Description: Dr. Andy Roark has a tough case! A rambunctious 3 month old tabby kitten won’t stop attacking his owner! He stalks her, pounces on her ankles from under the bed and rabbit kicks her hand when he gets the chance. It may sound funny, but his owner is fragile and can’t have this keep happening. Luckly, Ingrid Johnson, a feline behavior expert, is here to talk through the case and how she would tackle it.
LINKS
WORKSHOP: It’s All Fun and Games – How to Play, Engage with and Reward Your Team: unchartedvet.com/product/its-all-fun-and-games/
Fundamentally Feline: www.fundamentallyfeline.com/
Uncharted Podcast on iTunes: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-…st/id1449897688
Charming the Angry Client On-Demand Staff Training: drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/
What’s on my Scrubs?! Card Game: drandyroark.com/training-tools/
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Ingrid Johnson is a Certified Cat Behavior Consultant (CCBC) through The International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC).
Ingrid owns and operates Fundamentally Feline, providing in home consults for locals and virtual consultations worldwide for clients experiencing behavior challenges with their cat(s). In addition to behavior consults, Ingrid also offers medicating consultations to help clients overcome, or get ahead of, medicating challenges. Prevention and training, the best medicine! She makes her own line of feline foraging toys, scratching posts, vertical space, and litter boxes. She lectures nationwide on cat behavior at veterinary conferences such as AAFP, VMX, ACVC and the like. She is employed at Paws Whiskers and Claws, a feline only veterinary hospital, as a tech, groomer, and office manager and has been working exclusively with cats since 1999.
In the Fall of 2016 a paper she co-authored, Food puzzles for cats: Feeding for physical and emotional well-being, was published in the JFMS (Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery) and to compliment it she co-developed FoodPuzzlesforCats.com. To date it is the most popular and widely downloaded paper in the history of the journal! Ingrid’s home, cats, and environmental enrichment expertise has been featured on Animal Planet’s Cats101 show and featured in numerous publications including the website WebMD. She has created a series of educational How-To videos of her own, viewable on Fundamentally Feline’s website and YouTube channel. Ingrid regularly interviews and offers her expertise for various media outlets. She is Co-Director of Paw Project-Georgia, working towards ending the cruel practice of de-clawing cats.
Cat Fancy magazine’s 2008 “Home Issue” showcased her feline friendly accommodations and the aesthetically pleasing ways you can provide for your cats innate basic needs while still having a home the humans can enjoy. Ingrid is a huge advocate for enrichment and is determined to thwart the belief that one’s home will look unsightly in efforts to provide it.
Ingrid shares her home with husband Jake, five rescue cats, and Sebastian, a rescued Great Pyrenees Dog. Follow Fundamentally Feline on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and You Tube!
Editor: Dustin Bays
www.baysbrass.com
@Bays4Bays Twitter/Instagram
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to The Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I got a fun one today, got a good one today, got a useful one today. My friend Ingrid Johnson, feline behavior expert, is back with me to talk about a tough case. I’ve got a rambunctious kitten that’s pouncing on his demure owner, who doesn’t handle being scratched and bitten very well for legitimate reasons. Is this just what it means to have a kitten? Is there any way these two can live together? What other pieces of advice that I can give her that are going to be helpful? Let’s get into this episode.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to The Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome, Ingrid Johnson. Good to see you again.
Ingrid Johnson:
Hi, there. Thanks for having me back.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Always, I love having you on the podcast and I appreciate you being here. I love talking cat behavior with you. You are super fun to chat with and I always learn stuff when we talk, so yeah.
Ingrid Johnson:
I always have a good time. I love doing these, so thank you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, I’ve got one for you. I want to ask you about a case that I’ve got and I’ve got this very nice lady. She is a librarian. She is just a very demure, quiet lady that I think the world of. And she has a three-month-old male tabby cat and she brings him in to see me. And I think he’s very fun. We have a lot of fun in the exam room. He chases cotton balls. You know what I mean? And bats things around and I love a cat that loves the little toy fishing line and he goes right after it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Anyway, at home, he’s a predator. He attacks from under the bed skirt. He grabs and he alligator rolls. He invites her to pet his tummy and then he grabs her and then he just bunny kicks the crap out of her with his back feet.
