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I'm going over right now to see Nicole and Shosana. They've got a cat named Big Boy. And Big Boy's aggressive tendencies are getting so in the way that their social life is taking a hit, they don't even have friends come over anymore. I'm going over right now to see if I can help them get some social back in their lives. My name's Nicole. My name's Shashana. Shauna and I have been best friends for about four years and we've lived together for two years. We have two cats, Cutie and Big Boy. Cutie is Big Boy's mother. She was a stray cat. We noticed she was pregnant, so we let her come in her apartment. She gave birth in my bedroom.
All the kids died within a week. Big boy was the only survivor. It was very traumatic for the both of us. But it turns out that he is horrible. He's a monster. He attacks both of us. He attacks Cutie. Big boy, stop it. He climbs all over the door, all over the windows, and he breaks out of the house. He pees and poops on everything. Poop in the tub. He's horrible. Our friends are very afraid of Big Boy. He has completely ruined our social lives.
Sorry, that really hurt. I can't have dates over. She can't have dates over. He ultimately was why me and my ex-boyfriend broke up. What's wrong, big boy? Unfortunately, Cutie just had another litter of kittens. Now there's seven cats in the house, and it's very stressful. It's out of control. It's kind of like we're becoming these like crazy cat ladies. Big boy, go away. Stop it. I'm kind of just like over Big Boy and everything that he does. So now I just walk around thinking that he doesn't really exist.
I have given Nicole an ultimatum. It's Big Boy or me. Big Boy doesn't change. I'm gone. I think it's not the greatest situation I'm I'm put in that I have to choose between my cats and my roommate, but I'm very attached to him. So, that makes me sad cuz she's my best friend, so I don't want her to move out. Hi. Hey. How you doing? Good. Come on in. Thanks, Jackson. I need my social life back. I need my best friend back. Please help. So, tell me why I'm here. We have an emotionally unstable cat. He's abusive towards us. Big boy attacks all of our guests. We can no longer have dates over anymore. Nothing.
Like, our social lives are ruined. Completely ruined. I actually had invited someone to come over for dinner. And then Nicole was like, "Oh, like you're you're going to introduce him to Big Boy." And I was like, "Oh, you're right. I have to cancel. I called and cancel. We never went out again. Huh. So, you guys are arguing about this stuff. Mhm. Yeah. Gotten pretty bad. Like, I'm ready to move out and I'm just like, Nicole, let's meet the cats. And she's like, do what you got to do. She just doesn't care anymore, you know?
It's just all about big boy. I am afraid that Nicole is becoming the definition of a crazy cat lady. It's really scary. And people start to think that I'm that way, too. I'm ready to pack my bags and move. Nicole and Shosana are young 20somes. These guys should be kind of living it up. I'm going to see if there's any way that I can help these guys restore some balance in their life because right now there's none. When did he start getting aggressive towards you guys? Maybe 2 or 3 months. Whenever he attacked his mother for the first time, they would get in really, really scary fights. Wow. Okay. The first nine weeks of a kitten's life are absolutely crucial in terms of their behavior, their social
learning, the cues that they have. And without any siblings around him whatsoever, Big Boy was forced to turn to his mom, Cutie, for those cues, and she rejected him. Now I'm beginning to understand why he's just so bad around people. We do have a litter of kittens here. Cutie is not Spade, right? What about Big Boy? No, he's not. No. So Big Boy can be the dad. He could be. Yes. Why? Why are they intact? I wasn't thinking this could happen again. If it hasn't already happened, it can happen again. Like now, what's your plan with the kittens, by the way?
Oh, we're giving them away. I'm going to play this. Take the kittens. Do you? Okay. It is so frustrating to see how irresponsible these girls have been with their cats. And now they have this litter of kittens that they're just going to give away. And I can only hope that they're going to give them away to responsible pet guardians. So, this is where big boy in the middle of the night climbed on top of me and my ex-boyfriend and peed on him on his chest. And shortly after that is when we broke up. If I've ever heard a case for neutering a cat, that would be it. Now, why do we have this here? That's to get out of the house. You open the door, try to walk out.
You got to show me. I don't know what you're talking. So, you're trying to leave the house. You do what? So, I open the door. Really? You both do that every time you leave the house? Pretty good. Pretty good, right? It's crazy. Yeah. The problem is he wants to get out that badly. He wants to get out that badly because he's not neutered. And his only job in this lifetime is to repopulate your neighborhood. So, just as I was about to ask where he was, there he is. Here he is. There's the boy.
What's up, buddy? After touring this entire house and not seeing Big Boy once, I was getting kind of worried that I would never see his behavior. Now is my chance to see that aggressive behavior firsthand. What's up, Bucky? What's up? I don't really want you to hide too terribly much, so come here. I know you don't like it in there, so I'm going to come out here. You son of a gun. I was providing him very little escape in that very narrow kitchen. So, when he finally did get an angle, he darted. He went into Nicole's room, went under a blanket, and just disappeared.
I'm actually really interested to watch him move around. So, you guys come back in here with me and then we're just going to chill, wait to see what happens. Okay. When we had some quiet, it took minutes and big boy came out. Oh boy. Yeah. He just does not understand his own body. Uhhuh. Like he doesn't speak cat even remotely. He flunked. You know, watching him go after toys was amazing because it confirmed my belief that this boy doesn't know how to speak cat. When he hunts for a mouse, he'll take the mouse in his mouth and then
he'll just immediately drop it to try to figure out what's going on cuz he doesn't know how to hunt. So, there's a couple of different layers of what we're dealing with here. Obviously, the first layer is hormonal. The other part of him is he has no language of cat vocabulary and he's just sort of making it up as he goes along. These are things that we can teach him, I think. But there's no way that we're going to get anything done right now without him getting neutered and without cutie getting spayed like today. After he comes back and he starts to settle back into the new reality, let's take advantage of the fact that we got a whole bunch of kittens here that are learning by leaps and bounds every
day. And this is the point in his life where he's stopped learning, right? So during play, I want to start actually getting him involved in that way, like he's the biggest second grader in the room. Let the kittens help him out with. Even though these girls still plan on giving these kittens away, we might as well still use them while they're here and help take big boy back a grade to kitten kindergarten and teach him how to properly play. Also, I'm going to start reinvolving you into his life. I think it's important for you to start re-engaging with him because it is a way of bonding and it's a way of proving your importance. Okay.
