Original subtitles

Gizmo gets really aggressive and crazy.

I think she's hit the point where there's no return.

We're thinking about expanding our family sometime soon.

I believe putting her down would be the only option left.

No, we have to make a decision together.

We're pretty much prisoners of our cat's illness.

Daisy's symptoms of feline hyperesthesia syndrome are staring at her tail.

Attacking her tail to a point where it was bleeding, there were scabs, and then

Daisy's back would ripple.

And then it gets to a point where she's so freaked out, she tries to run away

from her tail. We desperately need Jackson's help because our life is

around Daisy.

I'm wrapped up in her illness.

But there has to be another solution because they're just affecting our

life. And I don't know if we're going to be able to stay together with the way

things are going.

I'm Jackson Galaxy.

I'm a musician by night and a cat behaviorist by day.

I've met cats with all kinds of problems.

But I've never met one I couldn't help.

Oh, hello. In my career, I've worked with thousands of cats one -on -one,

analyzing their behaviors and retraining them and their guardians.

When relationships are at an end, I don't have many more options than to

leave. And cat guardians have reached their emotional limit. Just get rid of

her. I'm their last hope.

Are you all right?

I mean, I don't know. Cats have nine lives, but humans only have one.

I'll come back here to San Francisco to talk to Adam and Samantha about their

cat Gizmo.

Unbelievable, whose aggression I've seen on footage, and it's bad.

She turns on a dime, and when she does, she turns on the humans.

I'm going to go in there right now and see if I can stop that from happening.

Hi, my name's Adam. Hi, my name is Sam.

We've been married for five years, and we have a cat named Gizmo.

We got her as a stray, six months old.

Gizmo, if he has this aggressive behavior, it comes out of nowhere.

She attacks anything that comes near her.

I usually get it the worst. I usually get bit almost 100 % of the time because

of blood.

She turns evil and goes crazy.

We're thinking about expanding our family sometime soon, and that's kind of

reason why we want to get help for Craig Gizmo. But if I feel that...

Our future child are going to be in danger or hurt. I believe putting her

would be the only option left.

No, we have to make a decision together because Gizmo's like my child, so I

don't really want that to be an option at all. I think she's hit the point

there's no return.

I am not going to take that chance.

Hey, how you doing? I'm good. I'm Sam.

Hey, Sam.

I'm Jackson. Nice to meet you. Yeah, you too.

This is my husband, Adam. Hey, Adam. Hey, Jackson.

Okay. Tell me what's up with Gizmo.

Um, she is a little aggressive.

Oh. A little? It got a lot worse. Tell me about Gizmo's aggression.

Kind of bipolar.

She'll be a little cretin.

And, you know, nice, one second, and then lash out.

One second. She's just hanging out. She'll be cheek -marking you. She'll

problems. Suddenly, she'll go into that growling state.

Ears come back.

Now, that's a cat who feels like they are being attacked and running for their

lives.

Is it safe to say that you guys don't trust her at this point?

Yes. I get paranoid a lot.

We've also taken different measures of, I guess, punishment, so to speak.

Okay, tell me about that.

We started using a squirt bottle.

You know, one thing that I hate is spraying cats with water. I think it's

most ridiculous thing because what you're doing is saying, I don't like

do this. The cat gets even bigger in their energy. You can't expect to put

energy into a cat and not have it come back at you. What's this done to you

guys? Well, I mean, we'd like to start a family sometime soon. We're thinking

like the end of the year. So we do not want to chance that. I would like to see

how she interacts with the kids first.

I don't know if I'd take that chance, though.

I mean, this is kind of where we disagree.

We've been going back and forth on how to handle it. Where are you right now?

we can't get the problem fixed, I'm thinking euthanization.

Whoa, wait a minute. So you're going to euthanize the cat?

I mean, if it gets to the point where we can't get it fixed before our family

comes. You guys are clashing over this?

I mean, yeah, there's been a couple disagreements.

Okay. Now, I don't think that these are mean people. I think they're desperate

people. They're desperate. They've been through everything they could possibly

go through. And this is an act of a family that has no idea what to do with

their cat. So I've got to pull them back from that ledge. I am at the point

where I'm like, I have no idea what I'm in for. So where's she at right now?

She's in the office.

All right. Let's go see her.

Lots of disturbing things coming from Adam and Samantha about Gizmo, so I had

get up, look around this home, see if there was anything I could find out. Oh,

there she is.

