK, I'm a quarterback. That's what I'm supposed.
To be. Because we have done so
blessedly little to them over the course of our journey with
them over, you know, hundreds ofthousands of years.
They still have that connection to who I call the raw cat that
the, the ancestral. Like I'm here to hunt, you know,
(16:48):
and, and catch and kill and eat and groom and sleep.
That's what I'm here for. And so our cats, if there's a
cat in our lives that is really connected to that really
confident, I call them the Mojito cat.
The point was, I at the time when I came up with that name,
it wasn't, it wasn't connected to the word Mojo.
It was, it was because I pictured that cat like if
(17:11):
somebody came to your front door, they'd be standing there
with a, with a tray of drinks and they'd be like, come on in
and you know. Absolutely, you should show up
with the Troyo Mojitos. You are welcome any day of the
week. Troyo Mojitos.
Exactly. So that's the mojito cat who
people come into the house, they're completely, you know,
just centered and wonderful. They come up to you, they say hi
(17:32):
head bunks and everything like that.
The wallflower is on the other one end of the the spectrum and
the wallflower is that cat, thatthe cat who you know, when you
have guests over who have been over 10 times and they're like,
wait a minute, you have 3 cats. I had no idea.
The wallflower is the one I've never seen before.
(17:53):
The one who just sort of sneaks around going from under the bed
to the closet. That's the wallflower and and
which that condition is sort of anti mojo.
That is like, I don't believe I own anything in the world.
I don't have the right to any territory in the world, so I'm
just going to stay out of the way.
(18:15):
Then you have the the other side, which is the Napoleon cat.
And the Napoleon cat is the overowner, the one who just like, no
matter how many times the other cats in the room say, cool, you
want to take it, it's fine, it'syours.
That's like, I'm just going to do it again to make sure.
I'm just going to chase you on top of the fridge again, just to
make sure. Then we're going to chase you on
(18:36):
top of the fridge. I'm going to piss on the on the
on the fridge door. Just so you know who this
belongs to. That's the Napoleon.
So knowing where your cat fits in that spectrum helps you to
design A life for them based on those needs and and how to
remedy the anti mojo. You know, that's that's the
(18:59):
archetypes right there. I, I really, I did find it
fascinating. Like I said, I have 3 cats and I
and I don't know that I have, I have one that's kind of like, I
think she's a hybrid. She's a kitten.
She's barely six months old. She's like a Napoleon, but she's
not a bully. She's just energetic.
She's just full kitten. She's definitely the mojito cat.
(19:20):
She is all over the place. I have one other.
She's an older cat. She's probably 17.
We're not quite sure. She just doesn't give a crap
about anybody anymore, and she kind of just sits off to
herself. She's in the room.
She's not really a wallflower. She's just over it.
You know more. Like those?
Like you kids? Yes, exactly.
You're rock'n'roll music, you know?
That's exactly it. Get off my lawn, you know that.
(19:44):
And then I have a little anotherkitten that I got last year.
They're all three rescues and the one from last year is 1000%
the wallflower cat. So I've been trying to
implement, I admit that I have not been as good at playing on a
daily basis with them, especially the kitten.
I play with her, but it hasn't been as routine as you suggest
in your book about that. It should it needs to be every
(20:04):
day. It needs to be like a solid 15
minutes, 1015 minutes at least every day.
And then the way that you play and all these other things.
So I was really I'm really like focusing on that.
And I did you meet I have seen actually a difference already.
So I play with the the the mojito cat.
She's the kitten, the baby who needs the most play out of
everybody. So I.
(20:25):
Really focus on her and the other two just kind of watch The
old lady just sits on, sits on the table and she just stares
and she's like, OK, that's fun. You, you kids have your fun.
And the, the other one, the wallflower one has just been
like mostly sitting off to the side and just kind of watching
and seeing what's going on. But I took the, the note that
you had in the book about how even when they're just watching,
(20:47):
they're still activating their brains.
They're still, you know, using strategy and trying to figure
out how they're. So I, I'm paying attention to
that. And then I was actually able to,
when I was kind of in the middleof playing with the kitten, I
had, you know, the thing on the stick, it's got like 3 tentacles
that come off of it. So I'm, so I'm using that and I
just like put it over near the, the, the wallflower.
(21:09):
I didn't throw it at her. I wasn't aggressive.
I just gently kind of put it in front of her and like wiggled it
around the floor. And she was watching this thing
like crazy. She was so into it.
And then eventually she did actually reach out and start
playing with it and start grabbing it.
And then she blankly stick out of my hand.