It does bother me having to do all this homework after I come home after a long day of work cuz I just want to chill out and not have to deal with him. But love to see how it goes. All right, guys. I'll see you soon. Bye. Good to meet you. Thanks. Take care. We can't work on the real big boy until I see the real big boy. and I won't until he's neutered. And I don't really trust these girls to get that job done. I'm going over to Amy's house right now. Her cat, Achilles, is so aggressive that her boyfriend Mike's got one foot out the door right now. And I don't blame him. I've seen that cat in action. So, I'm going over right now to see if I can
restore some peace to this house. I'm Amy and I'm a pediatric nurse. I'm Mike. I work at UCLA. We've been dating for a little over a year and we've lived together for 8 months. Achilles mom had kittens and my best friend wanted to get the kittens away and she gave me Achilles. He'd always been scratching me and I thought that's what cats do, but he was probably 6 months old when he just attacked. He is extremely aggressive. Oh, he likes to attack unprovoked. I feel like there's something in there. It's [screaming] okay. You need to go in the bathroom.
Oh my god. I feel like I should get rid of the cat. Achilles and I have been through boyfriends. We've been through sick family. He's He's been there for me. I can't give up on him. It just frustrates me and I start thinking, well, why do we have a cat that's just going to torture us? I have lost a lot of boyfriends over Achilles. Mike is the first guy I've ever felt this way about. I don't want to lose another boyfriend because of Achilles.
Are you okay? No, we're not okay. There have been times where I'll pack my bags and I'll I'll get ready to leave. Amy will be really upset. I'll be upset. I've said things like, "You're not helping us. this is what we're doing wrong. We need to change these behaviors. And as I was pleading with Mike over tears, the cat attacks me. Mid fighting for him and I just lost it. Maybe it's better if I just didn't live here. I just I don't want Mike to move out. I want to fix Achilles. I just Jackson is our only hope so we can save our relationship.
Hey. Hey, Mike. What's up, Mike? Amy. Hey, Amy. How you guys doing? Thanks for coming. Of course. So, tell me, why am I here? We've been having a lot of problems with the Kelly's. First, it was biting the calves and then it has turned into unprovoked attacks. What does attack look like to you guys? He'll be purring and all of a sudden his eyes go black, his ears go flat. He's purring and he wants to attack. So he could just be sitting there and the next second he's somebody else.
Yep. I've been asleep in the bed and I've been bit in the back of the head before. Turned around, he's ready to go again. And when he bites you, does he break skin? Yes, he has. Yes. Okay. I know he looks like a cat, but I really don't think he's a cat. He's What is he? Maybe a dragon. I don't know. Do you freaking tell people this? Oh, if you're calling your cat who you love a dragon or a demon, they pick up on that.
They soak up that energy. At some point, they're going to spit that back out. It doesn't let Mike sleep at night when I'm not here. I work night. Oh, wow. I work night shift. So, so you guys have a totally opposite schedule. Oh, yeah. So, he's vulnerable all the time and it makes me scared for him. Have you been attacked in your sleep? Uh, I haven't been attacked in my sleep because I use the blanket under the door so we can't claw the carpet and then I shut the door.
He's out. When we are able to actually sleep in the bed together, which is two to three nights a week, I leave the door open and every time Achilles gets in the bed, Mike sits up. Why do you still have Achilles? Before Achilles came into my life, I was not the nicest person, just kind of angry. And I felt like the minute I got him, he took it from me. Amy shared this piece of information with me, which was so deep. She said that at one point she was a very angry person and she thought that Achilles took that energy. So I know now that part of my work with her is helping that energy pass through him.
I think Amy has allowed Achilles to do things far beyond what anyone should allow their pet to do. It's gotten to the point where I've been like bags packed ready to go. Okay, we got a lot of work in front of us. As I see it, there are really high stakes involved with Achilles because even though Mike is being a little secretive about his desire to fix it or leave, I know he's frustrated. I know he's getting barely any sleep. I know that when he tries to project a future with Amy, he doesn't see it with Achilles. That's a big hurdle that we're going to try to get over. Hello, cat. He looks awfully nice right now, right? I
just want you to sit down and just be with him for a minute. The way you would normally do it. Just the way you would normally be with him. Hey, buddy. Hi, buddy. Are you sleepy? This is when he sleeps. It's during the day. It's at night that he's a little more crazy and up and physically a little more demanding. So, time to bring Mike over and see the same thing. You want me to I mean, see if I pet him, he'll I just want to see what you would normally do. See, I don't I can't always tell if he likes that cuz he'll come over. See? And he won't like that. That's tricky now with his head turned the way it is.