Now, the first thing I want to do, I got to find out what makes her tick.

So I send Adam and Samantha out of the room, and then I realize this is my

chance to be alone with Gizmo a little bit, to try to see what I can do to just

push her challenge line in maybe a more controlled way.

Sister. Hey, hey, hey, come on.

Let's just talk.

Let's just talk it out.

Okay. Ow!

Come on now.

Okay, okay, okay.

Listen, let's just do this, all right?

Let's just... I decided I needed to go back in again and just try to find again

this place, this line with her where she would flip.

There goes that tail.

Come on now.

Look at me. Look at me.

Ow!

Damn it!

There was this moment that the two of us had sort of a stare down where we were

both trying to figure each other out. In that moment...

I didn't know who she was. And usually, that's something I got going for me.

She started getting kind of unpredictable with me. And then, boom,

me up.

Just the acts that Gizmo goes through during these attacks, that she actually

bites people with intent to hurt them. I'm pretty stressed out by this whole

thing. I'm really not feeling too good about it. Can you just show me what you

would do?

Yeah, what I'm trying to do is get her out of that corner.

With the oven mitts, she... Still has an aggression towards hands, so putting

oven mitts on them. We just did that for her to protect.

Wow, man.

Oh, it's going to the litter box.

So now we've gone from high aggression to high fear, and now

she's licking her lips. She's doing a hard blink.

Now she's panicked. For her to go in her litter box right now to just try to

decompress is sad.

You know what I mean? The last place you'd expect a cat to go is in their own

litter box, sitting among their pee and their poop as a place of safety. So it

tells me a couple of things. First of all, that's no safe place. Believe me.

second thing is Adam and Samantha have no idea what's safe for this cat.

I'm going to try one more thing here because I just don't want her in here.

I know. You're just loving me.

You're just loving me, aren't you?

I know.

Don't beat me up from there, please.

Don't beat me up from there. I just want you out of there.

This is a line of challenge I have got to let her know because I don't want her

sitting in that litter box. Ready?

Out. Come on.

Let's get you out.

Just come down here with me.

Girlfriend, come here.

It's kind of ironic, right, that she's hanging out with a squirter gun right

now.

So, whoa, girl.

Look at that, man.

Look at that. You see?

I want you to notice her body language right now.

Ears pinned back to the back of her head, eyes fully dilated, right?

That's a cat that's being hunted, is that look.

I mean, now she's gone more into the escape.

So we're seeing that fluctuation between fight or flight happen.

Let's start talking about homework here.

This is gone.

We're not using this anymore.

I mean, we've got to make this gone right now, and the reason why it's got

gone is that we've got to find different methods to get behavior out of her that

we're not getting right now. I need to see not just the spark from her, because

you guys are able to say, okay, well.

I know when it's coming, and then we squirt her.

Instead of that, I want to see how it, unfortunately, how it blooms.

Do you know what I'm saying? We can't just stop it here.

We've got to see it come out. Well, I understand the water bottle, so that's

obviously something we wouldn't do anymore.

It's not really helping her anyway. It's probably making her more angrier.

So he tells us to give her the water bottle, then I'll do it.

Fortunately, what I'm seeing is beyond the out of the ordinary.

Let's just leave this room, let her decompress for a minute, and you guys

show me the rest of your place.

Okay. All right, come on.

Adam, Samantha, and I went into their living room. The living room was set up

kind of strangely.

A whole lot of nothing over here.

This is my space. I do my stretching and stuff here.

I have to deal with her aggression. It happens in the morning when he already

leaves, and I have to go to work. Can you show me? Can you just take me

exactly what you would normally do?

Having Jackson request Sam do some exercises.

It was a little odd. I was thinking, well, where are we going with this? She

likes to come up to where my hair is, especially.

And if I'm doing this, then sometimes she'll... That's when she goes for you?

Yeah. Here's a thought for you.

When you're down here and you're doing the stretching and everything, the

movement of your legs going back and forth... That could somehow precipitate

attack.

I've seen plenty at this point.

Okay. Come on.

I feel like I'm getting to know Gizmo, but there's a long road ahead of both me

and Adam and Samantha.

The first thing that I feel like is missing here, this place needs to be

catified. All right, guys, I want you to put up a shelf.

Catify the house, especially the living room, which is empty. I want to see her

getting up on something and finding at what point she feels safe. I really want

you guys to X.