Yeah, she yanked, and I was like, all right, well, I guess
that's over. I mean, but you know what it's
(21:30):
it's one of the working with wallflowers is one of the most
satisfying things in the world because that moment that happens
when they do the swat finally, you know, the best thing in the
world is a is a wallflower who, well, they're playing, even if
they are playing, they're up against the wall, you know, But
the day that you get that cat tofollow the toy into the middle
(21:53):
of the room, yeah, you know, grab that toy and you can see
the change in their body instantly, instantly the minute
they are because the, you know, the theory being where I kill, I
own, you know, that is a spot where now I own something.
And when they own something in the smack middle of the room,
you see that thing going, I got it.
(22:14):
And then it's like, mm, hmm, I'mhere, you know, and yeah, it's
one of the beauties of playing with your cats.
Although I got this, I have learned something.
And I think this is just me mellowing out in my old age, but
that I, I think I've been reallyhard on people for way too long.
(22:37):
I think I've, I've, I've demanded stuff from people so
that when they when they meet me, half the time they're
apologetic. You're like, listen, I know and
I think the expectation on the world that you have to do this
and you have to do it this time and whatever puts everybody in a
(23:00):
no woman situation because it's not possible.
You know, I mean, I think I tried to do that because nobody
was ever playing with their catsand it pissed me off, you know,
So it, it, the line that I wouldalways give people is if you've
got a dog, you've got a collar and a leash, because everybody
knows you got to take your dog for a walk because that's how
(23:22):
they explore the world. That's how they get their
coffee. Everybody knows that cats, you
have a toy, you have a toy with a feather and a wand or
whatever, at least have that or a cat dancer or something like
that cat charmer where it's likea wire and a piece of cardboard.
I don't care, but it shouldn't be seen as a as a an option.
(23:44):
It's it's something that that gives them what they need as
much as our dogs need walks. So I guess I was trying to just
really hammer that home and I might have over hammered.
I'm just admitting I. I will tell you, Jackson, that
shortly after we adopted 14 years ago, our blind from birth
girl and I tossed a toy for her.Even though she couldn't see it,
(24:08):
she circled into it and I was stunned that she had that
instinctive hunting technique built in, even though she, you
know, could only hear the toy but.
Amazing because it's so important for her that like on
the spot she did, she discovers what echolocation is because
it's that important. You know, I mean, it's it's it's
(24:28):
so it is my and this is something we could talk about
for four days. I think Stephen, you and I
started to, but the fact that wedon't value the raw cat in cats
anymore is something that's like, if I do anything for the
rest of my time around cats, that might be it is to try to
get us to, to appreciate the cats who are still out there
(24:53):
doing their jobs. Because the rest of the world
seems to have forgotten that these cats have helped get us
where we are. And now they have their
usefulness, you know, and now wejust sort of, you know, they're
pests or they're, you know, people get all pissed off
because cats are walking around and leaving paw prints on their
(25:15):
cars and whatever. And, and the, the loss of the
wild cat is something that I think we shouldn't be mourning
when it's gone, You know, it's, it's something that I think we
should fight for. And that, to me, is fighting for
the rights of community cats because that's where those guys
are, you know? And the more we fight for those
(25:36):
guys, the more we ensure that, you know, the raw cat lives on.
I'm done. And that actually brings me to
a, a, a, what I think is an important topic and, and one
that was eye opening for me. Jackson and I, as you guys know,
spoke at the Ultimate Cat conference a number of weeks ago
and Jackson spoke before me. And you start talking, Jackson,
(25:59):
about this concept involving trauma in I'm not going to give
it away. I'm just setting you up, OK?
You start talking about trauma in shelter contexts.
And without kind of further ado,I want to turn it over to you to
kind of bring that really interesting idea and the example
(26:20):
that you gave to our listeners today, right?
The the faux adopt or the faux return with the role-playing and
all of that. You know, it's so important
that, you know, when I we hit the stage at at the conference,
I was going to be talking about a whole other thing.
But I think we we, you know, when I was talking to people
(26:40):
backstage and I had touched basewith a couple of the speakers
and it just felt like, oh, I canjust let go.
So I kind of let go. I felt a little bit after
because there was a lot of like I looked up at one point and
there was like a big part of thecrowd that was like this, like I
was starting to scare them a little bit.
But I mean, what I was talking about at the time was we had
(27:03):
just finished in like an 18 month program where we were
touring the country and teachingCat Mojo and teaching all about
cats and shelters and how to make the experience different
from everything from, you know, environmental enrichment to
behavioral enrichment, to bettering their foster programs,
(27:25):
to growing their foster programs, to bettering their TNR
programs, to actually putting out marketing that was cat
centric. So the shelter themselves looks
like cat experts. All that we did 18 months of
that, it was really a wonderful thing.
