Transcript
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Welcome to the Starlight Pet Talk podcast, where we'll talk about and explore ways to help pet parents and future pet parents learn everything they need to know to have a happy and healthy relationship with their pet.
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So sit up and stay for Starlight Pet Talk rescue, adoption and pet parenting done right.
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Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk.
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I'm your host, amy Castro, and I am actually recording this podcast episode from Beautiful Cape Cod, taking a little vacation, which was much needed, and unfortunately it's a little bit of a rainy day today.
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So my best friend Bev, who is lucky enough to live here, and I decided we were going to record this podcast episode that I've been wanting to share with you all for a while, since I had Bev on the very first episode of the podcast, the Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk, and she dished the dirt on me in my background, and this is the 21st episode.
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So we've been rocking and rolling for a while now, but I wanted to have Bev on to talk about her experience with her cat named Cuzzy, and you can probably explain why his name is Cuzzy, because it's a little bit weird.
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But don't save that story.
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So, anyway, we are both very strong believers that a pet is for life and, unless there's some horrendously extenuating circumstance where you can no longer properly care for your pet, that, no matter who your pet is, you need to make it work.
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And so Bev's story with Cuzzy is a prime example of somebody who was willing to kind of, in my opinion, go above and beyond in making that relationship work, for the betterment of the cat for sure.
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So, bev, welcome to the show.
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Thank you for having me, ms Amy, all right, I'm glad to have you back.
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So I'd love for people to hear the story of how you got Cuzzy, because it's not your standard.
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I went to his shelter, or a cat walked up to my door, kind of story.
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So how did you get this crazy?
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cat.
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It's unusual because he kind of fell into my lap.
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I was working an evening shift at the Clarkstown Police Department.
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I'm a dispatcher.
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There was a dispatcher recently retired and got a call from the local highway department and they had said that they got their hands on a cat that had been astray in the yard for quite some time.
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Would the animal control officer be able to come and take him?
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And of course it was a holiday weekend and of course it was.
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You know, I was working until 11 o'clock at night.
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There was no one available.
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But the gentleman who called me said he'd be willing to hang on to the cat until the next day because I expressed a little bit of interest.
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My previous cat had passed away and I was kind of feeling that I might be getting a new cat soon.
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So so he kept the cat overnight and we agreed to meet an exit ramp off of a highway how dicey is that the cat had to have on the highway, but it was totally fine.
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The guy was great.
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He worked for the highway department.
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You know.
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I had his name and number and everything and he kept saying, oh, she's so sweet and she's this, that the other thing.
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I took one look into the cat carrier and this massive head popped out like it was definitely a male cat.
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He was just big and beefy, right.
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So even if it didn't work out for me, I knew that I had had other options, whether it was another friend who could adopt him or go to the shelter, like if I couldn't handle him.
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Well, here it is.
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What would we say 12 years later?
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Something like that.
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It's been at least, at least 12 years he has been such a joy to have a challenge.
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Most of the time, but quite the joy.
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He makes me laugh every day and it was definitely worth all the effort that I've been putting into him Leading up to this podcast.
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Yeah, Okay.
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so I know one of the things that was unusual about cousin and we'll try to lure him over and get him on for those who are watching on video.
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To get him on the video because he's quite the striking and giant beast he's.
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I'm always shocked at how much you say he weighs like 15 pounds, 13,.
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Not even 15 pounds, 13 pounds but looking at him I would say he's 18 pounds, just because he seems like he's the size of a dog and there goes his ears.
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Don't knock down the microphone.
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He's quite the striking and large, large kitty cat.
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So you were pretty surprised to figure out that, despite the fact that he was found out as a stray, that he was declawed in the front.
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Yeah, so when I initially got him the animal control officer at the police department, pat McCoy, how you doing?
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We scanned for chip the way he's supposed to and we put stuff on Facebook and I kept praying that nobody would claim him.
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Because he was awesome, would you ask me.
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That you were surprised that he was declawed being such a big beast and being outside seemingly for a while.
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Yeah, so he either escaped from a home or he was kicked to the curb because he was.
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I discovered such a handful.
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He was constantly getting into things.
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So I mean, when people meet him for the first time, I have to say I didn't declaw him, he came that way.
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I didn't order, you just came that way he was defunct when I got him, yeah, but it is interesting.
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So obviously, whoever had him initially.
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You know, even I don't believe in decline either, but most people who do that fully intend to keep the cat indoors forever and they think it doesn't need its claws because it's never gonna go outside and it and it's pretty obvious when you start hearing about cuz he's story and how he is, that I mean, odds are definitely in favor.
