Original subtitles

This is Mickey's domain.

If I were to leave all three cats alone, I would find a dead cat.

I work with animals all day, and for me not to be able to control my own

animals, I just feel like I'm constantly being rejected.

Ow! You can't do this.

Elsa's like a Tasmanian devil.

You shred my shower curtain. Just tore that up.

Elsa.

This is a vacuum horse, you two.

Every day she's back.

Oh, Elsa.

No words can describe how much I love her, but I just need your help, man. I

can't take this anymore.

I'm Grace. And I'm Mark. And we rescue Falling Cat.

He might fetch for you.

Oh my God, he totally expected that.

I'm Jackson Galaxy.

I am Cat.

The animal behavior that guardians call.

And they're dealing with a difficult cat.

Wow, he really got you.

I'm out to prove that there is no such thing as a bad cat.

Just a cat that needs my help. You did it.

My

name

is Megan, and I live in Downey, California.

My name is Kelly Holt. My name is Richard Holt. We have three cats in this

house. There is Bear, and there's Ducky, who's super sweet, and then there's

Mickey.

He will launch himself at you and bite.

I just feel like I'm constantly being rejected.

I'm a pet groomer. That's what I do for a living.

I work with animals all day, and for me not to be able to control my own animals

is just kind of like a little bit of a defeat.

The most concerning behavior that Miki shows is the aggression that he shows

towards the other cat. He basically sees red.

I have to keep them separated or else they will fight.

This is Miki's domain.

Miki is constantly locked up in my room. He's in there.

All day.

And then he has free run of the house at night.

We have to constantly be aware of which cats are locked up, which cat is out.

Here we go.

A huge fear of mine is that if I were to leave all three cats alone, I would

find a dead cat when I came home.

It's gotten to a point where it's unbearable.

It's not fair to have my family come home to this all the time. And they are

cats. We can't do this. This is a big issue for our family. It's actually

breaking us apart because Miki's behavior can actually injure somebody,

has.

I've got one here and another puncture there.

Either the cats have to go, or Megan, you have to take the cats and find your

own place.

It would break me if I had to move out or get rid of one of my cats.

It would break me.

I will consider every possibility and every solution that Jackson gives me to

help these cats because I really need them.

This is a desperate cry for help.

Hey. Hi.

How are you, Jack? Hi, I'm Megan. Megan, how are you doing? Thank you for having

me. You're here.

Come on in. And look, we even have a cat. This is Bear.

What's up, Bear?

Hi, Bear.

He has the best personality out of all three. Not that you play favorites or

anything. Right, no.

So, let's sit down and start talking cat.

I'm sorry. Feel me that arm.

You don't think I could walk in here and not see this, right?

No, this is daily.

This is daily? Yeah.

Miki did this.

So, Miki is our problem child?

Yes. Okay. What I did was I tried to hold Miki with bare hands on me.

So if you were not to smell like bear, that wouldn't be a problem. Not at all.

You could pick up Mickey.

He never had litter mates, so I don't think he knows.

How do you know he didn't have litter mates?

I raised him.

Bottle? Yeah. Oh, one of them. Yeah. One of them.

Cats that are raised from a very young age, a few days old, just by humans, I

call them bottled babies. And bottled babies don't have the experience with

other cats, so their social skills with other cats are just a little skewed.

They also get over -attached to their humans. And I've got to keep an eye on

both of those things.

He always had aggression tendencies?

Since the other cats come.

Ah, so we've got Bear and we've got Duchess, who just don't leave.

Had a litter. I just thought they were so adorable.

Okay, so what did the introduction look like? We tried putting up a little kitty

gate, giving them food, and Mickey, he just wouldn't do it.

I believe in introducing cats through scent. A great way to do this is to feed

them on opposite sides of a baby gate so they begin to make positive

associations with the scent of the other cat.

But you need to make sure to start with the cats far apart. It looks like Megan

really rushed this process.

And then I would try removing the gate and Bear will get closer and closer to

Miki. And Miki will hiss and walk away from Bear.

And Bear will follow. And that's when the pfft happens.

So Miki has given him every chance in the world to back up, right? So now I'm

getting the fact that it's actually Bear that's the problem, not Miki.