All forms of punishment. No more of the oven mitts, no spray bottles, no

nothing. They have found ways to squish down the energy. I don't want to see any

of it anymore. They can have anything that'll work to help her feel grounded

safe at the same time. I'm going to bring sort of a step -by -step behavior

modification plan here, but in the meantime, I think that we might have a

medical problem as well.

We saw something today that I didn't like, and that is it takes her a long

to decompress, and that's not a reaction that I want to see. Every once in a

while, I come across a cat who is just aggressive because of their chemistry.

Their wires are crossed, and that's when I bring in veterinarians to help me

defuse that cat bomb.

And we have to let her know that the world is not a dangerous place. She

have to be chased by ghosts anymore.

I don't know much about animal medication, so I'm up to it as long as

going to hurt her.

Looks like we got some homework. Yeah, you got some homework. Yeah, you got a

lot of homework.

I will talk to you guys soon, all right? Bye, Jackson. Bye -bye.

I'm hoping that it works, but I don't know. I still have a concern bringing a

child into this.

We're here for my second visit with Adam and Samantha.

I'm here for their cat, Gizmo, and let me tell you something. The last time I

was here, Gizmo was one angry cat.

He was one of the most violent cats I've dealt with in quite a long time.

Now, Adam is ready to have this cat euthanized, so I assigned homework that

only is going to help Gizmo, but Adam as well, lengthen his views.

We'll see what happens.

Hi, Jackson. Come on in.

So, guys, how are things going here?

Gizmo's attitude has definitely changed.

That's pretty rocking. Last time I was here, I wanted you to go to the vet.

What happened at the vet?

Well, they recommended that we put her on an antidepressant or anxiety

medication for short term to see how it would affect her. And how is it

affecting her?

It's definitely improved.

Love that.

So now that Gizmo is balanced, I can work with her. Otherwise, there was no

chance. Tell me about the worst attacks that you've seen.

Just two days ago, she's on the counter, and she's biting me.

And drew blood. Drew blood.

Before, blood was being drawn regularly.

Yeah. Where the past couple of weeks, she's drawn blood only about one time,

right? Yeah. Okay, so that's really something worth writing home about.

Since the last time I was here, Gizmo's attacks have gone down 50%. This is

huge. You guys gave me some footage.

Now let's watch her video homework.

On the video homework, I got to see Adam getting rid of what he called the tools

of punishment.

Oven mitts.

Trash.

We didn't use them to bake anyways. We just used them to handle gizmo. We

really bakers, though. Yeah, we don't bake.

The last time I was here, I asked them to make some serious modifications, and

I'm glad they made them move up into the vertical world for their cat, but it is

simply not enough.

All right, all right. Well, a lot of good things on there.

Here's what I want to do now. I'm going to get up and see any modifications that

you guys made to the space.

Okay. Let's get walking. Come on. It was time for Adam and Sam and I to get up,

look around the house, and there's Gizmo staring at me. So I decided to get down

low and to see if I could invite her in.

And look at that. Then she's up and about.

Then she went up onto the counter.

Is she behind my head right now? Is that what's going on?

Hi, baby.

Hi. Don't growl at me.

It's okay.

She started to growl at me in a way that makes me really uncomfortable. And the

last time I was here.

Ow! She put a licking on me.

She's growling. She's making noises I don't like.

Let me tell you something.

That cat wanted a piece of me, and if I moved the wrong way, she was going to

take that piece.

I'm going to take my glasses off.

That might only go right now.

Let's make that little growl stop.

I'm trying to do this slow blink with her. Not working.

Gizmo started to get onto high alert status.

This cat was ready to strike out.

We blinked at one another, and it was over. And she allowed me back

in again. That moment, let me tell you something.

That was huge.

That was a massive turning point in this cat's life.

Oh, my God.

He was staring at this demon cat right in the eyes.

I've never done that, and I don't think I ever would. My mind was just blown.

Yeah. I mean, no words.

I mean, there's no way that you would think of euthanasia of a cat that's like

this at this point. I would assume, right?

I know.

I mean, if...

It's tough because I... That's still in your head.

Yeah. Yeah, I still have that thought.

I do not want to put her down just because she's still behaving badly.

But she was pretty rough on day one.

I believe that Adam is waiting for something to go wrong. The energy that

brings to Gizmo has got to be 100 % positive.

He's got to show faith in the cat in order for the cat to show faith in him.