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That somebody was like this cat is just way too much.
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He's.
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He's got to go and and and so out.
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How he went.
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I know you're, I'm shaming you, you're facing this over, looking at us.
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Okay, so when did you realize that cuz he was not your average cat, not, you're just kind of like lay around in the sun, you feed a scoop, the litter box and you're done right, exactly working different shifts, he I wasn't always guaranteed to be home in the morning, I wasn't always guaranteed to be home in the evening, so I set up these automatic timers that I got online and they, you know, have meals set up and it goes off whatever times that you set.
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Well, previous cats that I had, you can leave a Bowl out all day long and they come and they snack and, yeah, they leave stuff behind and whatever.
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Now, not only did he eat all of the weeks worth of food, he opened up the clicking locking lid to the feeder and ate the whole weeks worth of food.
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Oh, wow, yeah.
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So I'm like, oh alright, I guess I can't leave a bowl of food out.
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I didn't know what to do, so I bolted them shut, I drilled holes in the side of the feeder.
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Yeah, so these are the big plastic automatic feeders.
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You'd think that I don't, even when I'm looking at it across the room right now and we can show a picture later on of what it looks like.
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But I had it.
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How he even got into that, like he was determined to get into that cat feet.
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It's a second, and he's creepy strong too.
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So I drilled a hole in the side of it and I put a note and not in a bolt problem solve.
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This one comes to me.
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Yeah she decides let's see if he can not work the bolt.
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So she's encouraging him to turn the the nut on the bolt to open it up, just to see, because he's so smart.
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Yeah, and he was definitely following my lead.
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I don't think he ever really got the bolt all the way.
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No, but he was definitely on at it and like yeah she's got something there.
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So that was your first clue.
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Then that that cuz he was very determined to get fed, and it's interesting because he's not a heavy cat, but he probably would, you know, you think you tell me, make himself.
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I think he would, yeah, until he died.
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Yeah, okay, so what are some of the other things?
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Well, let's focus on food right now.
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What are some of the other things that he did that were food related and so also in the same house in New York Typical pantry and a house and it had two louver doors that were rattly, rattly, rattly.
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He learned how to bounce on the door because it was like a spring magnet type of thing.
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Yeah, bounce on the door Enough to open it up and there was the food, like he would get that.
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So then I had to lock that up.
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So now I have an iron hook latch on the pantry of nut and bolt on the feeder.
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I mean it just it never stopped making dinner.
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I'm checking raw chicken cutlets on the kitchen counter and he's stretching himself up on top of the counter like, yeah, I want some of that.
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It just never stopped, ever.
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So I knew he was highly food motivated, which helped me later on with teaching him how to behave like a gentleman.
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Yeah, so it's basically, basically, you had to kind of go through almost baby proofing the house.
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But, cat to keep him any away from anything related to food right having other cats that behave themselves.
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He was the one who showed me the way in order to baby proof the house.
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I had no idea that he could open up a door.
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I had no idea that he could open up the feeder, and it needed to be bullshat.
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So it was kind of a learning process to find ways to make him safe, because if he got into that food and ate everything, it would be over.
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Yeah, you could get really obviously really sick.
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So so somebody listening to this so far might say, okay, big deal, so you put a latch on the cabinet.
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You don't leave abandoned chicken cutlets on the kitchen counter.
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It's like, is that really that inconvenient?
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But I think people need to understand how far you've had to go.
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Related to the food, like talk about when you're preparing your meals.
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So you fix your meal.
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You want to eat a hot meal after you've cooked it.
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When I visit her at her house, she has ps animals every everywhere, right, and I Incessantly will say you, you leave that on the counter.
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Like how can you do that?
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Like isn't anybody going to try to get that?
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And no, nobody, nobody goes up on account.
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Nobody goes up on the stove and drags off a frying pan.
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The minute I do my back on a plate, on a dish that's still hot, anything.
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The minute I turn my back, he is on top of the counter Sneaking very stealthily quiet to get up on the counter and eat.
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So when I'm cooking, when I'm done cooking and I want to sit down and have my own hot meal, I have to put all the dirty dishes that I've used, like a pot or a pan, like, into the oven, into the microwave, to hide it away from him.
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So I can sit down and have all your food still, yeah, otherwise I have to clean the kitchen before I could sit down and have a meal that sucks.
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So what have you tried?
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Because people will say, okay, well, there's, you know, there's products out there you can use for that.
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What?
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What kind of products have you tried to deter him from getting on the counters?
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So this is a aerosol.
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Oh God, he's scared, Scared him to death.