What? Wait, what?

No, no. You don't see it that way?

Bear is a little troublemaker. He looks for anything that's fun, and Miki is a

lot of fun. The thing is, fun for Bear is not fun for everyone, Miki included.

Now Miki's nowhere to be found right now. Where's he at?

He is locked in my room underneath my blanket.

Now, one thing I think is a really huge problem with Mickey, he's in this small

bedroom. He will cling to me like a little child.

Don't forget, Megan raised him from birth. All he knows is Megan, and that's

healthy. He has to be separated from the other two.

When you settle into a routine where one cat is sequestered all day long in a

room, then they come out, then you sequester the other cat, it's dangerous.

Because when that one cat comes out here, they're treating this as a

hostile territory.

You guys cool with having these three cats live like this for the rest of

lives? No, not at all. This is not workable. We're always on alert.

One thing that we usually boil down to at the end of the conversation is you

need to look for your own place and take the cats out.

Oh.

Okay. Tears usually come out at that point because I just feel like there's

other option, really. I'm feeling like this is my last chance, really.

I'm just kind of really hoping this works.

I mean, you talk about high stakes. It's not just the cats that are going to get

rehomed in this situation. It's their daughter, too. So I'm going to work as

hard as I can to prevent that outcome from happening.

There's our buddy. Oh, Bear, I brought your friend. In the meantime, I've got

see the situation.

So I want to set up an environment where I can see what's going on. So I use

pillows to block off all the hiding spots.

Hi, Mickey, my friend. Hello?

Where are you going to hit me?

Okay, buddy, stop it.

I can tell right away by observing Miki that he's a defensive cat. He only

attacks when he feels threatened.

Here comes Bear.

Here comes Bear.

Look at that. You think that that's this little innocent move what he's doing?

He is blocking off all of Miki's exit points. He is just trying to stir up

trouble right now.

Bear is just looking at that dead end going, you got to come out sooner or

later, man. And when you come out, we're going to have fun.

Okay, so here's what we're going to do.

I am actually going to lead Bear over.

With a toy.

And then my goal is to see if I can keep his attention away from that toy,

right? And keep him on the non -breathing toy, the appropriate victim.

I drag him on in here. Come on, come on, come on, buddy.

Now I'm going to bring him right over there.

Come on over.

There he goes.

Look at him. He's making that choice.

Feather or Mickey?

Feather. Mickey.

Feather. Feather.

Feather.

That's amazing.

Good boy.

He doesn't care about Miki at all. He cares about that feather hanging off of

that toy, and he wants to kill it.

If we can just burn Bear out for appropriate play, he'll stop provoking

Miki will learn that he can relax around Bear because he's just not getting

stalked. This is huge.

Let's go ahead and put Miki back in your room. Come on, Miki.

There. Can you be cool for a second?

If Bear can just leave Miki alone, and Miki can then, in turn, summon the nerve

to move past Bear, then these two cats have taken their first step towards true

peace.

Miki?

Go ahead, Miki. If Jackson can't help this situation, I'm going to have to

either move out or I would have to re -home.

And both of those situations would just break my heart. It would be

catastrophic.

When I see Bear is blocking off the entrance for Miki to go back in the

I'm thinking something's going to happen.

Come on.

There's going to be a fight. There's going to be a brawl.

Let's go ahead and put Miki back in your room. Come on, Miki.

Bear, can you be cool for a second?

It's an understatement to say that Miki and Bear don't share the same space

well.

But I've seen some progress here today because I saw that Bear can be more

interested in a toy than he is in Miki.

But as these two cats go whisker to whisker, we're facing a potential

moment here.

Um, Miki? And I have no idea how it's going to go.

Come on.

Something's going to happen.

There's going to be a fight. There's going to be a brawl.

Go ahead, Mickey.

Come on. If I had to get rid of one of my cats, that would be the worst.

And that just terrifies me.

And it makes me feel like I've just failed.

Come here, my friend.

Mickey has to go by Bear.

That is some... What?

Uh -huh.

Oh, my God.

Come here, baby.