Ingrid Johnson:
Classic.
Dr. Andy Roark:
He comes off the top rope with a flying elbow. He’s a one cat professional wrestling company. And his mother, she doesn’t want to participate in his WWE fantasy. And she’s asking me, “What do I with this? Yeah, what do I do with this?” And she holds out her hands and she’s got little kitten needle teeth. It’s KNT. It’s a disease that I think we should write more of the awareness of the KNT and the PNT, the puppy needle teeth and the kitten needle teeth. And so I feel bad and for her, she’s a little bit older person and she’s got some concerns about getting bitten, honestly. So yeah, that’s a lot to drop on you but help me out. How do you treat this case? Where should I get started trying to help this person?
Ingrid Johnson:
How much time you got, Andy?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, yes.
Ingrid Johnson:
Well, my very first and foremost suggestion, if the client is willing, is to get another kitten.
Dr. Andy Roark:
What? Really?
Ingrid Johnson:
ASAP.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You’re like, “You know what? I know this is terrible. Let’s double it.” And that will-
Ingrid Johnson:
Had we gotten a pair of babies from the get go, this behavior may not be happening at all. It might. Some cats will still do that but it’s just that they need an outlet for their predatory aggression. They’re practicing their hunting instincts and their killing blows and they [inaudible 00:03:57] practice on something. And well, when mom moves across the living room floor, she’s prey and it’s really fun to bust out from under the bed skirt and attack the prey. And then she probably vocalizes, which is very exciting because now we’re screaming and squealing just like real prey.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You look at the kittens and you see them doing these things and they’re clearly hardwired. It’s actually fascinating to watch. It’s evolution and-
Ingrid Johnson:
At its finest.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And yeah, exactly, at its finest of, this was baked in and it totally is. So okay, that does make some sense. And it- [crosstalk 00:04:39]
Ingrid Johnson:
Have a pair, they do this to each other and then the human hands are reserved for love and affection. But since they don’t have an outlet for it, anything’s fair game in the house and it could be the family dog, too.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Is there an age range on that or is there a place where you say, “As a kitten, it’s really good, but if there was an older cat I wouldn’t do it or at some point, it becomes more of a headache to introduce another cat”? Any considerations like that or is that-
Ingrid Johnson:
Oh, absolutely.
Dr. Andy Roark:
A go-to whenever you see this?
Ingrid Johnson:
That’s a great question. So their early socialization period, that’s sealed in pretty early. I mean, by nine weeks of age, they’ve learned a lot of their social skills and their ability to interact with other cats and what we call bite inhibition. So when you start getting into six, eight, nine months and that cat’s lived alone all of those months, it can be very difficult to introduce a new kitty because their instinct is oftentimes to be aggressive towards that cat. They don’t know how to cat. Now there’s exceptions to every rule, right? I mean, there’s totally exceptions to this rule but as a whole, the older the cat gets and the longer they’re raised as a “only child,” the harder it can be to ever bring in another cat. So, it’s not too late at three to four months. I would give it a whirl and I would get another male.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay. Tell me about that a little bit. Why do you say another male, I mean, if I’m going to neuter and spay both cats?
Ingrid Johnson:
Yeah. Male cats like to engage in physical rough house play really well into their teens. And again, while there’s exceptions to every rule, you get a little female kitten, she’s going to give him a run for his money for a while. But once they hit two to three years of age and they’re in social maturity, she’s going to be a like, “Really rather sit and watch the birds out the window and play with the feline flyer. We’re not wrestling anymore. That’s dumb,” so the physical rough house starts to subside more in the females. Doesn’t mean she can’t hold her own with him, but she’s just not going to give him as much of a run for his money as another boy would for 15 years.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. No, my wife and I had that dynamic. I get that. All right. What else? I get that. That’s been my experience as well.
Ingrid Johnson:
Crosses many species.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, so that’s number one, is another cat. Moving on, number two.
Ingrid Johnson:
Moving on to they don’t want another cat.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Right. So yeah, I don’t know. Honestly, I think you make a good value proposition. Especially at three months of age, that seems pretty reasonable to put forward, but whether she takes it or whether she doesn’t, I’m assuming there’s probably some other things I want to start to unpack as well.