And but it started to get reallyfrustrating because we started
(27:45):
to come up against the same sortof baked in biases from shelter
to shelter that, and I'm going to say all of them because God
knows we met a lot of people. But it was frustrating to know
that that there were still policies in place that were
(28:08):
ridiculous, that were based on fallacies or were that were,
that showed a distinct lack of trust in their community.
Distinct lack of trust. In fact, one of the things that
we know during the, the teachingof of those classes, we would do
this one class which was not even, it was an exploration.
It was, it was like we just had a starting point.
(28:30):
And then we were just leading the students through an exercise
about their mindset and about the the mindset of the rescue
and, and animal welfare community.
And almost all the time we wouldget to a place where in
reference to the public, we would hear everyone lies and
(28:50):
that that was baked in. And when you think about the
fact that, you know, with the pandemic and after the pandemic,
we saw a massive turnover in in staffing at shelters, A lot of
people who have been around a long time left.
(29:11):
I mean, really just got to the point where the just the
experience of sheltering during the pandemic was just too much.
And the fact that we went as farbackwards as we did and, and
there's a lot of young people now in sheltering, but yet they
still have these biases that seem to came out of nowhere.
(29:32):
So I, I kind of linked it to a concept that I call trauma
policy. Trauma policy is a policy that
you've taken on at your organization born from trauma
that you have had. So the example that I think I
was using when I was I think I'mnot sure but it.
(29:54):
Was the the intake example and the person had that outdoor cat
or the cat who got outside? Yeah.
And so we were going through, wewere doing a bunch of
role-playing and so we were doing like, you know, mock
intake and, and seeing how if I threw you a curveball, if I was
(30:16):
surrendering a cat and I said a certain thing, would, what would
you say if we were doing that during adoption?
Same thing. And we were.
So we, I have come up with this sort of an imaginary cat.
And, and I think I had said something about I was trying to
give them a cat who, when they asked me the question, was he
(30:39):
indoors or outdoors? I said he was both in and out
and one of the people in the room raises their hands and they
say, well, I mean, we wouldn't take that cat anyway.
I mean, any cat that has even stepped foot outside is not
coming into this organization. We're not going to adopt them
out. And it stopped me and my, my,
(31:01):
my, my, my Co worker in in our tracks.
I said, what the hell do you mean you would never take a cat
who's ever been in the in the outside?
She goes, well, here's what happened.
We had this cat at my organization had him for a long
time. He was, you know, everybody's
favorite and and you know, he had come from the outside.
(31:27):
He he was a stray. He was tipped when he was ear
tipped when he came to us. And but because we knew he had
been outside and he could be a bit of an escape artist, we, I
made sure to say whoever adopts him can never have him outdoors,
can't do it, you know, and you know, we did the adoption.
(31:48):
I felt great about it. There were no red flags
whatsoever. 2 weeks later, animal control finds a cat on
the side of the road dead. Microchip traced him back to us.
It was that cat. And I learned my lesson.
And the lesson was never even intake a cat who's been on the
outside because then they're going to want to get back out
again. And when I think about how
(32:09):
terrible I felt being the personwho adopted that cat out what,
what part did I play in the death of that cat?
This is the thinking, what can Ibeat myself up about, about the
death of this cat? And she discovered, because I,
I, I shouldn't know from that day forward, that organization,
(32:32):
which was not a small one, by the way, would never intake a
cat from the public who had lived one day outside.
The, the cool part about this isthat it took this person saying
it, uncovering the PTSD element of it.
(32:55):
And she broke open like an egg in terms of the recognition of,
Oh my God, what have I been doing?
You know, and, and could see whyshe had to change her policy
because it made no sense. And you know, we we were on to
teaching a whole other generation of shelter workers
about never adopting out a cat whoever set foot outside.
(33:17):
So it the the good news in that is, yes, we passed down some
toxic shit from one generation of sheltering to the next.
We also passed down amazing things as well.