It just completely blows my mind when I see that happen because I'm not used to

those two cats acting together like that. They are always...

on the hunt with each other. There's always an issue.

I don't think I've seen you smile that big in a long time.

I know, like, there's hope. There is hope. There is hope.

Bear is too tired from playing to strike out at Miki.

Miki has just watched Bear play, so he knows this cat is capable of something

else and just walks right by him. Their relationship changes on the spot.

I'm going to give you guys some homework now. I wanted... to no longer be your

room at space camp for Mickey.

Because you are the one and only thing that represents security to him, right?

I'd like to start doing the swap out with Mickey being in that sunroom. He

look through the safety of this window and do what he did today, which is

observe. Number two, the opposite side feeding thing.

We're going to go back to that again, okay?

Now, here's the key to that.

We're not going to feed them at that baby gate. Mealtime will happen on

side of a baby gate. They can back it up as far as they have to as long as these

cats see each other, eat, and walk away again. And the goal is to get them

closer and closer until the gate is no longer necessary.

Finally, we're going to start doing play therapy with the cats separately. Play

until they're tired. With Miki, his play raises confidence. He can smell the

other cats but still catch his prey.

And Bear has got to get tired before he ever sees Miki. We saw the results of

that today. That can happen every single day, and it needs to.

That sounds awesome. That deep breath, was that an overwhelmed breath, or was

that okay? No, that was a relief breath. We've got something we can do to move

forward. Good. What I'm looking for when I come back here for my next visit is

very simple. I want to see Miki gain the kind of confidence that he can just

walk in this room, sit on the top of this couch, and watch that foolish Bear

play with that toy. And I need Megan to be fully aware.

of how over -connected she is to Mickey. I'll see you guys in a few weeks, okay?

Thank you. Take care.

I'm extremely invested in doing the homework so that Mickey can get better

Bear can get better and everyone can be harmonious.

Because if Jackson can't help us, that would be the worst -case scenario.

My name is Chris.

This is a single man with a wild cat.

Ah. Her nickname is El Elsa, like El Nino. There's going to be a storm around

when she's in there. You know what I mean?

This is a vacuum for her to use, dude.

You shred my sour curds. You tore that up.

Yo.

Come in the bathroom. This is what I usually see.

She just does stuff that I think normal cats don't do.

One time I was cooking, she jumped on the stove, took a hot link out and ran

with it.

The other day she was drinking the toilet water like a dog.

She likes to jump in the sink, taking the sponge out of the sink. I wake up in

the middle of the night and the sponge will be right next to her.

Every day she's like, ah, Elsa.

Elsa's like a Tasmanian devil. No words can describe how much I love her, but I

just need help, man. I can't take this anymore.

So I'm on my way to East L .A. to meet up with Chris and his cat Elsa.

Chris is a bouncer at a karaoke bar. He's a really nice guy. But in terms of

scent, a little not so much.

It looks like Elsa needs a little introduction to human scent, and Chris

little introduction to cat scent, and I am on my way.

Hey, Chris. Hey, Jackson. How are you doing? Good, man. How are you doing? All

right. Good to see you. Thank you.

I walk into this house.

And I see not a whole lot of anything. There's nothing that says a cat lives

here at all.

I know it's going to be a long day, man.

Well, I adopted this cat about six months ago.

You got her from the shelter? Yes. Was it one of those, like, love at first

sight things?

Something like that. She had a gleam in her eye that caught my attention because

she has, like, a crossed eye. When I looked at her, she kind of gave me that

look, and I fell in love.

Right on, man. Right on. Have you had cats before?

Yeah, I grew up with cats all my life. You know, as a kid, my grandmother, we

have a colony of cats in the backyard.

Yeah,

we got a lot of cats.

I mean, the problem is that Chris is taking the approach that he had as a kid

with feral cats and bringing it to Elsa, which means he's doing nothing. He's

just letting her run rampant without offering her anything in return.

Ever since I got her, man, she won't listen to me. How old is he? I adopted

when she was a baby.

Hey, look, Chris has a huge heart. That you can tell. He took a kitten out of a

high -kill shelter here in L .A. He wanted to give that cat a good home, and

has. However, we want to make it so the rest of that cat's life is a good one.