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Oh, I'm sorry baby.
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So this is it has a mechanism that sits on top, which I believe is broken at this point Sits on top, it's motion-sensored.
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Yeah, so it's basically a motion-sensored aerosol, can that?
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When the cat crosses the path, it blasts this, it's just air.
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It's not hurting anybody, but the sound as you just heard.
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You saw what happened.
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He's gone.
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Yeah, for those who were watching a video, the cat just went flying.
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If you didn't, you might need to go to YouTube and check that out, because it was pretty effective.
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The idea of this, as well as another idea that I'm going to talk about in a second.
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The idea of this actually came from a television show called my Cat from Hell With our friend Jackson Galaxy.
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Jackson Galaxy.
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He's got it because if you chase your cat with a water bottle off the counter, he is like why are you squirting me with a water bottle?
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I surf the kitchen counters all the time.
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Why now?
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But if the kitchen counter is the one calling him out and the kitchen counter is the one that's scaring him half to death, it's not me, it's the kitchen counter, and he won't go up on it any longer.
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Yeah, and that's something important for people who do use and I do use spray bottles in certain instances for things, but mostly for dogs, because they know I mean, they see me, they're looking at me spraying them and, whether you agree with that or disagree with that, it is effective for me.
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But with cats, once they start believing you're chasing them, then it's a constant game of chase.
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That's why we always, when we talk to people about adopting kittens with little kids, it's like not always a great fit, because once that kitten realizes that people are going to chase it all over the house and because kids can't control themselves and when they want to hold the kitty, they want to hold the kitty.
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Now you've got a cat that never comes out in front of the bed and you've kind of created that situation.
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So you generally don't want your pet to associate you with something uncomfortable, because then when you really need to get a hold of them, they're running from you, Right For sure, right, okay, so you tried the spray thing.
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It works.
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It still works.
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If I had the device, I'm the one who got lazy, not him.
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He will always try to outsmart me and humans.
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We can get lazy.
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So what other mischief, which is when we talk about and we've talked about this in a couple of previous episodes about, quote unquote bad behavior in pets?
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Because he's just being cozy, this is him.
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He's a jungle cat in a domestic cat's body and he's got things to do.
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He's hunting, he's exploring, he's getting his exercise, he's practicing being predator, practicing avoiding being prey, things like that.
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But sometimes we as people don't understand that behavior.
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So what are some of the other challenges that you've had with him?
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Behavior wise.
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So also working shift work, sometimes you have to sleep a little bit later in the morning and that doesn't work for his feeding schedule.
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So at the previous house where I lived in New York, instead of having door knobs it had door handles Like little levers.
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Yeah, so actually when I first got him, at one point I thought my house was burglarized.
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When I got home because all of my doors that had been closed were open, because it's very easy for any kind of pet a dog or a cat to open up.
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All you got to do is pull down.
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Yeah, read up and paw down on the handle, yeah.
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And I said I'm going to do that to my bedroom door because he wants to be with me, because I'm awesome, and so I had to.
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How do I keep him away from the bedroom door?
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Oh, I forgot At one point.
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Oh my gosh At one point.
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My bedroom door is across the hallway from the guest room bedroom door.
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I actually tied a rope between the two handles so if he opened up my bedroom door he couldn't push open the door and wake me up.
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I forgot about that.
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That's pretty clever, however, although don't do that if you have small children, because it will close line them.
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The beauty of living alone.
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So this, if you're watching on video, looks like a plastic doormat.
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Yeah, it's just a sheet of plastic that's got some electrical wires running through the center of it and a battery pack.
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What's a square one?
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A nine volt battery and wire running through it.
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So you place this on the floor in front of your door and it all takes this one little step and it gets a little shock, and I've touched it myself.
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It's more startling than it hurts.
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It's not a big deal.
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He did it once and that was it.
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He never did it again.
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I haven't had a battery in this mat for several years and he still manages to step over it If I open the door and leave it and he can come in and out as he pleases.
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But he definitely avoids stepping on it.
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He will never step on it.
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Yeah, and I think it is important for people who are like oh my gosh, I can't believe you chalk your cat.
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A couple of things.
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Number one we call things like shock collars, and I'm not a believer in shock collars, but shock collars, shock mats, things like that.
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It's not like an electric shock.
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You feel a vibration, but because animals are so sensitive, it's it startles them, it's not something they're expecting and it's not super pleasant, and so, therefore, I just learned quickly not to do it again.
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Right, I think it's more startling than anything and, like you said, I'm just going to avoid it.
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And he stepped on it once.