The last time I was here, we were dealing with a whole room full of

So right now, I like what you did, which is couch here and then the little perch

here. I dig that. Because the more of this house she owns, the less of a

we're going to have.

I got something for you that I brought with me that I think is going to help.

hold on one second.

What do we got here?

This is going to live right here in the corner.

There we go.

Now, it's not finished yet, okay? Hold on one second. I got some more stuff for

you. All right.

Not enough that I gave you the tree itself, because what I want this to be

Gizmo's relaxation station.

Every level of this thing has something on it that really comforts her. We stick

these suckers right here so she can play with them, pull them down if she wants.

I think it looks good. It's not like an eyesore in our room. It does make sense

because she's always on the counter looking at us. What I'd like to see here

maybe just a shelf. It's a very simple shelf.

Anything that you get at the hardware store is going to be just fine. So she

go from here, jump to here, walk here, and up.

Okay. She then is invited to get up, and Gizmo can watch the world from that

safe distance. I love it. It's amazing.

Let's go sit down. I'm going to give you guys some more homework, okay? Sounds

good.

The next homework assignment is we do want to encourage her up on her

station and know that she can observe people from there. I want to make sure

that from point A to point B, she's got a way she can walk the walls. But then

it's not enough for you to put that up there. Your play sessions with her that

you do with those interactive toys, get her up on the shelves. When you get her

up there, then you can give her treats, okay? So she gets used to looking at the

world from her treat. And finally...

I want her to continue on the medication, no doubt about it. She was

before. What was going on in her brain was causing her to suffer.

The medication cleared that shroud.

It worked. She stays on it.

I feel like we just have to ride the wave and just see what happens.

All right, good. I'm off to L .A. I'll see you in a few weeks.

Jax knows how to interact with animals.

The normal person, a baby, they're not going to know.

I do have that little bit of a doubt.

And now it's time for a kitty bit. What is the smallest breed of domestic cat?

Is it A, the Maine Coon, B, the Singapura, or C, the American Curl?

Find out after the break.

What is the smallest breed of domestic cat?

And the answer is B, the Singapura.

Although very muscular, a full -grown female only weighs 5 to 6 pounds, while

the male can come in at a whopping 6 to 8 pounds.

I'm here for my final visit with Adam and Sam and their cat, Gizmo. Let me

you something. The first time I met Gizmo, she was one of the most

violent cats I had ever dealt with, so much so that Adam was seriously

considering euthanizing her.

All I can hope for is that she's not swiping or biting or attacking out of

blue. Hello.

Hey. So let's see what today brings.

So, tell me what's really good. What's going on? Any attacks since the last

I was here?

Um, no. No blood drawn.

No blood. No blood drawn.

No blood.

Very good. Best news I could possibly hear, no blood drawn, no attacks, no

episodes, no nothing. Let me tell you something. This cat has turned the

No attacks at all from that cat. You know you're walking in the right

All the behavior is predictable. Now, this is something I got to teach myself,

and it was time to take a look at video homework.

The great news is that she's using the relaxation station.

She's using it when Sam is exercising. She's using it when they're watching TV.

She's just staying up in the world, and because of that, she's a much more

confident cat.

It's going to be good. Don't worry.

On the video homework, I also got to see Adam and Sam.

giving Gizmo her mood -stabilizing medication.

Are you kidding me?

There's this moment where Adam is laying on the bed with Gizmo.

He puts his head down next to her head, which shows an amazing amount of trust.

It's a tender, beautiful moment between a human and a cat.

That's all we needed.

While you're laying there with Gizmo, face to face, do you feel your

relationship shift with her?

It felt like, you know, we bonded again.

I was able to feel Gizmo's love and affection again, and she's purring right

next to my face as opposed to growling or hissing. It was an amazing feeling.

Great. Good news all the way around. Now, of course, what I want to do is get

and go say hi to Gizmo. All right, let's go.

Now, the first time I met Gizmo, let me tell you something. All she wanted to do

was kill me. She was not interested in toys or treats or anything else that was

good in this world. So when Gizmo walked into the living room, I felt very safe

and very appropriate in breaking out a toy to see if I could get her to respond

to it.

Oh, that's just instant.

This cat exploded.

Now this is exactly, that's what I wanted to see, right?

She just wanted to play. Have you seen her play like this before?

Never. This is what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to hunt stuff and

kill stuff. As long as it's not attached to your body, everything's good, right?