You can run this side if you So, I mean I normally would come, but he's gonna turn his head. See, I move quickly. Yeah, you do. Um, this we can't have. This looks like prey. It looks like a rabbit running away. Mike has no confidence whatsoever. And that was really important for me to see. See, he does that thing. What thing was that? He just opens about does a little thing. See, that's your cue. I need to see this behavior because that information is so key to moving forward and getting these guys on the right track. So, I'm gonna
come back tomorrow night when he's known to act up. But for right now, we can't waste any time. I'm going to get Amy and Mike started on their homework. All right. Well, he needs to get to a vet, and my guess is he needs to be on some kind of meds because he doesn't have to be this unpredictable source of blood and pain. Listen, I'm not a doctor, but let's be plain. When a cat goes blank like this, you're sitting with them one second and the next second they are all over you trying to claw your eyes out. That means that there is no stimulation from the environment, there is nothing coming from the environment to cause it. It's probably his brain doing it. Mike, you get to build a new relationship with him. You are the player. You are the
feeder. You are the bringer of all good things. Okay. On the down side of things, you're also going to be sleeping with the door open. No more towel under the door. You are going to let him come in the room and be with you at night. But the what? Now what? Tell me what you guys are thinking right now. I'm scared for him. Well, that is so helpful. Thank you so much. Why not act as if this is a trustworthy cat? Listen to his body. Watch his responses and Achilles will respond accordingly over a certain amount of time. There's no point in you going like this all the time. Amy, with you, I'd like you to come up with a list of what we call affirmations. positive visualized mantras. Amy has
been holding on to the shame and the guilt about Achilles, giving him this negative bad energy that she had in herself. So, I gave her an exercise where I want her to start saying affirmations because it's time for no one to have that energy anymore. The fact that you told me right off the bat that you've lost relationships over Achilles, Mike, I want to keep you here. Um, I really do. Yeah. Okay. I think the hardest part for me is believe in my head that nothing bad is going to happen. And Achilles has definitely not made this place feel like home. Ever since I moved in, it's been his place, not mine.
Thank you so much. Amy just keeps presenting Achilles to the world unmedicated and hoping that he doesn't shred people. And he keeps shredding people. In a way, this is kind of the worst case scenario because I've got a cat who seems to be neurologically damaged. I've got a guy who's got one foot out the door. I don't expect great things. I got to be honest with you. I'm on my way to go see Andy and Alyssa. And Alyssa's cat, TSH. Now, since Andy moved in with his 9-year-old daughter, they're both getting terrorized by TSH, who he calls a demon cat, and wants to move out. So, I'm going to head over right now, see if I can change Andy's mind and change Tosh's ways.
Hi, my name is Andy, and this is my girlfriend, Alyssa. We've been together a year and a half and we have a cat named Tosh who's making our life a living nightmare. Ow. I adopted Taj 3 years ago when he was a baby. He was kind of a piece of prior to me moving in, but then he just became a demon cat. He will attack. He scratch bites. He hisses, growls. Jesus. have a daughter Annette who is nine and he doesn't treat her very well. The worst attack I saw Tosh do was he scratched a net right across the eye once. That could have been a pretty serious injury.
Every time I like see him, he scares me. Tosh. He growls at her, hisses at her. I don't want him to scratch or hurt my daughter. He did it once and that was enough. It's not safe to have a net around Tosh. And I don't feel like any of us are really safe here. As far as I'm concerned, he could go live in the cat shelter. Be fine with me. Something's not working. Just get rid of it. I don't want to get rid of him. I think I rescued him for a reason. And I would like to see it through and make sure that he's got a good home.
T Jackson, I would like you to fix Taj. I love cats. I hope Jackson will help Tosh and make him a friendly cat. Hey. Hi. I'm Jackson. Alyssa. Nice to meet you. Good to meet you, too. How are you? Good. Andy. I'm Jackson. You must be Annette. Yeah. Good to meet you. Good to meet you, too. Now, I hear that TSH is attacking a net. Yeah, our cat TSH, he is a little demon.
He bites, he scratches, he hides pretty much 24 hours a day. He goes into attack mode. Was he like this since the day you got him? I mean, he never really took a liking to me from the beginning. And we've had him 2 and 1/2 years. Wow. I think the breaking point was when he became very aggressive and started scratching a net. Every time I go near him, people will start hissing and start scratching. It scares me that he does that. I never want to see a 9-year-old girl get caught in the crossfire here with a cat that's potentially dangerous.
[screaming] So, the key here is, can I get a 9-year-old girl to coexist with potentially a mean cat? He sounds completely feral to me. This kind of total aversion to humans, and you only barely get him to tolerate you. It's heartbreaking, you know. Now, obviously, I haven't met Tash yet, but the more I learn about TSH, the more convinced I am that he's indeed a feral cat. This ups the stakes just that much more in this case because in my experiences, it is rare for a feral cat, especially one this age, to live with humans successfully. But, I'm not giving up hope yet. How did you get him? From shelter.
Um, I adopted him uh from a rescue agency. He had been with a foster parent. Okay. Um, for a couple of months. He's a creepy cat. He's like he's demon. He's jackass. Like I don't like being around him. I'm hoping that we can get rid of him. Say no. Why do you say no? Because I believe that he can be better. You can't just give away a cat because it's mean. I believe he can be nice. Okay. If you believe he can be nice, then I believe he can be nice, too.
I need to meet Tosh to gauge how bad he really is. But I do have some faith that this cat can be fixed. Especially because Annette, the one who's getting attacked, told me she sees good in him. So guys, we have a lot of work in front of us clearly. Let's meet Tosh. All right. Come on. Let's go. Okay. So, what's so important about this room? Tosh spends most of his time here when Annette's not home. When she's here, I kick him out of the room. Okay. I know he's more scared than I am of him. Yeah. What if I talk to Annette for a little bit? All right, guys. Excuse us then. I wanted to talk to Annette alone because right now she is the only one on Tasha's side. So, tell me how Tasha acts around
you cuz I need something from you. Anything. He always stares on me. When he's staring at you, are his eyes big or are they little? They're big. Does he scrunch back when he does? Okay, that's good stuff. And that's what I needed. I learned so much from Annette. When Tosh stares at her, his eyes are dilated, his body scrunched back. That tells me he's afraid of her. He's not out to get Annette. Somewhere inside him, I know he's good. Yeah. Well, me, too. I like to have cats that will play with me, snuggle with me. So, I hope Tosh will be friends with me. So, I'm going to spend some time with him by myself. My job is to help save
cats. I always try to believe in the good. Hi, Tosh. I need to spend time with TSH. I need to see if he's really a scared cat or that malicious jerk cat that Andy's made him out to be. Buddy, if you don't mind, I'd like to come in and say hi to you. Now, listen. I got to find out if you're feral or not. Okay. Now, I need to determine if Tosh is a feral cat or not, because that's going to determine how I work with him. All right. I'm going to come in a little closer. Okay.