What the hell is that, Chris?

Oh!

You got... evidence of what

she's done to your place, that will help me a ton.

What the hell is that, Chris?

Is that like a turkey tin?

Hell yeah.

Wow,

man. So we're starting to swear one here.

So I said, hey, let's go Thanksgiving.

If that can hold a 45 -pound turkey, it can hold else's turd.

If you've got to ask me, Why a cat doesn't want to go in a turkey pan?

You should get a fish.

Well, that's kind of an easy fix, man. I mean, it's called a litter box.

We should introduce you to one, man, because that's never going to work.

Number one, it's too small.

Number two, it's made of metal. So when she goes to scratch it, that feeling,

the fact that you are so...

Lucky that she's using the litter box, man. The fact that she's done him a

by pooping and peeing in that turkey pan is a cat miracle.

You know how you have cords and stuff like that?

She'll be chewing on the back of these cords.

Yeah, man. This is what I worry about. They start chewing on stuff like this,

man. It can be really dangerous for them.

I've known many a cat, man, who's gotten electrocuted. So it's something we do

have to watch out for.

But this is the kind of damage she can do, huh? Yes, sir. She does it a lot?

Man, she chews on it like a snack, man. Fruit roller or something like that,

man.

If you're going to present your cat with this amazing gift and call it a vacuum

cleaner cord, see, this is where the problem is.

I'm looking around the place, and I'm looking for something that's not a

That's a cat toy.

What do you got cat toy -wise? The cat toy I own is this right here, Jackson.

Little cat spinny thing.

Now, it's so funny, man, because you look at the vacuum cleaner cord, and you

look at this, and this thing is like pristine.

Yeah, she's only like, one night, man, she played when I got her like a kid.

So, the thing is, though, here, hold this.

Yeah.

All right.

This versus this, right? This has like a finite amount of possibilities, right?

I hit the mouth. It goes like this. I'm done. I'm six months old, right?

This can be taken, tossed around, you know, up and down, can be chewed, take

anywhere. It becomes...

A toy, right? Any self -respecting cat I know would reject that sad little cat

toy for that sponge any day of the week. Thus, the symbol of the sponge in this

house. Now, there's only so far that we're going to get here without Elsa

actually coming out and saying hi to me.

I mean, she's incredibly shy, doesn't like company at all, but anytime there's

not company, she just runs wild and destroys the place.

Hi, Elsa. How could you possibly be talking about a hyperactive, destroying

things cat, man? This is the mellowest cat in the world. I'm going to break out

some toys out of my case here.

Oh, what is that?

Uh -oh.

What is that?

Elsa, what is that, honey?

Ah, I got a paw.

There you go.

There you go.

Now, if he is... that before she turns into Tasmanian Devil every day, I'll

to toy like this.

I want to give you some homework.

Now, the first thing is your schedule doesn't mean anything.

It's about what you do when you get home.

There's a technique I call boil and simmer. It's like when you're doing a

recipe, you bring it to a boil and let it simmer.

Same thing with her. You let her come to a boil, like play -wise, let her come

down again. When she's done playing, out comes dinner.

This is a technique to say hunt, catch, kill, eat. If they were out in the wild,

that's exactly what they would do. By the time you leave the house to go to

work, she's down.

You will not come back to a destroyed house.

Me and Elsie are going to start this cat one -on -one homework.

Me and Elsie are going to have a good time later on tonight.

I'm going to boil her. I'm going to simmer her.

You, I'll see you in a few weeks. Hold on, she's got to give you a handshake,

too. Bye, baby. Have a good one, Jackie. All right, take care, guys.

All right.

The most important thing that I want him to understand is that having a cat is

like having any kind of family member. There's a life here, and you've got to

make it so that Elsa's life is a constructive one, not a destructive one.

The last time I was here, I

met up with scaredy cat Miki and his overprotective mom, Megan. Now, while

has made some progress becoming that confident cat that we all need him to

Oh, my God!

Today...

I've got to see even more progress, especially with those tough challenge

that I laid out.

We'll see.

Hi. Hey. Good morning. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm okay. I'm okay.

