Original subtitles

Bombadil is terrorizing innocent Bowie to death.

Bombadil has the word bad right in the middle.

He poos in the sink. He poos in the tub. She texts me all the time that she's

going to get rid of him.

You are a crazy cat lady. No, no.

I have always wanted a little granddaughter.

It would break my heart to have to give him away, but I can't live with the

terrorist cat.

I said, with this, we want to have a harmonious environment.

Percy is constantly meowing, hearing my

chanting.

Percy completely destroys my spirituality. I want Percy out of my

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.

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. You can't always focus on the cat's need,

right? We all have needs in the family.

And cat guardians have reached their emotional limits. This is the last

It killed me. I'm their last hope.

I just love him so much. And I know he's got a good side.

Cats have nine lives, but humans only have one.

Oh my gosh!

the way to go see vena her husband joe and their son justin and their cat

bombadil now bombadil is beating up their other cats bowie and bliss and

pooping everywhere vena is blaming justin for giving her a headache and

is saying this is your cat you deal with it bombadil is driving a serious wedge

between mother and son in the meantime joe is stuck right in the middle of this

whole thing so i'm going over there right now and hopefully put an end to

family feud

I'm Justin, and these are my parents.

I'm Joe.

I'm Zena, and I live in this house with a terrorist cat.

We have three cats, Bliss, who's eight years old, Bowie, who is seven years

and Bombadil, who is eight months old.

Bliss and Bowie were perfectly fine together before Bombadil showed up.

He is terrorizing Blitz and Bowie to death.

We have nicknamed him now El Diabolo.

He poos in the sink. He poos in the tub.

Bombadil has the word bad right in the middle.

She texts me all the time that she's going to get rid of him or that she's

giving him away.

There's a hidden story that I'm not allowed to tell. No, don't. Shut up.

Don't. This is your cat.

You wanted him, so you brought him home for me to raise. I thought it was a

great Mother's Day gift. I moved out of the house, and you needed something else

to occupy your time. Oh, brother.

I have always wanted a little granddaughter.

But you look better with shoes on.

It's okay.

It's okay.

You are a crazy cat lady. No. Okay, that's very evident. You have a problem,

you're crazy. You don't know what's going on.

Don't know.

I try to stay out of their arguments.

I'm just the janitor.

I can't do anything about it. I can't keep Bombadil. I work super long hours.

I'm never home and I have a roommate that's allergic.

Justin, this is your cat. You wanted that terrorist cat.

I can't tolerate it.

Good to meet you, Dina. Thank you.

Oh, my God.

I love cats as much as the next guy.

Maybe more than the next guy. But there is more cat stuff than I have seen

before. All right, guys. Cat problems, right? Yes. All right. Well, tell me.

What's going on?

We have this beautiful cat, Bombadil, who's eight months old.

Oh, we have a kitten. He has very bad toileting habits.

Peeing and pooping. Both. In the tub, in the shower, in the sink. He also chases

the resident cat. Two persons. We got three total.

Three total. How did you get Bombadil? Justin gave him to me. As a Mother's Day

present. He wanted this cat.

So he brings it home to Mom to raise.

She was happy until the cat problems. But it's really his cat.

It's her cat. No, it's his cat.

It's amazing. Veena and Justin can't agree on anything, let alone how

even came to live in their house or who he belongs to. Have you guys had the

discussion at any time that, hey, this cat is causing havoc?

Plenty. She wants me to come and help or fix it. If it doesn't get fixed, I will

give you back your cat.

It's your cat, though. No, it's yours. Good luck getting the Mother's Day

present next year.

Oh, wow.

I need to take a walk around.

Meet the cats. All right, let's go.

You can really sense the tension between Vena and Justin. They're going at each

other, and that's trouble because we've got one cat driving a serious wedge

between a mom and her son.

And there is a present in the tub.

So, guys, how many litter boxes do you have in the house?

Three. One upstairs, the beach bus, and the one that was supposed to be

Bombadil's in Justin's room.

We got three litter boxes in the house, however.

Some cats don't like covered litter boxes because they feel trapped.

And if I were a 15 -pound big furry monster of a cat, I'd poop in the tub

Look, everybody's here.

This is Bliss.

That's Bliss.

There's Bowie. This is Bowie. And there goes Bombadil. And a decoy for good

measure.