Feral cats are really tricky because most of the time they can't be fixed. I'm hoping that's not the case with TSH. Can I say hi to you? Is that all right? It's only a hand. Wow. Look at that look on your face right now. I hear you. Mind if I come in here? Is it okay? How much farther back are you going to go, man? All the way back. Look at that, man. That is the feral cat I've been looking for. Can I touch? It's okay, man. It's Damn it. Ow. Oh, come on. Listen. Ow. [snorts] Message sent. I see fear. Suddenly, his eyes go all sauceride.
He's looking for escape through peripheral vision. He wants out of there. He is backing himself further and further into the corner. These are all signs of a feral cat. Ow. So, by the time he did strike out, young kid, it was hard. It was fast. It was with claws out. and his teeth. I didn't even see them coming when they hit me. I got to go talk to your people. I am seeing nothing but fear. [snorts] I think that all of our homework is based around who is TSH cuz right now we don't know what his story is. I don't think. Is he a scared more feral cat or is he an angry more house cat, more domesticated cat? I don't know yet. I see him in
that room. He seems feral. Just because he was born feral doesn't mean the end. I believe that he can still become a part of this house. However, all this makes the challenge that much harder because of where they come from and because of their previous experience with humans. Now, our roles in figuring out who TSH is. Annette, this starts with you. I'm going to have you do what I call feral story time. I want you to draw the story of you and Tosh. Then, every day, spend just a little bit of time reading the book with him in the room. Use the nicest voice you got. And that nice voice is something he's going to learn to associate. Okay. Alyssa, your job is to supervise Frell story time.
Okay. I need TSH to get more comfortable around the net, and I need Annette to spend more time with Tasha in a non-threatening manner. Also, I need Alyssa to reconnect with Tosh. And what better way to do that than to witness the love and faith that a net has for this cat. Annie, your homework. I'm going to leave with you a few toys to determine can he respond at all to positive human interaction. I want Andy to spend more time with TSH and I need to see if TSH will accept positive human interaction like playtime. I also need to see if TSH is feral or not. Now, based on what I saw today, seems pretty feral to me. Now, if he is feral, there's no way that I can make him into some domesticated cat. But I can teach Alyssa, Andy, and
Annette how to make his life better. I got homework, too. I need to actually find out what his story is. I got to know where he came from. I got to talk to his foster parents. Okay. So, if you can give me that info, I'm going to give him a call. All right. Bye, guys. Later. Bye. Thank you. The stakes are still pretty high with TSH because if we go through all this work and that doesn't work, I prefer that we cut our ties. I'm on my way over to see Ingred and her cat, Milo. Milo is so mean that even her best friends refuse to come over to her house anymore. They have clearly stated that it's either them or the cat, and they've asked me to perform an
intervention. Now, this is a first for me, but I'm going to go over and see if I can help out. My name is Ingred. My cat is Milo, and he is an orange and white tabby. I'm Nikki, and I've been friends with Ingred for 14 years. I'm Anukica. I've been neighbors with Ingred for 13 years, and I can't stand her cat, Milo. Milo terrorizes everyone. Anukica and I got to the point with Milo that we decided we had to stage an intervention cuz it's at the point where it's really affecting Ingred's social life.
He is the nicest, sweetest cat in the world with me. I don't understand why he's not like that with everybody. [groaning and screaming] Milo stalks, pounces, scratches, hisses. Makes life not fun. Milo just rules the roost. He'll sort of stand in the entryway and then when people go by, right when they're close enough, he hisses and swipes. He's mean. I'm just trying to play with you. Angry can't have people over to the house because it's too stressful. I just don't want to be here when he is. This can't go on. You feel like you're taking your life in your hands and waiting for Milo to pounce. I don't want
to leave him by himself. He'll start to get Wiggy. I'm not going to give Milo up. He was a rescue. He's like my little buddy. Milo is the cat from hell. I think Ingred needs an intervention. She wants to keep seeing her friends. Milo shouldn't win. Hi. Hey guys. Nice to meet you. Yeah. Thank you very much for coming. Of course. So tell me now I'm here for your cat. Yes, my cat Milo is the best cat in the world to me. He doesn't like strangers coming into his house.
They're not strangers. I know, but he doesn't like anyone who he's not angry. I hate the stress that's involved with my every single visit. And I hate when she goes out of town and she asks me to come up and take care of Milo. But you won't. I don't want to. And it's not because I don't love her. It's just I don't want to put myself in physical harm's way. We now do what's called the prisoner exchange. I take his tray of dishes. Leave them by the door. She opens up the door. She slides the empty tray out. Out of here. It is like solitary confine. Open the little door. That's as far as she'll come in.
I can't leave for more than a couple days. You're basically a prisoner in this, right? Yes. She's held hostage. Like I cannot stand that I can't go on vacation and it sucks. Let me cut to whatever chase I know, which is I'm here for an intervention. These guys contacted me beforehand. I haven't seen either one of them in ages. If you want to really When was the last time the three of you hung out here? Oh, oh god. Over a year. Are you kidding me? Tell me where you're at right now. We're just not coming. It's just not around anymore.