Ingrid Johnson:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, we do have to make sure that we are reserving our hands and feet only for affection. A lot of people have created this behavior because when they’re six weeks, it’s super cute when they are ferocious little adorable fuzzballs attacking your hands. But as this client and many others may start learning, they are carnivores with sharp teeth and claws and when they’re 12 pounds and don’t know when too much is enough, then it really hurts. So, it’s really, really, really important that we focus on a lot of interactive play here and reserve hands for only affection. And I will say, and this is pretty difficult homework assignment when you’ve got a baby, and this is probably my second least favorite homework assignment to recommend. I have clients stop touching their cat for a couple of weeks. They can train. They can play. They can use their food puzzles. They can do all kinds of fun activities with their cat, but no petting. And when they start to introduce petting again, we’re going to just stick to the head, neck, cheek and chin, and we’re going to only give them a couple little scratches and strokes and immediately stop and always leave them longing for more affection so we don’t push them to the point where they roll over and grab our forearm and bunny kick our forearm.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Gotcha. Okay, I had to sit with that. I don’t know that I, as a full grown man, have the willpower to not… I was like, “Wow.”
Ingrid Johnson:
[inaudible 00:08:33].
Dr. Andy Roark:
I know. I love to pet a kitten. But no, it makes some sense. Okay, cool. That definitely makes sense. I really like the idea of reserving hands for affection. Yeah, that definitely does make some sense. I imagine in practice, once you come up with some workarounds and you have some things to play with them, you know what I mean? Some toys, if you’re doing things like that, that it is feasible to do for sure. But honestly, I could a hundred percent. Now for the client that I’m talking about, this seems very reasonable. You know what I mean? Because she’s not a rowdy cat owner. She wants a little companion. And I think that that is something. She might jump at the chance to be like, “Yep, sounds great. I’m on board. I’m just going to do some head petting and that will be that.” So, okay, I do like that a lot.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So we’ve talked about getting another kitten, reserving hands. We’ve talked about using toys and things like that and again, just starting to reintroduce petting to make sure that everybody’s on the same page, yeah. What else?
Ingrid Johnson:
And again, I mean, this is a predatory behavior, right? So this is just cats being cats, practicing how to be a grown up cat. So, that means just amplifying these suggestions times a hundred. So, getting on a play and feed schedule would be really important so we get an outlet for predatory aggression prior to a meal, our “kill.” So playing before you feed, really important. I feel like we talk about that almost every time we chat, but that’s okay because everyone needs to [inaudible 00:10:07].
Dr. Andy Roark:
But it’s good and people need to hear it and honestly, I need to keep hearing it because it’s one of those things that diffuses out of my brain over time. But yeah, it makes a ton of sense and it’s just a good recommendation [inaudible 00:10:20].
Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey guys, I just want to jump in with one quick update, something I want to put on your radar. On December the 12th, we are doing our last Uncharted workshop of the year. It’s called It’s All Fun and Games, How to Play, Engage, and Reward Your Team. And if you hear that and you’re like, “Oh man, I would like to play, engage and reward my team. That sounds like a fun thing for me to do at the end of the year. I would like to have that positivity in my practice right now. I would like people to be happy at work and to feel like we want to take care of them. That’s what I want.” Well then guys, don’t miss this workshop. It is coming up fast so you’re going to have to jump on it. Like I said, it’s December the 12th. It is from 4:00 to 6:00 PM Eastern time, 1:00 to 3:00 PM Pacific time. It is free to Uncharted members. It is $99 to the public.
Dr. Andy Roark:
If you’re looking at your CE budget and you’re like, “I got some money left in my CE budget,” you should be an Uncharted member. You should. I mean, duh, you should be an Uncharted member. You should go ahead and get your membership and then come to this for free. And it’s going to be great. Guys, Uncharted really is a smoother, simpler, faster, better way to run your practice and run your career. You are the average of the people you spend time with. Come and spend time with us. This is going to be a fantastic year coming up. You should be a part of it. Unchartedvet.com. I’ll put a link in the show notes. Now, let’s give back into this episode.