One thing to notice here is that Bliss...

He's in a not -so -hot position.

And now, here comes Bombadil.

As I'm looking at Bliss, who's in this box, Bombadil jumps up onto the bed. Now

I know we're going to have trouble because she's got no place to go.

Look at this. Here he comes. Now look at her body posture.

She says, uh -oh, I'm in trouble.

There we go. See, she's left with no alternative.

She has to slap him, right?

Why? Fight or flight.

Bliss tends to corner herself. She is what I call a caver. She likes to hide,

make herself invisible and small.

Bombadil is acting like an eight -month -old kitten. It was play aggression.

It was not a territorial statement.

Okay, now wait.

Here comes Bliss.

I just want to watch this for a second.

There it goes.

Here, I'm going to pull out a toy really quickly here.

I want to see what Bombi does now.

Look at that.

Look at Bowie right now.

I mean, this is amazing.

Now we've got Bowie and Bombadil on the floor, and I just went with a hunch,

broke out a toy.

These guys wanted nothing but to play. But what I'm seeing from Bliss is that

she's absolutely terrified of Bombadil, that she doesn't want anything to do

with him. He swats, he hunts, he tries to play with her, and she doesn't get

and she doesn't like it. Mina, why don't we take Bombadil out of here so I can

see how he is without the other cats around? Okay. All right, let's go. Come

Hello,

Papa.

He didn't help but notice.

Oh.

Yeah. What is up with that? Let me see. That's Bombadilla.

Bombadilla. Yeah.

And he looks thrilled.

Oh, my God.

I mean, are you kidding me? The poor boy was wearing a dress.

So these are just some other outfits.

What is that?

It's a strawberry outfit.

Yeah, he could be a strawberry.

As if it wasn't bad enough to see Bombadilla dressed up in a dress in that

picture. This is like a little tiara here.

Inside the bag, it was like my worst nightmare.

You're going to be a little strawberry.

Look how cute you are.

Let's call it a day on the strawberry.

Okay. Because right now I need to recover.

Oh.

No wonder Bombadilla's been acting out.

Cats shouldn't wear clothes.

Now, look, I'll cut a sphinx a pass because they have no fur whatsoever,

regulate their body temperature. Sometimes they need a sweater.

Bombadil does not need a sweater. This could turn them into a hyper -aggressive

cat. Ready for some homework?

The first thing is I would like you to take the lids off your boxes as an

experiment.

I'd also ask you to add one more box in the house because if you have three

cats, you want four litter boxes. Okay.

Next thing, we need, first of all, for Bombadil to get some of that energy out

of him. And the way we're going to do that is with this.

This is a walking harness.

This is a leash.

It may sound odd to some to walk a cat, but think about it. Cats get a certain

amount of stimulation from nature they just can't get from toys. And this might

help drain him of some of that kitten energy.

Also, Joe, Bina, I need you guys to play with Bowie and Bliss.

Bliss needs a dose of confidence. And playing and capturing brings it out in

cats like nothing else.

And Veena, I really don't want you to dress up Bombadil anymore.

Don't put cats in clothes.

He is a big fluff ball. He can keep himself warm plenty. They're not

They are animals, and it robs them of their dignity. Take care, guys. Thank

The next time that Jackson's here, hopefully we'll have some good news to

report. If an acceptable solution isn't reached, I will have to figure out where

Bombi should live.

All right, I'm here for my second visit with Veena, her husband Joe, their son

Justin, and their cat Bombadil.

Now, the last time I was here, Bombadil was terrorizing the other cats in the

family, Bowie and Bliss, and also pooping all over the place. And speaking

bad habits, Veena had a few of her own.

Hey, Joe.

Good to see you. I'm doing okay, thank you very much. This time around, I'm

hoping to come back to a home that's got a lot less violence, a lot less

pooping, and no cats in clothes.

So, we have got a lot to go over.

Who's that?

That's a clock.

That's the clock?

God, I love this house.

Okay.

So, what's going on? We've done our homework with the litter boxes.

Okay. Are all the boxes uncovered now?

Yes. And there's litter boxes everywhere.

How many litter boxes do we have now?

We've got six litter boxes. Seven litter boxes. Okay, hold on a second. As it

goes with this family, I sit down with them and I'm instantly confused. I just

said add one more box.