I'm really excited to see Jackson just because Mickey's behavior I can see has

completely changed.

And I feel like I'm not doing things right. So let's sit down.

Where is Mickey right now? He's in his sunroom.

Are you freaking out right now?

Oh, he's totally freaking out. Okay, let's go, let's go. I'm disappointed

because I really thought that this homework was going to bear fruit and it

struck out.

Hello, my friend.

Okay, now we're all going to sit.

You can tell he's just like, he's upset.

He has been starving himself every other day. He doesn't eat.

I'd say maybe two pounds lost.

What? Two pounds? I'd say.

You have to understand.

How bad that is.

That's almost a quarter of his body weight. Your cat shuts down to that

That is bad news. What went wrong?

I feed them usually around 7, 7 .30 at night.

They only eat once a day?

Yeah, they get a really big helping.

If I feed them twice a day, they won't do the morning.

If Miki is only given one chance a day to eat and he doesn't take it, then

that's a huge problem.

We're in trouble.

Do you feel that you can get him out of there?

I could pick him up easily.

Okay, pick him up.

To see Mickey act the way he does around Jackson like he's afraid of him is

definitely heartbreaking for me because I raised him myself. He's my child.

Hello, little buddy. I know. There's someone there. Don't worry, though. I

you. I won't let him get you.

He's still really tense.

I got you, babe. I know what you want.

I see you.

You can't get any more sort of mothering, nurturing than that, but...

He's not a child. And once you start carrying that child around when he's not

child, it's going to have negative repercussions. And those negative

repercussions are all over this house right now. This cat is totally shut

And Megan is completely enabling him.

See, no one's going to eat you.

We're back to square one here.

See, no one's going to eat you.

I gave Megan homework that would encourage Miki to be more confident, and

I'm seeing is that she's encouraging him to hide.

Um, here's what I want to do.

Put him in your room so he can calm down in familiar territory, and then meet me

in the living room.

We're going to do this if he kills us.

All right, let's get out of here.

The situation here is worse than I thought. I mean, here we have a woman

works with animals for a living, and yet her coddling of Miki is fostering a

codependence in him that's very troubling to me, and it's at the root of

our problems.

All right, let's see what we got here.

Wow,

bears are right there.

I'm seeing lots of mistakes. First of all, I'm seeing the cats way too close

the feeding line, that gate. There's no way I would eat there if I didn't trust

the cats on the other side of that gate.

I'm also seeing play behavior that really concerns me.

Come on, Meekie.

Meekie, when he does play, barely leaves his feet.

That shows me that he's playing with no confidence. He wants to, but he doesn't

trust himself to do it or he doesn't trust his environment.

And the same distrust is what leads to violence.

He goes from zero to 60 in the fight -or -flight department, and he always does

it from a hiding position.

And when he takes that posture, he actually believes he's being threatened.

that's why it's so vital that we put an end to this coddling and hiding cycle,

and we do it right now.

So we've got cameras set up in there so there's no humans in that room except

for me and Megan.

Oh, please.

Yeah. Oh, please.

He's not showing.

That's not showing.

And, of course, I walk in there and I see what I don't want to see, which is

Miki still hiding.

Where are you, Bubba?

You see? Look, look, look. This is so important. Miki finds comfort hiding

in Megan's room, away from the world. Of course, that's not the behavior we

want. We don't want comfort. We want confidence out in the world amongst

everybody and up in the world as well. That is what makes a confident mojo

-filled cat.

He's too insecure to occupy and to own that part of the world, right?

How do I get him to be confident? That's what I want to do. Megan, you've got to

stop letting him hide.

You're encouraging him to be small and insignificant.

And you've got to know what that body language looks like in order for

professional Megan to come out and say, sorry, I just can't allow that. Earlier

today when Miki shut down, Megan actually made it worse by letting him

inside her shirt.

No one's going to eat you.

This is what you created, and this is where he's going to stay unless you

challenge him.

That's a good boy. I know, I know, I know, but I want you to hang out.

I do. I want you to hang.

Whoop. Oh.

A little feisty.

Yeah, well, that was the move.

Do it one more time. Go ahead. Just put him down.

