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what's up feline lovin world it is your cat daddy jackson galaxy here with you again from the cat
cave that's right and it is a cave never really thought about that before anyhow uh today i want
to tackle something uh that's that's foreshadowing i want to tackle something that again is very
common especially when you have two cats around the same age which i think we're dealing with
right here so let's take a look at what egg young has to say about her cats henry and leonard take
it away egg young hi my name is egg young and i have two beautiful boys actually that's them right
there eating some breakfast and um i wanted to ask you what you thought about timeouts
the white one henry is super submissive and the gray one leonard is kind of a bully and he often
tackles henry or pins him down to the ground and they don't like get into real cat fights but it's
i don't think it's a play because henry clearly doesn't like it um and so i've tried training
leonard with treats to sit leonard sit good job um which was successful but he only does it
uh when i have treats on hand so that's not that effective so i was wondering um if like
10 minutes uh in another room or 10 minutes in the bathroom right after he uh tackles henry
is an effective method or if it's uh if it's unkind and you don't recommend it so
just to begin let's take a look at one thing egg young that you said they don't like get into real
cat fights but it's i don't think it's a play it's play it's absolutely played just because
one party doesn't enjoy the play doesn't make it any less play leonard is definitely getting his
groove on in terms of play equals prey he's just crackling with energy and just because henry
doesn't like it doesn't make it any less a game so egg young's question is about time outs and is
it a punishment or is it just a way of restoring sanity in the house is it cruel um and i love the
fact that you're asking that question because egg young you are absolutely representing a big chunk
of people who get to the the end of their rope they feel like other cats are being tortured
and they just have to feel like they they just need a rest and so they think a timeout is a good
thing and you're wondering if it's not and now i'm going to hold on to the timeout part so that
we can go through this in sort of like okay well this didn't work this didn't work this didn't work
time out okay so right off the bat there's some really cool stuff for me in terms of clues for
what we can deal with so right here let's just stop it there you see what your boys are doing
right there eik young they are standing this close away from each other eating so what does that mean
it means by and large henry trusts leonard he doesn't think that at any given moment he's
going to be completely decimated so that's really good news now i'm going to take a flyer here i
i i don't know this a young and you didn't say it anywhere in here but i wonder if these two
are littermates and they're around the same size they look like they're around the same age so i'm
just going to guess that they're littermates and the reason i say that is because from the clues
they can eat this close there is a trusting bond there they spend a lot of time right around each
other as we saw in other clips in your video but there are bad moments and to me i see that what
henry is doing is sort of misguided play how do i know that well let's face it there's no fur flying
uh nobody's peeing on themselves no one's running away and hiding under a bed for 72 hours it tells
me that that it's just misguided a little bit so now if you take a look egg young at the at the
part where you sent this little clip the gray one leonard is kind of a bully and he often
um tackles henry or pins him down to the ground and they don't like get into real right there
so these guys are definitely not enemies there isn't this element where henry feels like his
life is in danger so that's why it reminds me of kitten play you know i see you i'm excited by you
i'm gonna jump on you because usually we just wrestle around and have fun and somewhere along
the line henry was just like you know what i've had enough i'm growing up i don't know about you
but i'm out of this kidney phase here and leonard is just like wait wait we're done we're done being
kittens i'm not done i'm not done you know and so they just just a little bit there and and so it
makes the solution to this you know a little a little easier than you might think [Music]
the thing that you got to notice about leonard is just his energy level is just on a different level
than henry's so what do we do the first thing i would talk about is play time and i can hear you
akin i can hear you saying to me yeah but when we play then the two cats you know one will take
turns and then henry's over here and leonard's over here and i just don't feel like they're
getting enough exercise and that's where it comes down to leonard solo play that you you really need
to just think about when leonard is the most active and then just knock it down a few steps
by just putting henry maybe off in in his own room or if henry doesn't like to join in okay fine and
then just run leonard ragged you know take an interactive toy run him around the house he's
already at that place where he needs something or somebody sorry henry to jump on and so he does
so if you could present a more appropriate victim as i call it then you are really one step ahead
of the game because if we can get these two cats together and we showed again that at meal time
they're like this so what can you do you back it up about 15 minutes and give leonard some
serious just running around the house i'm going to just poop you out kind of play and if you haven't
checked this out this video right above my head is about the concept i call boil and simmer which