Ingrid Johnson:
And then I think we have to really focus here on interrupting and redirecting the behavior. And sometimes we don’t have to do much to interrupt the behavior. We could simply just redirect, but that means we have to set ourselves up for success all over the home. And so the families have to equip themselves with interactive wand toys or some of those nice long kick pillows. If you guys are familiar with kick pillows, they basically serve the purpose of the forearm that the kitties, grabbing and kicking. When cats kick that forearm, what they’re doing is mimicking eviscerating their prey. We call it bunny kicking for a reason, right? They catch a rabbit. It’s a rather elongated body and they have to kick the stomach of the rabbit and slice it open. And then boom, now we have our meal prepared for us. So they’re just-
Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s not at all why I thought it was called bunny kicking. I thought it was called of bunny kicking because bunnies kick with both feet as they run happily through the field in the sunshine amongst the flowers, Ingrid, not because their guts are being torn out for a meal.
Ingrid Johnson:
Well [crosstalk 00:12:48]-
Dr. Andy Roark:
In your horror world, that’s what it’s called bunny kicking for.
Ingrid Johnson:
Are we going to wait to air this for next Halloween?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly, we’re going to hold on to this now for a year. Okay, so first of all, I’m going to have to google bunny kicking [crosstalk 00:13:03].
Ingrid Johnson:
Okay, maybe some of it is about bunnies jumping through fields.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I don’t know. I’m like, “God, I feel naive. I feel like my rosy world view is a lie right now,” is what I think. Okay, [crosstalk 00:13:14] Kick pillows, I love it. I’m sorry. I did not mean to derail us with that but I was reeling. So, okay. So kick pillows, I do love it. I mean that makes a ton of sense, to give them other things to attack on.
Ingrid Johnson:
Yeah [crosstalk 00:13:28] insert appropriate.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, totally. Let me make some suggestions and you tell me. You give me a thumbs or thumbs down. It seems like probably when we talk about puppies as well, a variety of toys are good to have, different toys for different purposes, different needs that they have. Then also, probably each individual is going to have types of toys that they tend to like and resonate with. Is that true?
Ingrid Johnson:
Absolutely, 100%. Cats can be very predatory, prey-specific. And so they might only like birds and they might only like things that fly. They might only like snakes things, things that slither and they want to play with strings and shoelaces but they might be non-discerning and just go for everything you get. But I think we all have to accept. For some reason, people don’t accept this as much with cat toys as with dog toys. You’re going to waste some money on some stuff the cat’s not going to be more motivated to chase and that’s okay.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yes, we see that a lot, too. People are like, “I got her toys and she just didn’t do anything so I stopped buying them.” And I’m like, “I need you to go back to the store.”
Ingrid Johnson:
Yeah, exactly. You just haven’t found the thing yet that gets them going. And also we need to learn how to play with our cats. We’ve got to evoke that prey drive. Move away from them, evoke chase. Hide behind the leg of a chair and writhe around in pain and scooch under some tissue paper and really give this guy a chance to pounce and kill stuff. Not just laser pointers because laser pointers offer no satisfaction, nothing tangible to kill.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Right, a lot of chasing and then no satisfaction. Can you talk me through a couple things about talking to pet owners about interruption and redirection? And I feel like the stakes are a little bit high here because I think that people can grab onto interrupting and redirecting and make this a traumatic experience for the cat. And correct me if you don’t think I’m right, but in my experience, I’ve had concerns in the last couple of years of like, “Oh man, I think people get a little carried away with this,” or they end up making the cat really frustrated or evoking bad behaviors through their attempt to interrupt. Can you help me to coach people with that?