So please don't, you know, get me wrong, but these things that
are outdated or toxic or just plain, you know, silly not to,
(33:43):
you know, be glib about somebodyelse's trauma, but it, it will
lead to more animals dying, you know, and, and we, we do owe it
to ourselves and to our community to, to, to self check
ourselves as organizations. So my, I think the way I ended
this whole thing was if you are running, whether it's a small
(34:07):
rescue, whether it is just a shelter to adopt, I mean, a
foster to adopt network or a brick and mortar shelter, Cat
Cafe, whatever it is, every single thing that you do needs
to be a choice. If you inherited something, ask
why. That's what we owe ourselves is,
is every decision that we make, we ask why are we doing the
(34:31):
thing right now? That is, you know, best
practices as opposed to, you know, and I think another
example that I said Stephen was A and this always stops people
in their tracks because I do know people are still doing
this. But it's the the fact that so
many shelters pull their black hats during Halloween and will
not allow cats to be adopted during Halloween, which was
(34:53):
proven to be a fallacy years ago, years ago.
And then, you know, back in Boulder, we pulled the Black
Cats then we were, we were told no, because, you know, these
satanic rituals, they'll use white cats too.
So then we pulled the white catstoo.
Then we're pulling white cats and Black Cats and black and
white cats and Oreo cats and moocats and everyone being pulled.
(35:13):
And it was the silliest thing ever because it never existed.
The same thing goes for, you know, we got to work extra hard
and do these like, you know, home visits and, and, and
landlord checks. And because, you know, Class B
dealers will come in here and round up A and, and make them
into, you know, lab cats. Silliness.
(35:36):
It's silliness. It's not, it doesn't happen.
What, what Class B dealer would bother to go into a shelter and
pay, even if it's 20 bucks for acat, scoop them off the street?
It's just, it's, it's, it all goes back to everybody lies.
It all comes back to that. We don't trust our communities.
(35:57):
And I think it's really worth everybody doing those exercises
of going do we do we trust our community?
Do we actually want to be an ally in this community?
You know, and there are amazing,amazing, amazing individuals and
groups working right now. And it makes me so happy about
what the future of sheltering isbecause I don't want to sound
(36:18):
like a grumpy old man. I really don't.
But because I really do believe that we have a lot to be
thankful for right now. But that was man, that was a
long story. But.
But a good one. And and I just want to thank
you. And you know, you also made the
point that you felt that every shelter has some policy in place
(36:38):
that comes from someone's trauma.
And when you said that at the conference, it was just, it just
hit me. It was really big.
So thank you for sharing all of that.
It's impossible, Steven. It's impossible to to work
welfare as long as we have and not carry around trauma.
It's impossible. Yeah, I don't know.
(36:59):
It's, it's often times people will say, you know, they'll to
people that work in shelters or rescues.
Oh my gosh, that must be a dreamjob.
And I imagine in some ways it isa dream job, but then in other
ways it is it's it's traumatic. It's devastating on a daily
basis. You know, when when you can't
save an animal or unfortunately,an animal has to be put down or
(37:19):
there's, you know, people adopt,but then they have to return for
one reason or another. It's got to be heartbreaking on
on a daily basis. And then to see all the animals
that you can't rescue that you just, you know, you just you
don't have the bandwidth to rescue.
It's it's. Right.
I mean, I think that one of the things that and This is why I
still love doing the work in my say the work.
I mean, you know, when I go to ashelter, I'm doing half cat
(37:42):
work, half human work, and I love the human part of it
because people who do what we dodo it because they love the
animals, you know, And somewherealong the line that that phrase
that we hear, oh, I love animals, I hate people, but I
love animals starts to make its way through the rank, you know,
(38:04):
but but The thing is, I mean, that's what leads to, you know,
you can't trust anybody. But I do think that there is
things that we're learning rightnow that are so, you know, eye
opening and, and as long as we keep our ear to the ground about
what is best practices. And, and also I, the other thing
(38:25):
I try to tell people is, look, if you use me as an example, I
wouldn't be here, I wouldn't have a job, I wouldn't have had
a career and been on TV and all that stuff if I didn't go to my
boss at the shelter that day. And I, and I, and I said to her,
listen, people are calling, can I just go out to their house?
And this is on her dime. And she goes, yeah, we're
(38:46):
killing cats here. Yeah, go do it.
What if she said no, no, we needto hear you get.
I wouldn't have had a job. I wouldn't have.
We have to reward out-of-the-boxthinking.
We have to reward thinking that's based in in
entrepreneurial thinking. You know, we got to think more
like a business. And that's how we, you know,
(39:07):
lots of fun stuff. I mean, I'd love talking about
it, but. But I think it is very important
to start by acknowledging that there's no way that you could do
this without holding onto a lot of trauma, you know?
So. Yeah.
Yeah, we're, we, we're in New York.
(39:28):
We are all in New York where thetrauma, the drama of the rescue
community is, is something we'vetalked about dedicating an
episode to at some point is justtrying to, like you said, crack
the egg open of of the trauma and just what everyone has
experienced and how that dictates how they proceed with
(39:50):
cat rescue. Side note, I have, I do prefer
cats to people. I have, I, I've had cats for 25
years. I cannot tell you how many dates
I've canceled because I'd ratherspend time home with my cats.