I was pretty speechless to see Gizmo play like that with Jackson.

Let's get down here.

Because I got some food for her.

Well, hello, little one.

Hello, little one.

The last time I was here, she was growling, and I felt anything but safe.

more than that, there was something about her that made the hair stand up on

back of my neck. This time around, my gut told me I was in no danger at any

time.

Hello, my love.

Hello, my love.

Very nice.

So because Sam and Adam have committed to the homework, we have a cat that's

completely different today. They brought in the relaxation station and all of

the other shelves around it to give her a sense of ownership of the living room.

They really took to heart the homework of taking her to the vet, making sure

got a mood -stabilizing medication.

That way, he could first see the world as a normal place and a place to enjoy,

and then we got the payoff today. Because look, we're taking a look at

Is euthanasia off the table for you?

Euthanasia is nowhere near the table.

It's gone. It is gone. You have shown me a side of Gizmo that I thought was

lost.

You've got to be fairly relieved, though, to imagine. I'm ecstatic because

we can look forward to having a family.

I can't believe how frustrated I got when I look back now because it's a

different cat.

Gizmo back prior to Jackson was a devil. Now he's an angel.

I could just sit here and look at her forever.

That's what I want to leave you with, okay?

Okay. So I'm going to take off, guys.

I do this job because I love seeing cats like Gizmo come out of the shadows and

become themselves again.

Back to L .A. for me. All right.

See you, Jackson. Bye. I think Jackson might have superpowers or something.

He's like beyond human with a cat.

He's a cat whisperer. A cat whisperer? Yeah. I think so.

Hi, Daisy.

Good girl.

I'm heading over right now to see Leanne and Steve about their cat, Daisy.

Daisy's got a medical condition that's costing them money and Leanne's time.

I've got to get over there.

Steve is ready to go.

I'm going to make sure that that doesn't happen.

Hi, I'm Steve.

I'm Leanne. I am a music composer.

And I'm a voiceover actor.

We've been together now for six years. We've had Daisy three years. And she's

six years old. We went to a cat shelter, and she came out and greeted us. She

picked us.

She did. They said she was in good health, but they did call her Crazy

The problems that Daisy is having, FHS.

Feline hyperesthesia syndrome. She was staring at her tail. Attacking her tail.

And then it got worse.

She was biting at her tail, and we found scabs on her tail.

And then the symptoms became worse.

Daisy's back would ripple.

It could last 30 seconds. It could last five minutes. It could last hours.

Can I give you your medicine?

It just breaks your heart to see her in so much pain, and even with all this

medication, she's still having trouble.

It's been hard, and it's been a huge financial burden.

We attempted acupuncture for a while as well.

Acupuncture was very expensive.

It has been very stressful on her relationship. It's been very stressful.

We can't leave the house for more than a few hours at a time because she needs

her medication.

I'm wrapped up in...

Her illness, so I kind of neglected Steve because I was too busy taking care

the cat.

Daisy. Our relationship has been struggling because of this.

If Jackson can't help us, we don't know what we're going to do.

Jackson. How are you? Hi, I'm Steve. Come on in. Steve, good to see you. So

to meet you. Come on in. Hi, Leanne. So nice to meet you. Come on, come on in.

Good to meet you as well.

Okay. Tell me what kind of cat issues we got going on here.

Well, it's our Daisy.

We have a calico that is having some issues with her tail and her back.

What kind of issues would those be?

Biting and chasing and hallucinating and twitching and rippling back and

hurting herself.

Let's back up because I know that we're dealing with a medical condition now.

Right, so she's been to a neurologist.

I assume that you guys have already explored the fact that she has, Feline

hypersthesia. Right. The thing that's so frustrating is nobody knows what causes

it, and because you don't know what causes it, you don't know how to fix it.

Right.

Feline hypersthesia syndrome is a diabolical syndrome.

Basically, it makes the cat feel like their own body's attacking it. They call

it rolling back syndrome. They call it twitchy cat syndrome.

It's painful, it's disorienting, and it has no cure.

It's been stressful for Steve because it's sort of like our relationship is on

the back burner. And it doesn't really leave a lot of time for us as a couple.

And, you know, I love Daisy and I would not get rid of her because of her

problem, but it has put a big strain on our relationship.

We're pretty much prisoners because of our cat's illness.