I mean, obviously we're going to work on Milo. That's the important thing. But equally important is your guys buy in. Meaning you don't get to run away from this because your energy contributes. I know. Are you guys okay? You're in. We're in. This is why I love my friends. Hoping. Wonderful. I wanted to go and hang out with Milo. Ingred said that he was in her bedroom. Now, normally what I would probably do is take Ingred in there with me, but we know that Milo has absolutely no problem with Ingred whatsoever. So, what I wanted to do was bring Anukica and Nikki in there with me because their fear, I think, helps trigger him just a little bit. Plus, I want to see how far they'll go with him.
Oh, I hear the growls already. Hey, by the way, you guys come on in here. There he goes. So, I'm going to ask you guys to sit down with me. Oh, God. Come on. Just come here and have a seat with me. We got Milo right here. Obviously, this won't be the most pleasant part of our day, but it's important for me. I gotta know how close you can get to him. So, I'm gonna have you go down first. Must we? Yes, we must. All right. So, I don't want to. Come on. All the way down. Now, can you untuck your hands for me?
Do I have to? This is me. I feel safer like this. Assessing where your challenge land is. Okay. I wouldn't be here if you weren't here. I avoid Milo. The fact that he Oh god, he's he made a bigger sound. Okay. No, no, no. None of that. She's got her face down here. You can come down, too. Come on. Seriously? I am not. I heard him getting more. I'm right here. And I heard him, too. There's that one moment where he growled and he also hissed as well. And in that moment, not only did she jump back, Nikki jumped back as well. At least I
know where she stands right now. And she stands pretty far away. Now, of course, the more you pull this energy here, Anukica, you actually will get attacked. Cleansing breaths. I'm trying. You know, a lot went down in that bedroom. I saw the fear level on Anukica and Nikki's bodies. We bring the energy of fear to him. He will lash out. So, we can't do that to him. Hey, hey, hey. As always, I want to see at what point that he says, "You know what? I mean business and I got to come after you. I got to find out." How's it going, buddy? Hey, hey, hey. Come on, buddy.
Hi. Can I touch you? Can you let me touch you, my man? Come on. Dude, that one hurt. Oh, that's a good bite. That last time he opened me up with his claws and then he bit me. That bite meant business. He left marks in my hand. These are fangs right here. Let's go on inside and give you guys some homework. All right. Okay, come on. Let's go. He nailed me good, man. I'm so sorry. Here's homework for you two. I wanted Anukica and Nikki to invest themselves into Milo's life. If these guys commit, I think we can get what I'm looking for. What I need is for humans to be able to come into this house and be a positive thing for Milo. So, what I'm going to ask one of the meals during the day, you take off, and I want one of you guys to
come in and do the feeding. My heart starts to pound. I can feel the tension and I hate that I feel that way. He's a little bitty cat and he beats me down. The other thing I'd like you to do besides just putting food down, I'd also like you to bring him something fun. I'd like you to bring him what I would call self-propelled toys. This is an example of actually a storebought puzzle toy. You put something in here so that he's going for it. And then as it rolls across the floor, it becomes something that's working his mind in a new way. I want the girls to be able to come in there and have an activity, food, toy,
and that way they're not focused on the fear. They're not going to stare at him lock eyes and invite an attack. I got one more thing for you. Okay? You have got knowledge of Milo that obviously nobody else has. I want you to write that up for these two guys. I want Nikki and I want Anukica to be armed with the Milo manual. She brings something to his life in a positive way and she's got to share that knowledge with Nikki and with Anukica because that way they will gain empathy for him. They'll get to know him and they'll get to approach him in a way of how can I work with him as opposed to get him
away from me. I'm not going to lie to you. There's not just a lot of work to do for Milo, there's a lot of work to do on you guys because you have been traumatized by this cat and I'm not belittling that. Uh, but the only way this is gonna work is for the fear to be replaced by something else. Okay. Right on. All right, guys. Thank you. This is not what I thought I'd be doing. I didn't realize I'd be a part of the whole fix up process. Ingred is in danger of losing some of her friendships. This is the do or die moment for me.
Like, I don't know how else to fix Milo. I don't want to be a prisoner in my own house anymore. I'm on my way to go see Doug and Talon about their cats, Mudgy and Godzilla. We got cat-on cat aggression. That's bad enough. But it gets worse. We've got Mudgy with a life ordeath medical condition made worse by the constant stress of getting attacked by Godzilla, who is deaf and also attacking Doug and Talon. The state of time is not on my side is an understatement. I got to get over there right now. I'm Ton. I'm Doug. and we've been together for 23 years. We have one cat that can't hear.
We have another cat that can't move its tail and communicate. You put those two together and it's a disaster. We have a cat named Legie because of nerve damage in her pelvis area. She's unable to go to the bathroom on her own. We have to administer meds to her twice a day. We also have to express her manually peeing her every day and helping her pooing as well. We decided to get another cat. So now we have Godzilla. Within the first week, we discovered that she couldn't hear Godzilla.
She terrorizes us and Mudgy as well. That's the hair that she took out of Mudgy. Whenever we leave the house, we have to build the wall at Zilla pillows to keep them separated from the upstairs and downstairs. She dictates everything in our life from intimacy to just running to the store. We're both afraid we're going to come home and find Mudgie dead. Mudgie is daddy's girl. I'm ready to give Godzilla back. I can't have her in here terrorizing Mudgie. And I'm probably going to need psychotherapy to deal with giving up on a cat.