But anyway, and I'm proud, I am proud of that fun fact, I'm I'm
(40:12):
the origin story person. I'm the I'm the big picture
question person on the show. How did my cat from hell come
about? I had just moved to LA, this is
back in, I think O 7 and I had moved here and I just was doing
(40:37):
my thing. I was, you know, making as many
inroads as I could try to get jobs, going to people's houses
and working with their cats, teaching and classes or
whatever. And I don't know, it was maybe a
month after I moved here and I was with a friend who, I mean,
everybody in their, you know, sister-in-law works in the
(40:58):
industry here. So there's always eyes on you
somewhere. And I was in LA at a PetSmart, I
think, and talking to the adoption group who was there.
And I started getting kind of animated the way I am now.
But I was like moving around anddemonstrating things and
whatever. And then this little crowd
formed around us as we were doing it.
And then the friend I was with was like, you know, I always
(41:20):
think of like Fred Flintstone when he had like the, the
gambling addiction. And all of a sudden he'd be
like, you know, bet, bet, bet, you know, like this is that's
very much the TV we have ATV show here.
And I never, I realize now how lucky I was.
I didn't really do much and keptgetting introduced to other
(41:43):
people. And within six months we had a
deal and I never, I literally like now knowing how hard people
have to work to get things off the ground.
I, I realized how intensely lucky I was.
But that said, Animal Planet gave us 3 episodes to, you know,
sink or swim. And so I had to like, call in
(42:06):
every cat person, you know, using the old Dixie cup and a
string method, you know, like getting in touch with everybody
to try to get us a second season, which we got.
But yeah, no, it was, it was. I was very lucky.
What year was that, Jackson? When did it first air?
I believe the first episode was in 11 I'm pretty sure.
(42:28):
OK. Because it I think Cat Daddy
came out in 12, so that makes sense.
That's about when it would have been.
Yeah, I do. I feel like too.
It also satisfied A niche like what you were talking about
earlier that there was no real, you know, not not significant
amounts anyway, but no real information out there for cat
owners. There's very little, I mean so
(42:50):
much about dogs for decades, generations even about dogs and
and so little about cats that I think your your show came along
at the right time for that. Well, here's the thing.
It's funny because network wise they assumed that nobody wanted
it, you know, because it happened yet, you know, and we
even the first two seasons we couldn't find sponsors.
(43:11):
I think the only one we had the first season was like Swiffer I.
Can't remember that have anything to do with.
It but like it was so interesting to which is why they
picked the name my cat from hell.
Nothing to do with that one. I almost dropped dead the day
they told me that's what it was going to be.
(43:33):
But they said we wanted so that people who actually don't give a
RIP about cats or who actually don't like them, we'll still be
flicking around the channels andgo, oh, I got to watch a show
like that, you know, whatever the name is, I got to watch
that. And it absolutely actually
worked, you know? What would you, what would you
have called it if you if it was up to you?
Oh. I was just going to call it Cat
(43:53):
Daddy, just that it was going tobe called Cat Daddy and it was.
And we had come up with, I mean,as long as I stayed away from
Cat Whisperer and something likemy cat from hell, I was fine.
I didn't have my bar was pretty low.
I just, I mean, I swear to you when they said the name I, I
started to hyperventilate, you know, I was like, Oh my God, my,
(44:16):
my shelter pass is going to be completely revoked my life, you
know, but we are a forgiving lot, so that's good.
Yeah, I mean, I, I, I was drawn to your vibe with the cats.
I was. I was drawn to the guitar case.
I play drums twice. I could do funk 49.
(44:40):
That's about as good as I could do for drums.
I was played that for like 10 minutes with with my landlord.
I was drawn to your vibe. I was drawn to just your the
kind of cool, chill vibe you hadwith the cats.
I mean, there were many times I would look at the owners and I
would want to throw the remote at the TV, you know, like how do
(45:03):
you not know this? You know, there was a lot of
that from me personally from having cats, but just the way
you kind of you kind of guided them with your with your cool
nature is what definitely drew me to the show.
Whatever, whatever the name would have been, you know, the
draw was you for me. Well.
Good. Thank you.
I mean, it, it was it, it workedto a certain degree, you know, I
(45:28):
mean, it's funny how like, it's still reality TV.
So they're not happy unless I bled or, you know, unless
something happened that they could be.