We wanted to go and have fun together, but who are we going to get to take care

of our cat?

I mean, we wanted to... There's a toll been put on our relationship.

Did you guys have a talk about we've got to change here?

Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, I take responsibility in being obsessed with this problem, and I

know I neglected him.

Leanne's level of investment in Daisy's life is ginormous, so much so that she

has devoted herself endlessly to Daisy's well -being. Now, while Steve might be

a little over this whole situation, it's the investment level of someone like

Leanne that I can hook into, and I can pull Steve along in the process, too.

Tell me what you guys have done up to this point to try to fix it. We did get

her a companion, and he adores her.

What's his name? Henry.

He's like her guardian.

One glimmer of hope is Henry. They actually thought of bringing in another

for Daisy. He's her social bridge to the world. What a great thing.

All right, so what I want to concentrate on is the places in the home where she

may get more activated. Yeah. All right, well, lead the way. Let's go. Let's go.

I'm a behaviorist. I deal with energy. So wherever there are spikes of energy

the home that really drive cats like this crazy, that's where I need to look

Okay. What do we got going on in here?

Bed. Under the bed?

This is her home base. She'll have those days where she'll stay under the bed

most of the day. Right. You're saying that when she begins to have an attack,

her tail starts going, she's biting at it, often she'll just under the bed?

Right. If she's downstairs, she'll shoot up the stairs and dive under the bed.

The saddest part about this is she won't come out because she's actually trying

to hide from the boogeyman, and the boogeyman is coming from her own body.

Let's keep moving. Show me more about this house, okay? Okay. Let's go.

As I'm taking a look around the living room, I notice Daisy, who's sitting on

her cat tree. I'm going to send you over there to sit for a second, and I'm

going to spend a little bit of time with the girl.

Hi,

my girlfriend.

Hi.

Hi, love.

Hi, love. Can I say hi to you?

Hello, my love.

Hello, my love.

Yes, baby.

I figured something out about her pretty immediately.

Oh, yeah.

She was receptive to touch. Now watch as I move down here.

See, we got a little bit of twitch action going here.

And that look on her face, look at that.

Yeah. I found places on her body where she got all twitchy and places where she

didn't. So what I would do is just go for the chin here, you know?

I've not been able to really affect feline hyperesthesia before.

Nobody really has. But when I touched her and she breathed and she sighed with

me, I said, wait a minute.

Behaviorally, there is something that I can do here. There is some relief I can

bring to her and bring to Steve and Leanne. And it really gave me a lot of

Let's talk about homework.

So before Daisy was on drugs, you were looking at how many attacks a day? 20 to

30. 20 to 30 attacks a day.

And once you put her on the meds, you're seeing how many now?

Maybe half that amount?

Yeah, 10, 15. 10 to 15.

By the time I leave here, I want to see one, two, five attacks at the most a

day. There is no cure for FHS, but I think there are ways that I can manage

attacks that Daisy's having on herself.

So let's find a new approach to it, and that is coming down to just observation.

Right now...

We have to make sure that we're chronicling every single attack.

What we're going to do right now is a method of discovery. I want them to mark

down every time there's an attack. This is all about observation. We need to

have a baseline in order to know where we're going to.

Now, part of the homework as well is...

what we'll call sound therapy. Steve, you're a musician, so your job is

those tones that work for her and that don't work for Daisy. I need Steve to

much more involved. I want him to be using his music, and we can find the

that... Activate Daisy on one side and soothe her on the other side. I want you

to really commit to blocking off underneath that bed. Remember, the home

has always been under the bed.

No way. Because you can't even observe her under the bed, right? Let alone

there's that dynamic of getting small, of accepting this life for herself.

We can't have a cat like Daisy disappear.

We need to be able to observe her behavior. You can't observe her if she's

the bed. So hang in there with me. Call me if you need me, okay? Great. All

right, guys.

Our life is revolving around Daisy.

Our relationship has been struggling, and Jackson is our last resort.

Bye. I don't know if we're going to be able to stay together.

I'm here for my second visit with Leanne and Steve about their cat Daisy.

Daisy has feline hyperesthesia syndrome.

It's basically the cat feels like their body is attacking them.

Daisy's got a pretty serious medical condition, but it's also driving.

Both Stephen Lee and Crazy, and it's really taking a toll on their

as well. It doesn't really leave a lot of time for us as a couple. It's sort of

like a relationship that's on the back burner.