Hey, how are you? Nice to meet Jackson. Doug, nice to meet you. Doug, good to meet you as well. Hi, I'm Talon. Thanks for coming. Nice to meet you. Come on, let's sit down. So, I hear we have some cat-on cat aggression. Tell me about it. We have two cats that don't get along. Okay. Mudgy had a pelvis that was shattered and healed incorrectly, so she has nerve damage. She can't pee or poop on her own. Wow, that's a challenge. And how often a day do you wind up expressing her?
Once in the morning, once in the evening. Yeah. Okay. And she prefers the way you do it. Yeah. You don't do it? I've tried, but she gets so stressed out. Huh. Mudgie's bowels and her bladder need to be manually expressed, which is a tough thing to do. But that tells you how involved and how committed Doug is to this cat. Who's this? This is Mudgy. Hello, my love. Her tail is dead. Oh, wow. It's totally dead. Yeah. When it comes to communication, tails are crucial. The tail will say, "I'm totally confident. I'm totally scared.
She doesn't have that." So, that makes this even a harder case. We adopted Godzilla. But when we got her, we discovered that she's deaf. Okay. So, we basically have one cat who can't hear, another cat who can't communicate with her tail. We've walked in and seen pools of blood on the floor. Oh. At this point, I'm sleeping down on the couch because I'm concerned about the safety of Mudgy. And Tana is upstairs with Godzilla.
I got a husband and a wife sleeping on separate floors in order to keep their deaf cat from attacking their disabled cat. This house is completely divided. And if we can't figure out a solution, it's going to crumble under the pressure. I'm hearing, Doug, that Mudgy is more yours. Definitely. Does that make Zilla yours? Yeah. I can't even pick her up. I mean, claws, everything. Oh, dude, that looks fresh. That is fresh. I really I just want to take Godzilla back.
I'm not ready to give up on her yet. Okay, push come to shove. I've got to protect Mudge because of her health. Now, this is a disaster. In order to find out why Godzilla responds to Doug with aggression, I need to see it firsthand. Godzilla can't hear me, but she can see me. So, I'm moving my hands around to test where her visual boundaries are. Ow. Those are sharp, man. Look at that. Ow. Dude. Ouch. You're seeing this, right? Yeah. If I'm just right here, it makes her nervous. But if I come in the back. Ow.
She got you good. Ow. She got me good. By pushing Godzilla's challenge line, I learned that she only attacks when I come at her from behind. And that makes perfect sense to me. I mean, Godzilla's deaf. She can't hear. And because of that, she relies solely on her vision. So, if she can't see or hear me coming, that poses the ultimate threat. And that tells me that Doug has been approaching her all wrong. So, I do want to see her with Mudgy because to me, that's a huge point. Okay. Now that Godzilla is in attack mode, I want to see how she reacts to Mudgy. The more these guys make eye contact, the more information I'm going to get.
There's no way to prepare for what you're going to see. Now, this is that thousandy stare when she trains onto Mudgy. That look is something to be concerned about. Now, when one cat stares another cat down at the first sign of conflict, and it's often a precursor to violence, and I did not like the way Godzilla was staring at Mudgy. As always, I had to push their challenge line. Here's what I'm going to do. I want to keep this safe and at the same time I got to see reaction. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pick her up. Now since Mudgie's tail can't signal things like stay away or I'm not a threat, she has to use verbal cues like hissing to let her stance be known. The problem is Godzilla
can't hear her. I'm going to bring her as close as I can here. And up. And there we go. I wanted to see if Godzilla would attack. She didn't. And that's a good sign, but I had to try one more time. If Godzilla stays, that tells me it's just play aggression and she doesn't want to kill Mudgy. That's something I can work with. All right, so Doug, I'm gonna have you come on in. And then that's the reaction I was hoping for. Mudgie is just responding from all this time of trauma and just taken off the bed. Since Mudgy can't use her tail, Godzilla has no visual way to tell that Mudgy isn't a threat. She keeps a defensive posture, fixing her eyes on Mudgy as if to say, "One step closer and it's over."
I'm seeing cats who can't communicate, and I'm seeing cat guardians who are divided. And I need to bring everyone in this house together. And that's going to be a huge challenge. The first thing we're going to look at is you guys. You guys are going to switch roles a little bit. So, Doug, you're expressing her twice a day. I'd like you to take that job once a day. Now, what I need is for Doug to back away from Mudgy a little bit. And I need Ton to feel some sympathy for Mudgy because right now she is way too attached to Godzilla. And Doug, you're going to take over Godzilla work. I want you to be
in charge of leading her down here. And when you approach Godzilla, make sure you do it head on so she can see you and come under, not over her head. Also, I'd like you to find the toy that works well with her. Get her to play as long as you can. In the meantime, you're hanging with Mudgy. If Doug is ever going to be able to pick up Godzilla, I need Godzilla to see Doug as a friend, not a foe. So, Doug has to be the source of good things like play. Now, secondly, I need Godzilla to be around Mudgy, but I need Godzilla to be focused on a more appropriate target, like a toy. And I need Mudgy to get used to Godzilla's
presence without any violence. Finally, make sure your cat treat is intact and has no dead ends. to be as easy as cut a hole in the other side of that box. We have to be cognizant of the greater good for these cats. If we don't get where we want to get, we have to have a conversation as best we can about Godzilla's future in this house. Mudgie's health is in question. Let's get this done. Okay. All right, guys. Take care of yourselves. I'll see you in a few weeks. Okay. Thank you so much. All right. Bye-bye. Take care. If this doesn't work, Doug will have to take Godzilla back because I won't be able to do it.