Does he seem to favor one over the other? He's favoring the one in the

I put three litter boxes in the bathtub.

Why? To cover the bathtub.

Who asked for three litter boxes in the bathtub? We're cleaning up fewer gifts.

That's fantastic.

Okay, great. But there's still a ways to go.

Now, has there been fighting going?

We got a really bad chase scene on the cam.

That's invaluable information for me. As a matter of fact, let's take a look at

your video homework.

That ain't good.

This is known as the whole disobedience.

God, he turned him into a swiffer.

I know that Veena loves her cat, but that was one of the most horrifying

I've seen with a cat before.

Wow. Can I pass out the invitations?

Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a second.

It's not that cat. It's not that cat.

Somehow, after me asking Veena very passionately not to dress her cat up

she thought it was okay to stage a wedding. And he is hating life.

After our talk, what made you think that that was okay? We had already set it up

and the invitations were sent.

Oh, well.

And the presents had been bought.

It's a lot worse than I thought. You are a crazy cat lady.

Only something a crazy person would do.

All right, onward we go.

Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a second.

What about this?

On the top of a cat's head is play.

I am absolutely horrified right now. And Veena is looking at the same video that

I'm looking at smiling.

You want to talk disconnect? I don't know how much farther out we can get

now.

Oops. Oh, there's another fight going on.

What's going on between you two?

And we have fur in the mouth. Come here.

Come here to me.

There's Bombadil with a big piece of fur hanging out of his mouth.

I picked the fur out, and then I grabbed the toy that was sitting around and

started to drag Bombadil away.

Good boy.

Come on, let's burn off some of that energy, buddy.

Let's burn it off. Come on now.

Come on.

Look at you two.

Come on, Bobby.

See? We don't... Bingo.

Hey guys, come on in for a second.

We're in the middle of a fight right here. He had a mouthful of her fur and

everything.

And now look at this.

And the beautiful thing about play, this raises her confidence, this drains his

energy out.

Now, Veena, come on over with me.

On the homework, I saw you using this toy more like this, bonking them on the

head. You see the reaction?

This is what you want. When you treat it like a snake. Okay.

Look at this. Look at this.

No fear.

Okay, Justin, now would be a good time to get Bombadil outside in his harness

burn off some more energy.

Let's go.

I'm going to take Justin outside to have a little one -on -one with him. I need

Justin's help badly here, because when I leave, it feels like things just fall

apart. All right, I wanted to get you away from everybody, because I'm more

a little concerned about what I'm seeing.

And I just got to let you know, the next time if I come back here in this...

craziness is still going on here, either you're going to take the cat or I'm

going to take the cat.

I know she cares, but he doesn't like being dressed up.

The dragging around, not going to do what we need him to do.

So, pretty unhappy to see all that happening.

Here's the thing.

It's cool if you're not here, but I need you to be able to be available enough

that you can be the team leader.

Well, I can take on it for that.

Right on.

It was good to have some one -on -one time with Jackson and really level man

-man. I think we all want what's best for the Cats, and I think it showed us a

lot of things we need to change and work on.

The first thing, we're going to really commit to the play.

He's eight months old. He's only going to get bigger and more energetic over

next couple of months, so he's got to be able to play all the time in order for

him not to take out that energy on Bliss and Bowie.

Now let's talk about the litter boxes.

I'm glad you guys removed the lids, but no litter boxes in the tub at all. Put a

new type of litter in it so it feels different, it smells different, because

trying to understand his patterns better, and litter boxes in the tub

us diagnose what's going on. Okay. And keep the bathroom door closed.

Don't think as a human. Think where he'd want to go.

For the next thing, I got a little something here.

It's a garbage bag.

What I would like you to do, is get everything that resembles a wedding

tuxedo, a strawberry, and put it in this bag, please.

I was not very happy having to give away the costume, but I will abide by

Jackson's request, but he didn't say anything about the other cat. No, he

no cat.

No, look how precious.

In the bag, in the bag.

Maybe we can get her a stuffed cat doll.

Or Justin could get me a granddaughter.

Guys, I'm going to take off. I'm taking this with me, and it's never coming

back. All right, guys, take care of yourselves.

Justin, if there's not complete improvement, your gift is going to be

Do you have a receipt?

And now it's time for a kiddie bit.