I'm hoping to see a couple on the right track. Hi, Jackson!

Hey! We'll see if these guys did their homework.

So, how are things? What's going on with her? I guess the biggest question is,

have the episodes themselves been reduced?

Yeah. And I would say yes and no. It depends on the day. So talk about the

days. Today, for example, she hasn't had an episode since the morning. Are you

kidding me? Not since this morning. Right. That's different.

You're just sitting there kind of quiet about it. That's pretty amazing.

Big news of the day. Steve and Leanne tell me that Daisy's episodes have gone

down in numbers. We're still dealing with a syndrome that can only be managed

and not cured. The fact that we're starting to manage this is big news.

The first thing I want to do is check out your video homework and see the

progress you've made. Cool.

One of the most important things I got to see right off the bat was Steve

building something to block off the underside of the bed. We just want to

her into a new reality, and that's a massive step forward.

By blocking off the bed, Steve and Leanne can now observe Daisy's episodes

they're happening. And Steve showed some great investment in Daisy by handling

the workload.

You want to request something, Daisy?

I also got to see Steve playing guitar for Daisy.

He doesn't like the slow music.

Daisy did not like the guitar or the sound that was coming out of it. You can

tell she turned away the second he hit a chord. We'll work on that later.

Okay. You guys put some effort into that. Yeah. When I met you, you were

feeling like Daisy was getting more of Leanne's attention.

So tell me how you're feeling now. I feel like I'm almost at the same level

Daisy.

It's improved just by the fact that we're all working together to find a

solution for Daisy, which in turn will help us find a solution for us. The

time I met Steve and Leanne, Steve was really feeling left out. This time

around, they're feeling like they're approaching this as a team.

Let's get up, walk around again, let's see if there's anything we can tweak.

Come on.

Hello,

Henry.

So as we're standing in the living room, I happen to see Henry just hanging out,

and you can't help but go in and say hi to Henry.

Hi, mister.

And as I'm hanging out with him, you can feel the peace coming off this cat. I

just have to hold you. Can I do that?

Will you allow me to do that with you?

Oh, good boy.

If you were to ask for a therapy cat for Daisy, Henry is the best therapy cat

that Daisy could have ever asked for. All right.

See you, Henry.

There's our journal board.

Tell me about it. Take me through it. It looks like at 6 .18, she ran from her

tail and came to me for comfort. And at 6 .30, she stared at her tail and tried

to bite it and then ran downstairs.

Okay. Here's what I want to take a look at.

From the time you went to bed until 6 in the morning, we don't have an episode.

Then we had two back -to -back from about 6 .20, 6 .30. So this is really

important stuff because this is not random. This is the time where every

cat on the planet wakes up. What time do you normally wake up? That's when we

feed them.

Hello. We just figured out that she does have a pattern. Her pattern is no

different from any other animal, except that when her energy rises in the

morning, because it rises with you, with the notion of food, with the sun, she

just gets over -activated, and that helps kick in the symptoms of the FHS.

Daisy's responding to the need for breakfast. It is the morning. Energy

in a normal cat. In Daisy's case, it triggers episodes. It all makes sense.

Okay, let's hang here for a second.

We've got Daisy sitting there on that shelf over there.

I'd like to do some more of that music therapy that I assigned you last time. I

want to see if I can get a reaction out of her. Sound therapy, who would have

thought? Now, I knew that it was going to work a little bit because we're

talking about music that is by its nature kind of happy.

So when Steve pulls out the ukulele and as he started playing, there was a

softening to Daisy's body that just took her over.

She absolutely settled in, and she became part of her tree. She just

melting into it. I know that we have to use this ukulele moving forward.

Before I gave you the assignment, Steve, had you ever found yourself playing for

the cats before?

Yeah, but I was never paying attention to whether...

They cared about it or not.

Overall, I'm telling you, I was shocked.

So right in that moment, I wanted to give Steve and Leanne their homework.

the first thing I wanted to talk about is through the whiteboarding, you have

now found patterns. So now we can be proactive with play.

If you really get her into a schedule of playing before you guys go to bed,

you're going to stop her energy from spiking out. So let's...

Get that level of exercise up, and at the end of that, you're going to feed

her last meal of the day.

And that way, breakfast is not going to be this huge imperative because she's

just eaten. If we feed her her meal before bedtime and we really commit to

guarantee there's not going to be that huge spike. You're playing it down

proactively before it happens. The other thing I want to do, I want to do

something here with Henry.