But I think the, the beautiful part of it was that it was clear
to everybody watching the show within 5 minutes of watching the
(45:48):
show that this had nothing to dowith the cat, you know, always,
you know, and, and it was so funny the other day.
I don't watch the show, period. I don't, I, I was there, I was
there a producer on the show. I watched every episode probably
40 times before it ever aired. I never want to see it again.
(46:12):
And a person I met started recounting this one episode that
was, you would watch it now and you'd go, you guys totally
staged that. There's no way.
And the funny part was this woman and her daughter.
It was a, a woman and her daughter and the woman had two
little Chihuahuas and daughter had a cat.
(46:34):
And I remember walking out threetimes the first day because I
thought that my producers were playing like were punking me
that they were playing a trick on me because it was so crazy.
She was so nuts. And I and I was like, I no, this
is not real. This is not happening.
I'm leaving. And it wasn't until like the the
(46:56):
the woman actually and trying toconvince me allowed me to talk
to her therapist. Oh wow, therapy.
For like 10 minutes and I'll sayit's real.
Wow. But wow, it was, there was a lot
of, I mean, yeah, there was a lot of crazy, but I, I, it was a
(47:18):
great time, but ten years of it was plenty.
So no, no more other shows? Would you do another show?
Oh, yeah. I mean, I've been developing a
few different things that. The good thing is that for a
while anyway, YouTube was so much more of a liberating thing,
something that I had control over, something where, you know,
(47:40):
I don't have to fight with anybody about it.
It's just mine and our viewing public and YouTube run circles
around TV. But I do miss the the ability to
tell cinematic stories. And, you know, stuff's not
cheap. You know, making those stories
is not cheap. And so, yeah, no, I would.
(48:03):
If the right thing came along, I'd absolutely do it again.
Awesome. Well, we, we, we look forward to
that. Me.
Too. So Jackson, do you want to talk
about any of the products that you sell?
I recently came across one that piqued my interest.
It was the the bowls that you have designed that are a little
slanted that are meant to ease whisker fatigue.
(48:26):
And I had never heard of whiskerfatigue before.
So, So what is that like? How first of all, how do we
recognize what that is? And then how did you come up
with the product? I mean, whisker fatigue is, is,
you know, and again, once you start thinking about every
muscle, hair, whisker, everything on a cat's body
(48:47):
serving a purpose in terms of their their one raison d'etre,
you know, to be able to hunt or surveil or kill or be killed,
you know, and whiskers do everything from tell you, OK,
this space is too tight. I can't fit here.
They're so sensitive that they actually can tell you the
(49:08):
temperature and the barometric pressure.
They are incredible. They're like another set of
fingers, eyes, the whole thing. So when a cat is putting their
face in a bowl, it is our that their anatomy is telling us that
it's an unnatural way to eat because their screws hit and
(49:30):
sort of fold back. Now, for the most part, cats get
over it. You know, they'll do what they
got to do to eat, but why make them do that?
And I think that that was the point behind the, the
manufacturing of that bowl was why make them do something if
they don't have to do it, you know?
And so, yeah, that's, that's thethat bowl itself.
(49:51):
I mean, I make, I was lucky enough after a couple of years,
I, I partnered with Petmate hugecompany and we released my line
of products and they were great partners.
They, they allowed me to, to pursue patents that I wanted to
have for years and years. And, and we sold a lot of
(50:14):
product and then I was able to take over once our deal expired.
Then I took over the patents andnow I manufacture them.
And I think that there are certain things that I make that
that I'm proud of. You know, I keep wanting to make
them better. Like, you know, my gotcha Wanda
(50:35):
is something that I think that I've gotten everybody should
have. It's, you know, the Wanda I was
telling you about that becomes pocket size.
So you never have an excuse not to play with your cat because
they can always be hanging in your pocket.
You don't have to have a guitar case or anything.
You're you're. But we also make a variety of
different beds. We make probiotic for cats,
(50:56):
vitamin B12 supplement that I love.
The whole thing got built on, You know, the one thing that
floated the boat for years and years was we, when I first left
the shelter, I, I partnered witha holistic veterinarian and we
partnered on a consulting company and also on this line of
flour essence remedies for cats,like Bock flower remedies, but
(51:18):
for cats. And we wound up coming up with
20, I think different variationsof, of these remedies for
different situations for cats tosort of back to, you know,
energy clearing for cats, as wooas that sound.
It's worked for what now? We just celebrated our 25th year
and wow, those are the the things that have really just
(51:42):
loaded the boat for all these years and people still use them.
And it's no wonder like our bestselling 1 is called Bully
Remedy. So I know that there's a lot of
Napoleons out there. And as long as there's a
Napoleon, there will be selling something.