It may not be a safe place for Mudgy when he comes back. I'm on my way to go see Lola and her cat Jimmy. Well, as a matter of fact, Lola has flown all the way from her home in Wisconsin to seek my help. Now, these guys have become YouTube sensations, but for all the wrong reasons. Jimmy is aggressive. He's a biter. He's completely unpredictable and he's doing damage not only to Lola but to her daughter Nie and her grandchildren. No. So, I'm going to get over there right now before even more damage is done. My name is Lola. I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I'm the owner of Jimmy Slap.
People know Jimmy because I posted a video of him attacking me and it went viral. I decided to get rid of my lovely cat. Um, I woke up with 700 friend requests. It had a million views on all different websites. I was actually shocked. Jimmy came into my job. He was a street cat and he comes from the worst part of Milwaukee. I was told people were whipping basketballs at him and kicking him. That's why I took him in. Unprovoked. Every day it's Jimmy attacking and this is my daughter Uni. We could just be sitting here and he'll just attack us out of nowhere. I never know.
Like, ow. I have two sons. One is three and one is five. I don't know. [screaming] I'm afraid of him like really hurting. No, my daughter didn't want me to keep the cat. You're defending a horrible catman. No. [screaming] No. She chooses the cat over me and the kids. Oh, niece told me that I can't see the kids unless I get rid of the cat. Jimmy, stop. I'm not coming over anymore. My kids got bite marks and scratch marks and it's from your cat. I haven't seen them since. The stakes here are really high for me and Jimmy. I flew in from Milwaukee so Jackson can
meet Jimmy and give him the help that he needs. Now, normally I like to meet cats at their own homes, but because of the urgency of the situation with the kids getting attacked, Lola flew out here to LA to meet me with Jimmy in a hotel. Hey. Hi. How are you? I'm Jackson. I'm Lola. Lola, good to meet you. Okay. Well, you traveled a long ways from Milwaukee. Yes. To get here. I've seen the video of you and your cat. I'm sure the whole world has seen the video of your cat, Jimmy. Yes. Such a good boy.
Look at that. And he's just hanging, man. Yes. When did you make the video? I gave him a month and I was like, I'm not going to put up with this. I didn't get this cat to scratch me up like this. Oh my god. It's all over you. Yeah. These aren't scratches. These are bites. I thought they were scratches, but actually they're Jimmy's teeth hitting her arm and dragging across it. My grandkids were playing on the floor. He stalked them from a distance and ran up and bit him on the neck. [screaming] And your daughter, how was she responding to all this?
She said, "I can't see the kids unless Jimmy's gone." Wow. What is it about him that makes you still committed to him in some way? I don't want to give up on him. And after seeing the video myself, I decided to get rid of my lovely cat. I see myself give up. And that's something that I usually never do. Nobody gave up on me 10 years ago. And I was just like him, you know. I was out of control. I was an alcoholic and a recovering drug addict. And I've been clean for 19 years. Sweet. Amazing. Somebody gave me a chance and I want to give him the chance that I got.
Okay. Uh I You're getting me all uh all emotional because it just you don't see people do this, you know? I mean, this cat wouldn't be alive without you. Lola has had a tough life and she turned that life around and now she's looking at this troubled cat and bringing the same approach to it. It's my kind of person. Look at that. Ah, there's our crazy possessed demon cat. What I wanted to prove to Lola was that Jimmy could expend the kind of energy he was putting out on her arm on something constructive. So, I brought out some toys. I'm
trying to get him to a place where his body starts to take over. But what I want to see is once he's activated, what happens? Right now, he's still a little neither here nor there. I'm going to pull out another toy here. Has he ever played with one of these before? He looks like he's never seen it before. I'm absolutely shocked by Jimmy's lack of attention span. Or do you like one of these guys? What is that? Now, on the video, Jimmy was just going after Lola nonstop. I mean, he would not take no for an answer. Let's do something. That wasn't happening today. Are you really going to do that?
I mean, the cat's basically falling asleep while I'm running around the room trying to play with him. Are you really going to do that? Oh my god, you're kicking my ass. I had to see the behavior that I saw in the video. So, instead of trying to play it out of him, I'm going to try to push it out of him. Get down to his level. Okay. And then I just want you to try to get him to go for your arm. way that I could think of doing it was to get Lola into the mix because I noticed in her viral video that after Jimmy would bite her, she would sort of push him
back and that was sort of a game for him. Now, present your arm to him. I had her put a sweatshirt over her arm so as not to hurt her too much. Now, what happens when you can take your arm away, put it at your side? You know what's coming, don't you? Now, see, he is over the top at the moment. Activated. When you have a chance, take your hand completely away. Yeah. See what this exercise showed me was that Jimmy can focus on things. Oh, Jimmy. He's just focused on the wrong thing, and that's Lola's body parts. Ready for some homework, Lola? Oh, yeah. This is a tough one. There's only so much that I can learn when it's not your environment. So, number one, we have to
do detective work based on your home. I need to know if there are any components of your place that may be triggering this behavior. For example, are there other cats outside or are there loud noises? So, what I want you to do is for me, I need you to journal a day in the life. Normally, I like to see a cat's environment firsthand, but since Lola came to see me, she's going to have to do the detective work. I'm going to get a glimpse into Jimmy's world that I just didn't get today. Now, number two, you are the biggest toy to him there is. So, that it's really important that we just take your hands out of the equation. Jimmy still has adolescent behavior written all over him. He's a
teenager. Jimmy is over stimulated, over activated, and he's got to get used to attacking toys, not people. Now, finally, the last piece of homework for you the next time we meet up. If there's any way possible to get your daughter here, you know, the loss of her daughter and the loss of her grandchildren is much worse than any bite Jimmy could ever inflict on her. And I want to be able to help rebuild that. All right, I'm going to take off. Okay, I flew all the way out here from Milwaukee to California. And I really hope this works because this is my last resort. And after this, there's nothing. And I don't know what the future holds.
