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and what is up everybody yeah that's right it's Jackson Galaxy or Cat Daddy here today
in a very frisky mood is that the right word today we're going to talk about fear fear
and loathing in cats which can really manifest in some uh shall we say very different looking
ways and to illustrate my point today we stay right here in sunny California to hear from
Carrie Carrie go ahead and take it hi Jackson my name is Carrie and this is Xander and the
noise maker up there is Suki I have a question about Xander he is from my perspective a really
overreactive kind of Scaredy Cat and we live in an apartment so there are lots of noise
noises happening around us at all times especially at night when people come home and he gets
really cuddly with me on the couch like he is right now and then he hears something teeny
tiny like somebody dropping a pen from a mile away and all of a sudden he goes into panic
mode and he will scratch the ever-loving crap out of my arm or leg or whatever he's touching
to try to get away from the sound and
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foreign [Music] so first and foremost Carrie I need you to know that while you were asking
that question I fell into sort of a hypnotic I don't know if you need to you know maybe
you were thinking about a change of occupation at some point but hypnotist is one of them
because I mean or it's like you should be just like doing ASMR videos or something and
maybe that's where this all starts is that sure judging by what happened in this video
Xander really is pretty uh reactive to sounds but maybe that's because in your house everything
is just chill you know and I'm saying that in a good way man you just you seem to have
a very nice chill sort of thing about you here and then of course when something happens
it's magnified uh to the nth degree I mean that's not to say that all cats are going
to respond that way clearly Suki uh only got freaked out because Xander got freaked out
so that we had to sort of freak out dominoes happening I mean check this out
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so here's the thing I mean at first I just want to concentrate on Suki because whereas
Xander might be really fearful Suki is like magic I I mean check this out the video starts
here with Suki up on Suki's Tower here and then suddenly if you skip to where the sound
happens okay
Suki Zander Suki up on tree Xander on table noise happens craziness and suddenly the tsuki
just came out from behind the table how did Suki do that so you are magic with your voice
Carrie thanks and Suki is just straight up magic and then of course we got poor Xander
who's fallen in the middle of this who's neither magic nor soothing but he is freaked out so
I would say you know even though you were saying in your perspective he seems to be
yeah I mean that's pretty significant especially when you consider that that wasn't a random
sound I could see that they were that he was looking at you uh whatever you were doing
off camera maybe you dropped something just to prove the point he saw it happening and
completely freaked out so we do have our work cut out for us and that is what we're going
to do today where you're going to try to help you and Xander today by teaching you about
desensitization and counter conditioning I know big words coming out of the Cat Daddy's
mouth you never thought that was going to be possible just coming up with makeup words
like catification and Cat Mojo So the idea that what we can do for Xander is get him
slowly accustomed to sounds and in the meantime instead of him uh seeing it as this horrible
negative mortifying incident he's just going to associate it with safety and with good
things or even if he doesn't he'll immediately come back to knowing that he's safe and that
good things are associated with this so let's break it down for you the thing about the
sound itself that is freaking out Xander well that's the thing it's not a sound it's any
sound it's anything that is louder than clearly carry your dulcet tones you know and it totally
freaks them out the best way that I know how to deal with this is to capture that sound
that's the first step in a perfect world you had an upstairs neighbor who you could get
to make the sound so that you could record it that's the way it's always worked best
for me capture the sound if you can't get your neighbor to to get that sound for you
then maybe add you know come home o'clock whenever that is every day uh that you just
have your tape recorder at the ready tape recorder did I actually say that oh my God
I'm old uh but probably your phone would work just fine because it's 2021. capture the sound
you know all you really have to do is hold your phone up to the ceiling that should get
it set up your phone and drop things around the house and just use that so what's the
goal of this either to get a solid like couple of minutes five minutes of this sound put
it on a loop again it's great that we live in this time and space because taking a recording
and putting it on a loop is now the easiest thing in the world there's tons of software
again that where you can do that even if you don't know what you're doing but if you can
get yourself a solid five-minute chunk of this sound or collection of sounds then what
you're going to do now that you've captured you've basically captured his fear you've
captured the thing that sends him off the cat Richter scale and now what we're the second
step is to find his challenge line and if you guys aren't accustomed to seeing these
are the words that I make up not like desensitization challenge line and his challenge line is that
place where on one side of the line he's cool and one paw over that line and he's freak
so what you're going to try to do is find that volume you want to find that volume where
he's not freaked at all where he barely even registers there's a sound happening sneak
it up to that place where he starts to get a little nervous challenge line that's your
place he hasn't run out of the room he's in the room but it might make him a little anxious
because now what we're going to try to do is desensitize that line is to make that line
feel normal to him then we're going to push forward push that line push that line right
getting it louder and louder every time we have one of these exercises okay so now that
we've found Xander's challenge line what are we going to do next well the thing that we're
going to do next is make that sound not so mortifying to him and and we're doing that
slowly right every day we're going to cross that challenge line just a little bit but
what's the other side of that we're going to counter condition that response by making
a positive Association so for an example uh you would be playing this Loop and as you're