But yeah, everything from, and we have a whole lot of other
stuff that's in the, in the, the, what's it called, you know,
(52:05):
on the runway that's gonna be coming out in the next year or
two. That's exciting.
Nice. Nobody else does it.
That's the thing, you know, I mean, we should revolt.
You go into like, Target and you're still looking at half an
aisle of terrible cat stuff, miles and aisles of dog stuff.
You take away the litter and thefood, You got nothing.
(52:26):
You know nothing. It's true.
Every time I go into a pet store, I have that dilemma and I
stand in front of the the toy like I'd like to get new toys
every once in a while and I stand in front of the toys.
I'm like, well, I have that one already.
They don't like it. I have that one.
They don't like it. I have that one.
They don't like it you. Go home and you like, you know,
put some stuff in the paper roll.
I mean, we, we've been doing stuff like that for for years
(52:48):
and years. The one thing that's blessedly
changing because there's so manymore cats in adoptive homes now
than there were before. And one of the great things is
the, the largest spike in guardianship over the past
couple years has been Gen. Z men.
So that means that like, you know, from I, I, I, they just
(53:11):
spend money and which is great, you know, so it just means that
we have more of a market out there.
And so hopefully these toys and,and, you know, better food,
better treats will, will get a, a better audience.
But everyone knows now cat people spend money.
You know, I think that the industry in general was like,
the only reason a cat person's going to leave their house is
(53:33):
for food or litter. You know, they don't spend
money, they don't leave their basement, They don't come a long
way. I'm.
I'm going to shift gears slightly as one behavior
consultant to another. Ask a two-part question, one of
which is do you have guiding principles that you like to
(53:55):
apply to common behavior challenges and cats and, and
Part 2 of that question is do you have any favorite cat
behavior questions that you would like to share with us?
I mean, in terms of my approach,I think that anybody who has
seen me on TV or whatever, that's the approach.
I mean, I go into every situation now, assuming I'm
(54:17):
going into a home and not to a shelter, but in a home.
I'm looking, I'm a I'm a family systems therapist.
That's what I am. I mean, I just happen to work
with the four legged and the twolegged at the same time.
And you I just what the one thing I never liked thinking
(54:41):
about things in terms of like, oh, I'm a, you know, whisper.
I'm a whatever. I think the older I get, the
more I realize that I, I do havethis sort of thing in terms of
insight into, you know, body language.
And I don't communicate with them the way you might think
(55:05):
about it. Like the, you know, Fluffy wants
a bigger litter box. She told me, you know, type of
thing. It's more I can feel, and I
think this is more of an empath thing than anything else.
I can just feel disease. I can feel anxiety in, in, in
(55:26):
body language. And so from there, looking at
the system itself and then watching the cat move through
their territory, I know where tostart.
I in terms of my favorite thing,I, the thing that gives me hope
is when people ask me to help them because they just want to
(55:46):
make their cat's life better andthey can tell that they're not
having their best life and that's it.
That's not because the thing about cats from the human
perspective, you know, I mean, there's a long story, but like
we didn't Co evolve with cats. We didn't have that.
We don't have the same journey with them as we did with dogs.
So their behavior, their modes of expression outside of things
(56:09):
like a meow, which they've fashioned for human consumption,
is completely foreign to us. It's not they, they've never
used any of those skills in order to work with us, you know,
in order to do something so thatwe live together.
They they never had to do that before.
But to that end, we project likecrazy all over our cast.
(56:33):
They'll just, they're giving youa blank look and you're like,
you know what, what did I do? You know, I mean, I, I put a
roof over your head and I feed you and I and I even cuddle with
you and you get your stinky button my face and I don't care.
And then you look at me like that.
Like there's this whole like story that gets built from this
thing that I can't tell you how many times I've seen cats lose
(56:57):
their homes over this. You know, I've seen cats break
up marriages. I've seen, and I mean for real
break up marriages. Like there's what power they
hold that is built on misinformation.
And so I'd rather somebody come to me and say I can tell
something with Sparky's not right.
(57:19):
What do I do as opposed to he's shitting my shoe again.
If he does it one more time, he's out of here.
Like if there's that, like if myshoe, you did something here,
you're out. You know, I think I was telling
the story maybe at the thing we were doing where the one episode
of the show was convincing this woman who the cat was adopted by
(57:41):
a guy and his ex-wife. They broke up, he kept the cat.