will get him nice and tired we end it with that meal so that when he's done with that meal the
next thing he thinks of is not i gotta jump on my brother if leonard is already just a little worn
down all is good so i mean not necessarily clicker training you're using a sound that little kissing
sound which acts like a clicker it's still positive reinforcement leonard sit good job
and you're you're teaching him things like a sit and that's brilliant egg young now what can we do
to take that tool that you already taught him and put it to good use i mean you can see that henry's
hanging out above him going treats what do i got to do for the treats and leonard's like i know
what to do i can sit i know that he'll only do it for the treats but why don't you try to get him
before he jumps on henry because you know your boys really well and you know when he's getting
all antsy and ready to go and that moment you get to control the action you get to control the tempo
you get to control the energetic by just getting him into that place where he's focused on you and
you are leading him someplace so it's brilliant so in that moment where you can see he's starting to
get kind of antsy and jumpy in that moment take leonard and guide him away from henry get him
into a place you can even get him to jump on a chair sit give him a treat now you're not done yet
take him to another place now you can use maybe some of the catification if you have cat trees
get him to jump on a tree get him to go someplace else and then when he gets there and he does the
sit then you give a treat again and now he doesn't even remember what he was gonna do he doesn't even
care about henry he's focused on you he's focused on the reward and that's one of the great sort of
side effects of of operand conditioning is that you really can get these guys to do things in
exclusion of something else if that makes any sense and now we we're taking that energy and it's
almost like an internal timeout in that moment instead of being like this he's focused and he
stays focused and if he stays focused his body starts to just come back down just a little bit
you know it just takes that sort of incoherent cat beam of light that's just shooting off in
all direction and turning it into a laser beam and that laser beam is not henry focused on you
so now let's readdress your original question nick young which is about timeouts i want
to really just qualify this egg young to you and to all you other cat mojo tears out there
timeout is not punishment i i when i say timeout i don't mean that you're like bad leonard get into
a room it isn't about that it's about the fact that once a cat's sort of sympathetic nervous
system they see something they go for it and we've activated their raw cat that that that
ancestral hunter a lot of times it could be hard to bring them down and especially given these guys
age i mean he looks young and and it's even harder to control that energetic output at that age
then it's okay you put him in a room it could be a bathroom the bedroom whatever dim the lights a
little bit and all you're doing is allowing him to just reset it's that physical behavioral reset you
know and sometimes that we just have to remove all of the external stimuli and i'm not just talking
about henry as being stimuli there are times where you might have music on or the tv there could be
people in your home it's a high energy time of the day everybody's walking around and that just puts
hot air into the cat balloon to the point where he's just gonna pop so letting him decompress just
a little bit is fine you know i mean we don't want to reward him by putting him in there and
giving him treats or whatever but it could be like you said as little as 10 minutes maybe even five
minutes just to give him that moment but that we do after you've tried everything else because i
don't want it to be this thing where i can't deal with you and i'm just gonna put you away at least
try something to bring that energy down and if you can't you can't and a timeout is perfectly okay
a few last little notes because we haven't talked about henry this time at all
and the other thing that you can be doing is get henry a little more confidence so that henry's
not always the victim and one of the ways to do that is also through play in my book
there is no faster way to get a cat like henry who might be a bit of a wallflower and a bit
sort of acting like prey to act like he owns the joint is by killing something and that
kill is a toy you know just give him something to hunt have him kill it like right in the middle
of the floor there get him running around and i'm telling you you do that enough times over and you
do it in a dedicated way where it's just you and him and he doesn't have to compete for air time
with leonard which he's always gonna lose then you're gonna see him uh come into his
own and the more henry comes into his own the more leonard's not going to own them
i'm on it so again you guys the lesson to everybody here is that timeout isn't a
punishment we use timeout to help a little bit of decompression when nothing else has worked
and speaking of i'm gonna go put myself into a timeout because i'm just talking
too fast too hard getting really excited about what i'm talking about so i'm just gonna take
a little time out right now okay fine ek young thank you so much for your question
again you guys if you want your questions answered just go right here whoo all this energy
right here and uh and send it in and maybe i'll answer it meantime don't forget all of you brand
new cat mojo tears if you haven't subscribed yet please do and also please ring that bell to
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up action every now and again i mean everybody needs validation oh i really do need a timeout
okay you guys until next time all light all love oh mojo to you i gotta close the door
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