I have a cat and a baby on the way. How do I introduce my cat to my newborn

baby? The answer, right after the break.

And now it's time for a kitty bit.

Hey Jackson, I have a cat and a baby on the way. How do I introduce my cat to my

newborn baby?

The answer is, James, it happens before the baby comes.

have rituals that happen within the nursery, feed the cat in the nursery,

play with the cat there. So when that new creature comes along and smells

different, sounds different, moves all crazy, the cat's not going to associate

the presence of that alien being with the removal of attention.

And don't forget to talk to your pediatrician as well.

So I'm here for my third and final visit with Vena and Joe and their son Justin

and their cat Bombadil. Now, when I first met these guys, there was a lot of

tension between Vena and Justin over Bombadil's aggression towards the other

and his avoidance of the litter box. Plus, Vena had a few bad habits of her

And the second visit wasn't a whole lot better.

But I've taken a look at their video homework, and I thought their play

have increased.

I saw Bombadil going after Bliss, but then he went for a toy. And they're even

getting Bombadil out on walks.

Hi, Xena. How are you? Good to see you. Has all this work led to success?

For everyone's sake, I sure hope so.

So, how are things going?

Super.

Fantastic. I've taken the litter boxes out of the tub.

Good. He's used every little box in the house. Fantastic, folks.

There is no more inappropriate peeing or pooping anywhere in this house. And the

funny thing was, the solution was fairly obvious. Taking the lids off the boxes,

adding more, and closing the bathroom door. Which was so easy. How is the

fighting going?

They're still chasing and stalking, but the girls are perceiving it differently

now. They will hiss at him.

That's called dialogue.

It is basically like, I want to play. I don't want to play.

Okay.

First day that I was here, Bliss was the one who wouldn't engage, was hiding in

the box, and clearly scared of Bombadil.

He's come to accept the fact that Bliss is no longer a toy.

That's good news.

Jackson helped us see that Bombadil has to have an outlet for the energy that he

has. Playing with him, taking him on walks, I think that's really helped.

I want to see one thing before I leave. All three cats during a mealtime.

Before I leave today, I need to see something I couldn't have possibly seen

first day I was here, which is all three cats eating together in the same room

at the same time. Being able to prevent fights with play is one thing. But

eating, that's a real high -value activity for a cat and a time where they

get protective.

If they can do that, that's a true test.

Oh, here comes Bombadil.

I want Bliss to come in the room. I know that if she just walks in the room,

goes directly for her food and eats, that she has gained a good measure of

confidence.

And there's Bliss.

Where's number three?

There's Bowie. Let's eat.

Now we've got all three cats eating. That's good. But I know, based on our

history here, that Bombadil at any moment would just snap out of that gear

snap into chasing these cats.

And I'm sincerely hoping that doesn't happen.

There goes Bowie.

He's done eating.

He's still eating.

Bliss is making a move. Oh dear.

Now let's see if Bombadil gives chase.

Look at that. I love that. And... Hey, hey, wait, let's stop the presses right

now.

Bobadil finished food, left food sitting there. If you needed a picture to take

away from this, it's Bliss, the cat that was too afraid to come down off the bed

the first day that I was here. She's the last one standing at mealtime. I'm

totally pleased.

Who's cat is he?

He's mine.

He's mine.

Great meeting all you guys.

Spending time.

Thanks for everything.

My pleasure, guys. My pleasure. Thank you. Take care, guys. Keep the clothes

those cats, all right?

At the beginning, I said that Bombadil was yours.

And now you can't have him.

Bombadil is here to stay.

So you're saying, finally, thank you for your mother's day present.

Yeah, thanks, Justin.

Okay, you're welcome.

As a Buddhist, we want to have a harmonious environment.

With Percy, it's not happening.

Percy!

Percy!

I want Percy out of my house.

I don't want him to go.

Percy,

stop it!

On my way to go see Tom and Pola and their cat, Percy.

Now, these guys are Buddhists. It's a life of enlightenment and harmony and

peace. And Percy won't have any part of that. That cat is a ball of energy. And

worst of all, he's disrupting a morning meditative practice.

Percy, out.

Perfect.

I'm going to head over there right now and see if I can restore just a little

bit of harmony to this couple's life.

I'm Tom.