He has a new girlfriend. Girlfriend moves in and the cat
had started throwing up and the cat was throwing up on her side
of the bed. So she was convinced that it
(58:01):
was. I had to actually say to her
with like, a straight face, you know, there's no such thing as
revenge puke. There's just not a thing, you
know, And that that is how crazywe can get around our cats.
So, yeah, if, I mean, if it could be somebody who's just
like, you know, I don't. If I were him and I was sleeping
(58:24):
on the fridge all the time, I would think it would be because
I wasn't happy. Is that right, Jackson?
Break up the confetti. We have something we can work
with, you know. We literally had a cat
surrendered recently at the shelter where I work.
Very, very sweet cat who was aggressive with the people when
she had newborn kittens in theirhome.
(58:45):
And so right she was having maternal aggression.
And then the people said he thentried to apologize to me.
I'm like, cats don't apologize, you know?
And now we've got this. That should be a T-shirt right
there, man. Right, cats don't apologize.
I'm wondering how exactly that happened.
Like did did the cat bring them flowers?
(59:05):
Did it chocolates? Don't know.
I do not know. Yeah.
Brought a gift like a dead. That's amazing.
I'm going to disagree with you all.
My my Tucker has almost apologized to me because he
puked in the bed accidentally and I had to Oh well, pretty
(59:27):
much buy a new comforter. And I could tell you he was
extra sweet for the next week. I think he knew I should have
tried to make it to the floor orthe rug or at least the chair,
but he didn't and somehow, you know, it got all over the bed.
I could tell you he was extra attentive for the next week.
(59:48):
You 2 behaviorist. I'm sure I'm projecting my my
own. We're both sitting here either
shaking her head, not shaking her head, or coming up with a
line that we could feed to. Yeah.
I'm sure he was. More than I'd like to try my
hand at that. I feel like maybe the cat just
wasn't feeling well and he just needed more love and he, the
cat, needed more attention from you.
It wasn't about you, it's about what he needed.
(01:00:11):
That's what I said. Sorry again, the show to shut
her up. As I said, could you imagine a
world in which the cat really likes you and he's not feeling
well, So he comes to your side because your smell is something
that's giving him a little bit of comfort and he just happens
to throw up there and to watch like the look and her face
change over, you know, I mean, look, it's, I'm not saying that,
(01:00:35):
that, that the world is, is freeof, of anthropomorphization and
that some of it works. But unless we, and this is, I
guess, you know, to go all the way back to your question,
Michelle, about why I wrote Total Cat Mojo, that's the
reason. Read the book, not saying that
I'm the be all end all, but start here and at least you're
(01:00:58):
equipped with enough language that you can then start saying
this is what my cat is doing, feeling this is what they're
trying to get across. But you have to go over to their
side of the commutative fence toget that information.
And that's the least we could dofor them is, is make that
sacrifice and go over to their end.
(01:01:20):
Learn their language. You know, it's like you start
dating somebody from, you know, Uzbekistan and you are going to
learn the language. If you really want to be
together, it's the same kind of thing.
Yeah, Jackson, we could talk to you for hours and hours.
If you want to be a Co, if you want to be a Co host, you're
(01:01:40):
more than welcome to come back anytime you want one, one last
one last. You, the animals, they're all
welcome to join us anytime. We want to hit some big topics
coming up. Can you talk about your
foundation as a last kind of question?
Well, I am after what I was talking about before.
(01:02:00):
I was working with greater good charities for for a number of
years with something called the Jackson Galaxy Project.
We put that one to bed about a year ago.
And I am, I am launching a new nonprofit, God help me.
And some days I can't quite figure out why I'm doing this
(01:02:22):
again, but there's good stuff coming.
It's just I haven't announced yet.
But when I do announce it, you guys will be among the first to
know. Amazing.
I can't wait to hear about it. Jack Jackson Galaxy, This has
been the honor of a lifetime to be able to have you on our
humble little podcast about cats.
(01:02:44):
We were all nervous. I know I was more nervous than
I'd probably ever been. And we almost had Tony Todd on
the show before he unfortunatelypassed away because he was a big
cat fan. But I was I am more nervous than
I was talking, trying to try to work with his schedule, with his
let with his movies. Jackson, thank you so much for
(01:03:08):
being on the show. We'll have your socials, you
know, in our in our podcast description.
I mean, if you don't know how tofind Jackson Galaxy on the web
and on YouTube, I mean, come on.But we'll have your links in the
podcast description. Jackson, thank you for making
our Season 4 debut. Fabulous and amazing.
Thank you so much for your time.Before you guys,
(01:03:29):
congratulations. I will see you all in the next
episode, bye for now. Jackson.
I used to hate cats. Used to be dogs
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