Team Cat Mojo-- it's in the air.
Love is in the air.
It's Valentine's Day.
That's right.
It is a perfect time to learn about the cat I love you.
Are you guys ready to get catified?
Oh yeah.
Let's go.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
All right, y'all.
It is time to learn about the cat I love you.
What is the cat I love you, you ask yourself, or you ask me.
If you've watched "My Cat from Hell," even that all,
you've probably seen me walking around talking
to cats by blinking at them, the slow blink, right.
Believe me, I know a whole lot of people
know about this now because you walk up to me in the street
and you blink at me.
Which is weird, but totally cool.
Because the concept is everyone's
getting to know the language of cats.
Way back in the '90s, early '90s,
I was learning how to be a cat boy.
I was working at an animal shelter.
And I learned that cats liked me.
I was so obsessed with these guys
and obsessed with learning about their world.
So I started reading.
And one of the books that jumped out at me in the beginning,
made me feel like, hey, there might be a community of people
who think like me, or who are obsessed
the way I am, and this woman right here led the way.
Her name is Anitra Frazier.
This is actually my copy of the book
that I got back the early '90s.
Go figure.
In this book I was reading about the cat I love you.
And basically she was talking about how she learned this
by walking down the streets in the Upper West Side of New York
and just looking in the windows of the brownstones
and seeing cats in there and noticing
that they were blinking.
What is that, she wondered.
So she would blink back at them.
And suddenly there was a language
between Anitra and these cats.
And that became the cat I love you.
They're letting you know that they are vulnerable to you.
These are prey animals, animals that
sleep with one eye open, almost literally, cat napping.
Because they don't want to be preyed upon in the wild.
So the concept of closing their eyes to you in a slow way--
not something that they would do very willingly unless they're
trying to tell you something.
In the spirit of Valentine's Day now
I'm going to teach you how to do the cat I love you.
If you stare at people they tend not to trust you very much,
you know?
So if you're doing-- we're going to lose our glasses now.
When you do this, stare.
Now I'm even-- let's remove my facial expressions.
Not very inviting.
So the secret is to relax, relax your face.
So do this with me-- a little scrunch up,
a little Gilbert Gottfried here.
And then release it.
Now you got it.
Now we're softening our eyes.
This is the way that we want to approach a cat, with soft eyes.
We're not staring at them.
So let's take it to the next step.
When you look you soften, and then behind your vocal box--
don't use your words, just think them.
I'm not speaking right now.
I'm thinking.
You're hearing my inside voice right now.
I love you.
One more time.
Take your time with that.
That's kind of key.
When your cat does that to you, remember--
they are showing vulnerability, in which case
we're not just going I love you-- oh, what?
I love you-- oh, are you still there?
You know what I'm saying?
That shows lack of trust.
Trust is really closing your eyes to the world.
Practice that with your cat.
What about the cat I love you how ya doin'?
When you walk into a room and your cat sees you,
tell me your cat doesn't do yeah, yeah, how ya doin'?
I just did it.
So let's incorporate the cat I love you with the how ya
doin', which is the cat I love you how ya doin', originally
enough.
So you go--
Try it!
I'm telling you, you feel stupid doing it.
But try it, all right?
Now let's try the bow.
And the bow is you're literally just bowing to your cat.
But you don't necessarily have to go all the way down.
And in the same way, you don't have to do the all the way
blink.
The I love you bow is like this.
It's almost as if in the back of your head you're saying, yeah,
I love you.
Yeah.
Let me teach you about the 3-step handshake.
The 3-step handshake is using the cat
I love you in succession with some other things.
People are always wondering why they can't pet a cat.
Because you didn't ask permission.
That's why.
This is how you ask permission, the three-step handshake.
First we're going to try the blink.
Yeah, throw in a how ya doin', throw in the bow, OK.
Next thing you do is you present something with your scent on it
for them to explore.
Often I will use these bad boys.
Step three finally of the handshake,
the real how ya doin', is offering your hand to your cat.
Now the thing that I will always do
is extend my hand in a very relaxed way.
I'll treat this finger like a nose,
because cats often will nose to nose.
There's my nose.
I'll present to them.
And often what they will do once they
trust you is allow them to pet you.
They will then push their nose up, towards the third eye
here, and down.
These are universal signs that your cat
has fed you over and over again.
And if you just use them up a little bit, don't feel silly.
I mean literally, we're behind closed doors here, just you
and me in the cat cave.
Try it.
And try it with your cat.
Of course that's homework.
Go and try the cat I love you with your cat.
A true expression of your love for a cat is saying,
I will communicate on your terms.
The cat I love you, the 3-step handshake,
the how ya doin', the bow, the finger nose--
all those things are going to their side of the fence.
And let me know about it.
Write some comments right down here.
Subscribe to this channel, by the way.
Write to me on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram.
Show me some videos, man.
Show me some videos, and pictures,
of you doing the cat I love you, or your cat doing it back
to you, or doing the how ya doin' or the finger nose.
I would love to see all those things.
I mean, honestly, if you want to do a great Valentine's Day
thing for the Cat Daddy, show me some
of that stuff with you and your cats.
Videos man, I love that stuff.
Some pictures on Instagram-- I love that stuff.
Please bring it on.
I want to tell you one more thing.
I want you to look at this right here.
Cats are cool.
People we all knew that, right?
Go to catsrcool.org and you can find out
some more about this very interesting program.
Speaking of Cats R Cool, Cats R Cool
sponsors me and my tour, the Cats Uncaged tour.
And it's coming to some places near you,
not so far off in the future.
If you want to find out more about it, go to my website.
Sign up for the newsletter.
Check it out right here on the Animalist Network,
and on YouTube.
And you will find out when I will
be traveling with Cats Uncaged at a shelter near you,
in a town near you, under the Cats R Cool banner.
So folks, happy Valentine's Day to you.
Go and spread that love.
Go blink a little bit.
Go do the how ya doin'.
Let me see it from you and your cat.
In the meantime, I have no way of expressing
how big my heart is for team Cat Mojo.
You people have been coming out in force,
letting me know how you feel about Cat Mojo.
And I'm pretty psyched about it.
Until next time, all light, all love, all mojo.
[KISSES]
Love you.
[MUSIC PLAYING]