And I'm Paula. And we are married for 10 years. And we have a cat that is

driving us crazy.

We're what's known as Nichiren Deshonin Buddhists, which is a Japanese Buddhism.

Our cat's name is Percy, and this cat is a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde cat.

Well,

we're trying to chant in the morning. He will attack me.

I see the blood pouring out of him.

The behavior which bothers me the most is constant meowing during my chanting.

That completely destroys my spirituality.

Sometimes when he's going too crazy, we will put them in a hallway, but he still

continues meowing for hours, and that's very disruptive.

I blame my husband. I think that maybe he was too permissive. Leave him alone.

Don't touch him.

I don't think Percy attacks me because I'm permissive. I think Percy attacks me

because he looks at me as the alpha male.

It's up to me to try to control him.

But you can't control him. That's the problem here. I want Percy out of my

house. I don't think that's a good idea. He's our cat.

He will get better.

Hey, I'm Jack. I'm Tom. Nice to meet you. Tom, good to meet you, man.

Hi there.

Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Paula. Paula, I'm Jackson. Good to meet you. Oh, God.

So, I know a little bit about Percy, but why don't you fill me in?

Percy is an out -of -control cat.

My wife and I are Nichiren Daishonin Buddhists.

And Percy incessantly meows as we are trying to do that.

How old is Percy?

He's a year and a half.

How did you get him?

He was a rescue cat. Okay.

And probably was seen at tour. He was extremely sick. His eyes were crusted

at the time that he was found.

I think I feel very connected to Percy because when I was born, I spent my

three months of my life in an incubator. It's almost like kinship.

How old was he when you got him?

He was three months old.

Hello, kittenhood, right?

Percy's just a little over a year old. He's still a kitten. Technically, he's a

teenager. His job becomes pushing limits. How far can I go?

This is normal progression.

Paula, take me through how you respond when he interrupts your chanting.

I yell.

In the middle of chanting, you will start yelling. Exactly. When you yell,

what's his response?

It won't stop meowing.

But yet you keep doing it.

Now, I know a thing or two about Buddhism. It seems more than a little

me that when Percy meows during the chanting, that that's when Pola explodes

loses it. Percy, stop it!

That, to me, demonstrates a fundamental disconnect between the principles and

the practice.

Tom, do you have the same reaction?

No, I wouldn't say that. With me, he'll continue, like, meowing and meowing, and

then if that doesn't work, he'll just out of nowhere leap up.

That type of thing. Turns out that Tom gets cut up all the time.

Now, I haven't seen Percy in action yet, but it doesn't seem to me that it's an

actual attack.

Is rehoming Percy something that's in your mind at this point?

I always think we can have a new cat.

You mean to give up Percy and bring a new cat?

Completely into the house. Right. You actually want to get a new cat as well?

No, I don't want to get a new cat. I want to give Percy a chance.

I'm at the breaking point, Willie. I don't believe he can change.

It's pretty clear to me that Pola and Tom have wildly different views of

I'm going to have to put in a lot of work just to bring some balance to this

household.

So, this is your altar.

Main site of cat shenanigans.

Talk to me a little bit about it. He would usually, like, come from this side

and run across to the other side. In the midst of chanting.

Yes.

Stop, Percy, stop.

Stop it. Especially for the humans, you guys are really concentrated here. I

mean, very little in the way of cat stuff. We really don't have a place for

Do you play with him every day?

I play with the string with him, like, 15 minutes.

That's something we should work on.

Percy's sending a message so loud and clear that he might as well be saying it

on a T -shirt. I am bored.

15 minutes a day is not enough playtime for a young cat. He needs at least 40

minutes. What I would love to see is if you could chant for me with Percy in the

room. Well, Percy is very shy around people. He gets very scared whenever new

people are there, so he's hiding over there.

Oh, there he is.

A skittish cat sure puts a damper on things, but I'm going to see if I can

him out.

Come on, buddy.

Come on, little boy.

Come on, my little man.

Hey, my little man.

I'm obviously not getting anywhere with Percy, so I set up some cameras and I

went outside to watch the action on the monitor.

All right, let's see what these guys are doing.

Percy,

stop it!

In comes Percy.

Stop,

Percy, stop.

He's being a young cat. He's being playful.

Percy, stop it.

Chant time is play time.