playing it intermittently and you know fairly often you're going to just plop down his very
favorite treats and by the way for the next however long while you're doing these exercises
this is the only time he gets treats period if it comes to play that you're playing that
sound and you're playing with your cat and then really it's pretty simple you just as
the days go on you keep inching up that sound level keep inching up that sound level until
you've got loud sound but he doesn't care because it's become a part of his everyday
that when I hear this random collection of sounds I'm also getting the best stuff in
the world so there you go desensitization and counter conditioning okay so a couple
of other hints for you Carrie the first one I would say is I I noticed right here if you
if you notice right when the sound happens
and for sure your boy is freaked I mean everything goes scattering I mean all types of stuff
is on the floor and and he's gone but then and let's just set our watches by how long
it takes for him to come back
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yeah I would say that was under five seconds although I'm sure our big clock in the sky
might say something different but maybe not anyway let's say about five seconds he's got
the Mojo to come on back and investigate where that sound was coming from that means that
he's not scared enough I've seen cats who have gone through this where when it happens
they are glued under the bed for the next hour you know or even longer so that's something
that's a positive Carrie is that Santa's coming right out and what I would like is for him
to have let's call it a Panic Room in the middle of your living room a place that he
would go where he feels safe and again you can train that for instance it could be his
carrier you could have a carrier in the middle of the room take the door off the carrier
put his favorite bed in there or something that smells like you so he feels safe again
treats bribery whatever it takes here's the thing I like about that it's in your living
room it's in that main space and I'm pretty much guessing at this point that when people
come home and whatever it's the living room where all this negative stuff goes down so
now he has a place to go it's not under the bed it's not in the closet it's not someplace
we have to dig him out but it's a place where he knows he can feel safe and yet you control
it so it's that difference between what I call caving and what I call cocooning caving
is where a cat goes under the bed in a closet where they can disappear for hours and it's
really going to take a lot for you to get them out of there they control the hiding
with cocooning you control it not only do you control it you can move it you can move
it around the place itself is safe but it doesn't mean that it has to be located in
some place that's completely inaccessible to you and doesn't help your cat with their
Mojo this one is more transformative because over time you could take the top off that
carrier you can make it more exposed but you're teaching him that there's places that you
can go that are safe but you don't have to disappear so that's one thing the second hint
I would give you is to do something about sound treating your ceiling I know that sounds
like oh what what am I an acoustic engineer you really don't need to be I mean it can
be something that you hang from the ceiling what here's sort of basic sound Knowledge
from a guy who practiced with very loud bands in places where he wasn't supposed to practice
for many years on end parallels are what you want to avoid so hard floor flat ceiling sound
just bounces bounces bounces everywhere same thing with the walls so having wall hangings
helps having something hanging from the ceiling just to break up those sound waves that helps
as well carpet on the floor that helps it just helps to sort of deaden that initial
thunk that comes from the ceiling so anything like that so by treating the environment finding
a Panic Room desensitization and counter conditioning I really do think that you're going to be
able to help Xander and not only that I think you're preparing him to be his best self because
no matter where you move no matter where you go even if he is reactive by nature and I
do want to stress this that this isn't just something he's going to get over he is who
he is and some of us are just really reactive to loud noises me being one of them which
is I know is crazy but if I walk down the street and there's suddenly a car backfires
a lot of times I'll just jump out of my skin that's just who we are you know but what we
can do is make it so that when those negatives uh rear their ugly heads that we don't go
to the Ten of our fear as long as he can go to the five of history and like I said he
may be incredibly reactive but he does recover really quickly and I think that's the thing
to hang on to and hopefully he won't hang on to your legs the next time this happens
because I know that's got to hurt a lot and before I leave you guys just know this I've
spent 30 years getting to know cats and I'm talking tens of thousands all over the world
and designing products to help them and in this case I want to tell you about Jackson
Galaxy Solutions because I think Xander could benefit from them and Carrie I'm going to
send you a little bit of this one is called scaredy cat and one is called stress stopper
scaredy cat for everyday use in food or water it's just what I call energetic medicine it
just helps bring down sort of the energetic temperature and then stress stopper for times
just like this one when he just hits the ceiling energetically it helps calm him down a little
bit I stand by these things I've been making them since the year 2000 believe it or not
so try it out while you can over the Jackson Galaxy store all right Carrie hopefully that
helped to answer your question and much love to you and to sander and Suki somewhere in
the great state of California for the rest of you guys who want to ask a question as
I always say it is as simple as magic and it's not Suki magic it's this kind of magic
bang like technological magic just right to there send me a video of you asking the question
and a video of your cat doing what you're asking a question about and I'll try to answer
that question pretty simple in the meantime if you've got a reactive cat if your friends
have reactive cats well if you have it you're watching this but if you have friends who
have reactive cats pass on this video because this is why I make it and all also I make
it to be seen so make sure to subscribe and and strike that Bell right there and that
way you'll know every time I have a brand new video and that's how we build team cat
Mojo right on all right so the next time we talk all light all love and I'll cat Mojo
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