This.

It's Henry's new vest.

Henry is now officially a therapy cat.

I gave Henry his new therapy vest. I want Henry to really step up and be the

leader that Daisy can follow. So you want to do the play, and you want to

Henry help her out in terms of getting her involved.

As you work Henry during play, she's going to follow him, I think. Now,

Henry a vest doesn't automatically make him a helper, but this is more for Steve

and Leanne. The more time Daisy spends with Henry, the more likely she is to

feed off his positive energy.

Remember, we can't cure.

But we can, I think, manage it. And actually, I think we can manage it more

effectively than it's been managed.

Great. Cool?

Yes. Cool. All right, guys. See you. Goodbye.

I am concerned that by the time Jackson comes back to get a progress report that

Daisy's FHS episodes will not have improved because these things do take

I'm here for my final visit with Steve and Leanne and their cat, Daisy.

I'm hoping with all the homework I've given these guys that I'm coming in

for a final visit with a cat that's enjoying her life much more.

Steve. Good to see you. Good to see you too, man. Come on in.

All right. Great.

So, guys, how are things going here? Good. We're seeing some progress.

Did that result in less attacks?

It's considerably fewer. And yesterday, in fact, was what was it, like four?

Four. Yeah. All day? The entire day.

Yeah. Right on.

You've got to remember, feline hyperesthesia can't be cured.

But to go from 30 to 40 attacks down to four in one day is not just astounding.

I've never seen anything like this before.

Can't help but notice you guys are holding hands at this point. I love

You know, we want to get our relationship back on track. This gives

she's going to be okay and we're going to be able to go on with our lives. When

I see a couple like Leanne and Steve physically, emotionally, and spiritually

coming back together, that's a huge success for me as well. I know that you

shot some good video. This is the last time I was here.

So let's do that. Let's watch some movies.

Oh, the therapy cat.

First thing, our therapy cat, Henry, snuggling with her, cleaning her. Oh, my

God. He's got his paw on her paw.

These things are the moments that I was looking for where Daisy can be

comforted, brought down by another cat. The nature of what a therapy cat is,

Henry really is Daisy's little helper.

He really is what I would call her social bridge. Every time he shows her

something, she'll follow.

Every time he plays, she plays. Oh, I get it.

I think we play her down and then having the food afterward and then sleep. I

think it just kind of wears her out before Daisy can have one of her

Every single one of those shots was about her being fairly calm.

I'm getting a lot of great stuff from both of these guys, but it was time to

up to Steve and Leanne's bedroom.

Hi, Daisy girl.

Henry. Hi, guys. I needed to make sure these incidences of hyperesthesia have

been dramatically reduced.

Hello, my love. Then, Steve does something that I wasn't expecting.

Okay, girl.

He just starts touching Daisy.

Oh, girl.

It just starts to melt. Look at that.

Oh, I dig it, girl.

Look how nice and calm she is. Yeah. That's huge, huge success.

And in that moment, I look over at Leanne.

There was this joy not just because... Daisy has gotten over this hump, but

because Steve was sitting there bringing out this joy in Daisy at that moment,

she felt connected. I could see it in her face. She knew she wasn't alone in

this problem anymore. To see her be just absolutely calm, it does my heart a lot

of good. It's quite a relief knowing that Daisy's episodes have gone down

dramatically. When I first met you guys... Thirty episodes a day? I mean,

constant episodes.

To look on this board, Tuesday, five episodes.

Wednesday, four, with that exclamation point.

That is it for us. We have gotten an enormous measure of success.

We couldn't have done it without you. Oh, thank you. But here, four.

That's all. I'm done.

That was beautiful, though. I am so happy.

to be able to leave Steve and Leanne and Daisy and Henry in the state they're in

right now.

Now, in my career, I've worked with tens of thousands of cats, and it never gets

old for me. I mean, this is all I ever wanted to do, and this is what I want to

do tomorrow and five and ten years down the road because of Cats Like Daisy.

Take care. It was great to have somebody like Jackson around because before this

all happened, there was definitely a dark cloud above us. And now we're very

optimistic. It can only get better from here.

Feline hyperspecies syndrome is a really scary thing. And there have been people

who have been tempted to euthanize their pets for having it. Nice to meet you. I

hope that people will realize that it's not something that they need to take

that drastic measure.

It's okay.

There is help out there.