All right, it's pretty clear what's going on here. Percy's getting excited

the sounds of chanting. People like to think of cats as solitary creatures, but

I'm telling you, they're actually very sober.

They like to be a part of the family dynamic.

And just like a child, they're going to act out when they don't get the

stimulation they need.

Percy! Stop it!

So let's start.

I'm going to give you guys some homework.

All right.

He's a kitten, Phil.

A lot of what you're seeing is play aggression.

So the first thing, everything that you're doing, I want you to stop. No

at all. I want you to really focus in on your practice.

Also, pull it every morning. Play with him.

I wanted Paula to be the one that plays with Percy because she's the one who's

also the most frustrated with him. And hopefully by playing with him, she can

learn to appreciate him for who he is, which is going to go a long way in

their relationship.

The next thing that we have to do, if you look around here, all these spaces

pretty much devoid of anything that says Percy in it. So I'd like you to come up

with beds or a condo in each one of these spaces.

We will call these meditation stations.

All right, guys, lots of work ahead.

I will talk to you very soon. Okay. Thank you.

I've heard a lot of positive things today, but I am a little bit skeptical

still. And if Percy's behavior will not change, then Percy's got to go.

I think even if he shows the slightest change of behavior, he's worth keeping.

I'm here for my second visit with Tom, Pola, and their cat, Percy.

Now, Tom and Pola are Buddhist. Their chanting has been interrupted every day.

Percy, stop it!

And it's gotten to the point where Pola specifically sped up with the behavior,

and that means he's halfway out the door now.

I hate when he gets like that.

Now, I've watched some of their video homework, and I've seen a lot of

improvement since the last time I was here.

I saw Pola playing with Percy.

Fantastic. She's showing investment, and he's responding.

I saw Percy up on his meditation stations, which is fantastic.

Obviously, Percy's saying, thank you, I like this.

What I didn't like on the video homework was their chanting is still interrupted

every day by Percy.

Pola is really struggling. Percy may be looking for a new home.

So, tell me, how are things going?

Oh, it's been up and down.

Basically. Oh, it was hell.

It was hell.

Pola played with him. He still was continuing to act out. It's been a

really rough weeks.

Percy, stop this mood.

It's a really, really hard thing.

I'm not going to lose it. I'm not going to react.

It must have been hard for you. But I want it to get to a point where you can

get through your practice in the morning. Not just ignoring him, but

incorporating him. I don't want these guys.

to think that if they can successfully block Percy out, that they've won the

battle here. They need to be able to incorporate the sounds of Percy into

life. Percy is a very demanding cat.

I have to play with him 40 minutes per day, playing with cats.

I don't know how I'm going to be able to keep up. We'll start spreading the

wealth, for sure.

When I first met you, Tom, you were being victimized by Percy's sneak

Is that still happening?

Very rarely. If he hasn't been, please, please pay attention to me, that means

that you're paying attention to him.

Pola and Tom look absolutely exhausted. It's clear to everybody that Percy had a

lot more energy than we gave him credit for, so I'm going to have to come up

with some more exercises to capture that boy's attention and his imagination.

But first I need to spend a little time with Percy since last time he refused to

come out.

I hear you. Where are you? Hi.

Hopefully this time I'm coming back to a cat who's a little less skittish and

maybe we get to know each other a little better.

What?

What?

Yes, my boy.

Now, one thing I did learn about spending time with Percy today was that

sucker for certain types of touch.

Wow, mister.

You respond very well to touch.

These are things that I need to teach Tom and Pola so they can have really

quality... mindful touch times with him.

Well, that was fun. You know, as scared as he was with me the first time I was

here, as soon as you go in for certain touches, he's putty in your hand.

So that's a good thing. It's something we can definitely work with.

Now, I got something else for you guys. When you were talking about the

challenge that is staying focused with the distractions around you, in essence,

it's kind of like a house of cards.

One wrong noise...

The whole thing falls apart.

So I've got an idea.

I want you guys to build a house of cards for me.

It's really important for Tom and Pola to be able to be focused and patient in

the eye of chaos.

And if you've ever tried to build a house of cards before, it really tests

patience. We got one. I've got my part to play in this, which will be a bit of

surprise. Okay, now you try to do the next one.

Easy does it, easy does it.

Pola, Pola, just let it be. It was a matter of seconds into this exercise

Pola started to lose her patience.