Now, here's one you don't see every day. Sphinx are known to be pretty playful, happy golucky. They get along with everybody, especially one another. I've got two sphinx that want to kill each other. I've seen the video. Steven Deer just sent it into me and these guys really are at each other's throats. Gotcha. This poor couple. I have no idea what to do. I'm so glad I get to try to help these guys. And I'm going to go over there right now. I'm Steve. I'm Dearra. We've been dating for over 14 years now. We're working on our 15th year and we finally got engaged.
We get along really well. I mean, it's scary. I mean, we're together like 24/7 and we really enjoy each other's company. Dearra and I have taken great pains to make our home a sanctuary. And it was until we brought these cats home. Dudar wanted a cat and she says, "Come, come look what I found." And I see this picture of this little tiny cat. It looked like a pink fruit bat with these huge ears and these eyes. When we first got Matilda, she was just affectionate and just a sweet cat.
One day we decided, let's get Matilda a friend. She would probably like a friend. So then we met Black Rose. That's where it all started. These two Sphinx cats hate each other. It's chaos in the house. Five or six times a day they're fighting and you hear the [screaming] It's the worst at night. Picture blood curdling screams and hissing at the top of a cat's lungs and it's all happening at the foot of your bed. And I just don't get the sleep I need. The violence is definitely getting worse. Something definitely has to change between the two of them. If somebody told me that I had to get rid of one of the cats because it would be healthier for them. I
don't know how I could choose between these two amazing cats. I really don't want to have to do that. And that's my biggest fear. I've never heard that you can take two cats that hate each other and make them at least stop hating each other. I'm hoping Jackson can help us with that. God, I hope Jackson Galaxy. My god, it's so good to meet you. Come on in, sir. My god. Jackson Galaxy. So cool to meet you. Thank you so much for coming. And I imagine I'm here cuz uh unpleasant circumstances.
We've got Matilda. We had her for several years before we brought Black Rose home. Matilda is the one that picks all the fights. Rose, she has a set of lungs on her. It's amazing. She'll flip around. She flips her ears back. Screams at the top of her lungs. [screaming] There is nothing like the sound of a cat fight. Everyone's heard one in their lifetime. You hear it in the alley. Rose's scream is primal. It is blood curdling. It's one of the most insane cat screams I've heard. Now, this is one thing to happen during the day when it's 3:00 a.m. at the foot of your bed and you're asleep and the screaming.
Oh my god. I always need to hear the 1 to 10. It's it's a 10 for us. Oh, really? It's daily. I sleep on average 4 hours a night. Have you guys had any kind of discussion about rehoming? That would be like the worst case scenario because there would be no way to I mean, how do you choose between these two completely different but wonderful cats? That's the conversation I'm afraid that I'm going to have after one of those nights when he doesn't get any sleep. That's the concern that we have after working with you. You know, we need sanity, but we I mean, we just love them so much. Thank you for being as open with me cuz I need to know what those stakes are. I really want to see the place, see how these guys
interact with it. So, if you don't mind giving me a tour around the house, that'd be great. Sure. I decided next to head into the bedroom because the bedroom is the seed of the territory and it's also the seed of all the bad behavior. Oh, there they are. There's Matilda and there's Rose. Look at these two. They're so friendly to people. Hi. Oh, they love Jackson. As soon as he walked into the room, they were there. He knows these animals so well and he lets things happen on their own time. He doesn't force anything and that allows the cats to open up and they just naturally gravitate toward him.
Yeah. The aggression generally happens on their own. They do whatever they do. Always just stare at her. See what's going to happen. I saw a very quick flash of what Steven Deerra must have to work with every day. There was Rose hunkered down, waiting for the worst. In that one second, there was just a spark. And I know that spark turns into a fire. Every 20 minutes in their home. Then this is how it all starts. When we come to bed, Rose immediately when we're in bed, she has to be here. Tilda comes running at it. She jumps up and then All right, let's see if we can get these guys to follow us back in there.
Sounds good. All right, come on, guys. Come here. When we went back out to the living room, I asked Deardra and Steve to break out their toys. They have one, and it's this sad little wire. These cats were just going right after that little wire. So, I brought out my toys cuz I wanted to show them we can have variety of toys and keep them consistently entertained by something other than each other. It didn't take me long to get into the mind of both cats. On the one hand, you've got Rose, who's got no self-esteem whatsoever. On the other hand, you've got Matilda who is completely territorially insecure. She's constantly got one eye peeled on who's doing what over there while she's trying to play with a toy because she doesn't trust
that the world is a safe place and that the world belongs to her. My view of these two cats is that the two of them do not speak the same cat language and we just have to work with them to get them speaking the same language. So, for your homework this week, I want to start simply. Your play is not nearly as structured as it needs to be. Playtime needs to be tied into meal time. So, if you're going to do a 10:00 feeding, that means at about 9 or so, you're going to start playing. The reason why you are being kept awake is that after you feed, you still got energy up here, right? You want to give them time to go boop over that top of that hill. And once you see them starting to groom, you know they're
getting into sleeping phase. But exhaust them. Listen, it is so important to exhaust these sphinx. If you don't tire them out before you go to bed every night, you're not getting any sleep. I really want you guys to concentrate hard on using the camera that I'm giving you. Journal documenting everything that you're doing. In addition, you need to buy some cat beds for your bedroom and encourage Matilda and Rose to stop sleeping in the bed with you. Um, I'm sure you're going to have questions. just let me know what they are and I will see you guys in about a week. Okay. It was wonderful meeting you guys.
Thank you so much, Jackson. Take care. Nice to meet you. Bye. It is our biggest fear having to rehome one of the cats. Hopefully, it's not something that we're going to have to look at. It would be too heartbreaking.