Ingrid Johnson:
Well, what we want to do is not instill fear. So, I once learned from another behaviorist and I’ll snag it and reiterate it here. We want a yuck response. So if we do something to correct a behavior or stop a behavior and they run a [inaudible 00:15:51] for three hours, we’ve instilled fear and that cat might now start to fear us and we’re not fixing anything. We’re just terrifying them.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Right, it sounds like we’re creating more problems. We get some anxious behaviors, litter box problems, things like that. That’s exactly what I’m not-
Ingrid Johnson:
Exactly. And I’m not a fan of the water bottles, but just as an example, some cats, you spray them with water and batting at the stream. They could care less. Well, that’s just play so you’re also not doing anything effective there. So punishment really isn’t effective for most species most of the time, right? So when we’re doing things like spraying them with air and spraying them with water or doing any of these scary things that we think are somehow scolding them or correcting them, we’re often just terrifying them and then we’re not giving them an appropriate outlet for the behavior. So people often say, “Well, why are we trying to play with them with a feather toy when they have just attacked my foot? We’re rewarding them for attacking the foot.” I’m like, “We’re not rewarding them. We’re giving them an appropriate outlet for this energy and that’s what we have to overcome.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, that’s so insightful because I hear that exact thing. Is this is rewarding? And people have this justice thing about it like, “You don’t get toys when you bite me.” And I go, “We have to reframe this in your mind.” I think that’s really helpful. Awesome. That is super useful. So we’ve talked about getting another kitten, reserving hands for affection, play before feeding, timing, things like that, and then finally, interruption and distraction. I feel like this is pretty good little set of tools. Is there anything else I want to touch on?
Ingrid Johnson:
I think one of the other things I want to mention is, and I know this is really, really hard for people, but freeze and try not to react because say the kitty attacks the ankles and you pull away. Well, that’s what a prey does so we’re going to want to dig in harder. So, freeze and be so boring like a tree that we eventually just give up and walk away because the foot is no fun. And same thing with any of our body parts. If we get a little bit of a finger nibbling or anything, we want to make sure that we don’t vocalize and scream and squeal like prey.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I’m sorry. I made a face at you. I didn’t mean to. I felt myself making a face because I was imagining this tabby cat just attached to my arm and me trying to keep a straight face. And I felt my face bending into this redness of hidden pain like, “Ooh, that feels uncomfortable but I’m freezing.”
Ingrid Johnson:
I have had some people successfully booby trap themselves. They’ll wrap their arm in something yucky or one little trick is crazy, but double-sided sticky tape all over the bottoms of your pants or some rain boots or some just crappy boots that you don’t care about. And when the cat dives at your ankles, they get a whole bunch of sticky tape, which is really unpleasant. So, you got to keep the tape fresh. That’s a lot of tape on your boots and jeans.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s a heck of a project. When people get really inspired and you’re like, “How much time did you spend on this project?” And they’re like, “Way too much.” That’s this. That’s sticky tape pants.
Ingrid Johnson:
Yeah, that’s pretty creative but we try not to have to get there. And if you just get two kittens, oftentimes you don’t have this problem.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, you know what? Coming all the way back around the end. I’m like, “Yeah, two kittens sounds a whole lot more reasonable now than…” It’s like, “I think this might be what you need.” That’s awesome.
Ingrid Johnson:
Honestly, we feel so strongly about it at our office. I mean, we talk to everybody that walks in the door with a single kitten that they need another kitten. They’re social species. They should have friends. They don’t usually get to go outside like dogs, so they need a buddy. And if you don’t want to get two, get an adult that hates other cats. We’ve got to stop the cycle.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, gotcha. I love it. No, I think that’s fantastic, Ingrid. Thank you so much. I got a lot to think about that. It’s really good advice for me to able to give to my client. And man, I always appreciate your insight. Where can people find you? I know you’re doing some lecturing out in the world these days, which I think is super great because I love when you get to lecture. You are amazing and you help people and you have a ton of insight. Where can people find you? Where can they learn more?
Ingrid Johnson:
So many places. So, fundamentallyfeline.com and I offer behavior consults, medicating consults and vertical space design consults, so feel free to utilize us however they’d like. And of course Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. And occasionally you might see me lecturing for, I don’t know, a couple random companies, Royal Canin, et cetera.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Good deal. Awesome. Thanks for being here.
Ingrid Johnson:
Thank you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that is our episode. Guys, I hope you enjoyed. I hope you something out of it. I always enjoy having Ingrid on. She’s great and she gives super practical, to-the-point advice that I find myself using in the exam room, so thank you to Ingrid, again, for being here. Guys, check her out at fundamentallyfeline.com. I put links to all her stuff down in the show notes and in her bio, so have a look at that. Guys, if you did enjoy it, if you got something out of it, leave me an honest review wherever you get podcasts. It really does mean a lot. It lets me know what kinds of episodes you guys like to hear and it’s how people find the show. So anyway, guys, we’re in the holiday season. I hope you’re having a great one. Guys, take care. Be well. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.