Now, I want you to try and make a slight mental adjustment here. As opposed to

being that the noises are something that you have to tune out, try to find a way

to take what is a distraction and bring it into the exercise.

All right. Okay.

Now,

just to stop you for a second.

That was pretty good.

I just threw everything I had at you, and that's not bad, man.

How did it feel that time around? Actually, I thought what you said used

sound, so rather than us talking, we decided to go silent. I noticed that.

we incorporated the sound, it was not as difficult.

Nice going.

That's it. This exercise makes it clear to me that Pola and Tom can maintain

their focus in times of total chaos.

They can take that experience, transfer it into their second set of homework.

So the first part of your homework, I want you to start using the sounds of

Perseus in your practice. I want these guys to start working on desensitizing

themselves to the sound around so they can start incorporating the normal

of life while they're trying to chant. Now, number two.

Tom, you're going to pick up half the playtime that night. What I'd like you

do, Pola, is mindful touch.

I found out that touch is a big thing with him. He loves it. Under here, he

loves this a lot. And right here, the mindful touch is you're trying to relax

him. You're trying to bring down the pulse rate of the whole house. I want

to spend 20 minutes a night before she goes to bed in sort of a meditative

with Percy, which I hope will result in a more meaningful relationship between

the two.

Great, cool.

All right, guys, I'm going to take off, and I will see you in a few weeks. Thank

you. Take care. Thank you.

I'm a little bit apprehensive because I don't know how it's going to turn out.

Though there's improvement, there's still problems.

I'm just afraid that this is going to be simply too much, and in that scenario,

I won't be able to keep up.

I'm here for my final visit with Tom and Pola and their cat, Percy.

Percy, I hate when he gets like that.

Last time I was here, these guys were getting better, but at the same time,

still weren't able to understand what it means to have a young cat in the house.

Maybe they could ignore him, but they weren't incorporating him. Now, this

around, I want to see that Percy is a welcome part of this home, and more

importantly, a part of their family.

Now, I got a chance to watch Tom and Pola's video homework, and I saw some

really good play, so I hope they're keeping that up.

What I didn't see was the desensitization exercise or mindful

Hey. How are you, man? Good. Good to see you. I hope they're doing their

homework.

Tell me everything.

First things first. How are things going with your practice, with your chanting?

Well, it's a big improvement.

It's not interrupting us, basically, anymore.

At all. It's amazing the amount of peace I'm finding in the morning.

Well, that's why I didn't see the desensitization, homework.

Because he doesn't get any reaction from us. He just stops and goes away.

There you go.

Nothing that Percy does now will bother us. We just go, well, ignore it. It's

almost like we are desensitized already.

Listen, if homework's going to fail, that is a nice failure.

Percy being able to leave these guys alone while they're chanting says that

they're going with his tendencies as a young cat and not just wishing he were

gone. Now, Pola and Tom are able to reclaim their spiritual center.

I also was doing mindful touch.

Oh, cool. How was that? I actually got him really calmed down. I can pet Percy.

We have more relationship.

It's so great suddenly to see him calm, collected, and just sitting there.

And I thought, wow, this is like a different cat.

Yeah. It's incredible.

I'm really excited to hear that Paula really established a relationship with

Percy. Now, because she does the mindful touch at night, she gets him in that

place where he associates her with calmness. When I first met you guys,

we were talking about if this didn't subside, that Percy might have to

go. Does he have a home at this point? Is he okay?

Yes, he does have a home at this point.

Yay! I don't have to find a home for Percy.

I feel like I've changed so much through this process now that I have a better

relationship with Percy. I feel like he became part of our family.

You know what, guys?

Before I leave here, there was one thing that I've always wanted to do with you.

When I first met Tom and Paula, they were a couple completely out of tune

their cat and his needs. But the fact that Percy is sitting very peacefully on

his perch right next to us while we chant shows me that this is now a family

finally in tune. It also shows me that my work here is done.

It's been wonderful. Take care.

Thank you, Jackson, for restoring peace and harmony to our family. What you have

done has completely transformed our lives.

Percy has now completely become part of our practice and part of our family.

Now you can find out how the cats I've helped are doing today. Check out my new

series, How Do You Like Meow?, available only online at AnimalPlanet .com.