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That was the first, last and only time he ever stepped on it.
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Yeah.
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And I think it's one of those things where you do it as a as a last resort.
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You obviously tried several other things, right?
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You know, we had a dog one time that used to dig out of the yard and we tried all the regular tricks.
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I mean, we tried running fence underneath that he, you know chicken wire underneath that he couldn't dig through.
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That didn't work Cause it was a large, large yard.
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We tried filling the holes with dog poop because they said, oh, your dog's not going to want to dig in his own poop, but he didn't care, or he would just dig a hole right next to it, filling it with rocks, filling it with broken bricks, and nothing worked until we finally got two D batteries and this little electric wire, and again, you know one.
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Actually I don't even think he touched it, he was too smart to touch it, but the other dog touched it and jumped and then nobody touched the fence and there never were any batteries ended after that, but we never had a problem, and that's it.
00:16:06.835 --> 00:16:20.710
And you know, if you've got a better solution, please let us know, because until I find and I feel like I've exhausted everything else, that was, that was the best solution that worked, and I think it's an alternative of doing that versus getting rid of your pet because you can't keep them in your yard.
00:16:21.024 --> 00:16:30.336
I was completely willing to try and this shock mat was very similar to the kitchen counter, the motion sensor aerosol spray, and that it wasn't me giving him the shock.
00:16:30.336 --> 00:16:31.990
It was the area in front of the door.
00:16:31.990 --> 00:16:40.308
Unfortunately, he learned that he can't put his paws on the door or open the latch, but he can use his voice.
00:16:42.570 --> 00:16:43.272
So now, what does he do?
00:16:45.044 --> 00:16:45.947
Let's see summertime.
00:16:45.947 --> 00:16:49.135
It starts getting late around 4.30, 5.
00:16:49.135 --> 00:16:54.427
No, it goes on incessantly until I get up out of bed.
00:16:55.542 --> 00:17:02.144
Yeah it's charming, yeah, and in those kinds of situations I think it's just how persistent are you, how persistent is the pet?
00:17:02.144 --> 00:17:05.702
And it's really a test, like I know for my cats.
00:17:05.702 --> 00:17:14.943
They've done the same thing, where they're meowing outside the door and if I ignore them, you know, within X amount of minutes sometimes 30, because sometimes they're persistent.
00:17:14.943 --> 00:17:23.704
But sometimes and this is just a good note for everybody when you get up and open the door, even to yell at them to get away from your door, you're rewarding them because you're giving them attention.
00:17:23.704 --> 00:17:36.306
So you have to, you know, put in some earplugs or something like that until they realize that no amount of meowing is going to keep, you is going to make you open the door, and then one would hope that he would give up.
00:17:36.626 --> 00:17:45.087
And so, and that just jogged my memory, which is why I constantly run a fan spring, summer, winter, and fall in my room like a big box fan, so it's white noise, so I don't have to hear him.
00:17:45.367 --> 00:17:45.548
Yeah.
00:17:46.430 --> 00:17:47.050
I forgot that.
00:17:47.332 --> 00:17:52.932
Yeah, so we're probably about maybe halfway or so into this episode.
00:17:53.140 --> 00:17:53.200
And.
00:17:53.220 --> 00:18:00.667
I know that there are people listening that are saying you are freaking crazy, that nobody should go to that extent for an animal.
00:18:00.667 --> 00:18:04.107
Why don't you just like lock him in the bathroom, lock him in?
00:18:04.107 --> 00:18:07.748
I've even said that, like he's got a lot of his stuff is downstairs in her basement.
00:18:07.748 --> 00:18:09.425
It's not like a scary, creepy basement.
00:18:09.425 --> 00:18:13.410
You know why not just close him down there, and that is an option.
00:18:13.410 --> 00:18:15.445
You know, some animals do have their space.
00:18:15.445 --> 00:18:18.767
That's where they go at night, so you can live your life and be peaceful.
00:18:18.767 --> 00:18:19.429
But it's a choice.
00:18:19.429 --> 00:18:21.748
It's a choice that you have as the human that's in charge.
00:18:21.748 --> 00:18:23.566
So why do you put up with him?
00:18:25.442 --> 00:18:27.429
Well, like people say, it's a part of their family.
00:18:27.429 --> 00:18:31.309
You invest a lot of your heart into it and everything.
00:18:31.309 --> 00:18:42.688
And when you take on that responsibility, like you said in the beginning, this is a responsibility that's going to last about 20 years and you can't just kick somebody to the curb because they're pissing you off.
00:18:42.688 --> 00:18:44.443
You just can't do that.