Hi.

Look at that.

Hey. Good boy.

What a good boy.

Well, this is different.

This is such a good thing.

He's kind of looking for that, like he wants to be nudged, like to get out

a little bit. Exactly. The only way that any of us become our best selves is to

overcome challenges. It's the only way we do that.

I never really thought of it as a problem for Miki to be hiding.

I always thought that that was where he was kind of safe.

But now I know I'm wrong, so we need to change that.

That was fantastic.

Let's go back out, join your folks, and let me give you guys some homework.

Leaving Megan's room, I'm invigorated.

This cat does not have to live the rest of his life in mortal fear 24 -7.

We're going to set that challenge line, and we're going to move forward like we

mean it this time around.

First of all, it is very important, three meals a day.

It's about how far back do you have to go to the point where they walk up, eat,

and walk away.

The problem for us is confidence is cat mojo. I want you to go through the

entire house and block off the unders, right? Your goal is here, here,

here, not there, right? Because that will cause him to shut down. More

importantly, Megan, you have to cut the cord a little bit.

You will be a source of challenge.

All comfort comes from you guys.

So I can't give treats?

I can't. Look at the way this is playing out right now.

Look at this.

No, I get the treats. She gets the loving. You get nothing.

You get nothing. You get to be professional, Megan.

When Jackson tells me, you need to bring your professional work self home, it's

the worst possible thing for me to hear because I love holding Mickey and I love

coddling him so much. And I'm going to have a hard time sticking to it, but I'm

going to have to.

Let's get to it. All right? Take care. Thank you so much.

Yes. Megan adheres to the homework. I'm telling you, I'm going to come back to a

different cat. If she doesn't, I'll bet something.

I love that new toy, Jack. It's like a kid in a candy shop.

Last time I was here, I met Chris, who was taking a real hands -off approach to

his cat, Elsa, mainly because his only experience with cats was growing up with

a feral cat colony.

Hopefully, my homework technique called boil and simmer, or playing in

structured intervals, really helped get that crazy energy off of Elsa, and at

the same time, taught Chris a thing or two about his cat's personality.

Me and Elsa, we had a little huddle. We had to talk for a minute. I gave her

instructions. I gave her new rules to run by in the house.

Past cattle 101 with flying colors. I know when Jackson comes back, he's going

to be very happy.

What is up, man? Jackson Gelson, what's going on, man? How you been, man? I'm

feeling good. Look at that. You didn't have to go to the old school. Look at

that. Jackson's side burns.

I am not easily flattered, man, but that's pretty damn, what the hell did

to yourself? That's the claws right there. I have to represent for the cat

himself.

I got the magical Jackson burns going, so Elsa really respects him.

Last time I left you, man, there was a lot of work to be done.

I see evidence of cat life.

We got beds, we got tunnels, we got toys, we got all kinds of things.

There's only one thing that's missing, and that is your cat, Abracadabra.

There she is.

Hello, my love.

Long time no see, my baby.

Hit a little purr.

One of the biggest problems that I identified the last time I was here was

litter box or your turkey pan.

Is that like a turkey tin?

That's never going to work.

Oh,

and it's the litter box.

As soon as you left, I had to throw the turkey pan away and I brought the Elsa

condo in.

Yeah, and it worked. She loves it.

So the litter box is working because it's a litter box.

It's not a turkey pan. Here we have her little PlayStation here. We have a

fatality. The cool thing is, though, that when we have evidence like this,

says to us, okay, this is what she likes. When I first met Chris, the guy

obviously loved his cat. But past that point, I mean, clueless with a capital

Now he's armed with knowledge about what Elsa needs through her eyes. With this

empathetic view, he approaches his cat.

As a parent approaches a child, and that's the key to success.

I got some of your homework on video here.

Now she's playing fetch with you, man. I love that. One of the best things about

watching video homework is watching Elsa play fetch with Chris.

And Elsa's just doing it, like grabbing that stick, bringing it right to Chris,

demonstrating to Chris that I like doing this. This makes me happy.

Elsa's similar in time. I gave her a good run, and now she's just hanging out

the laundry.

Very. I couldn't ask for any more than that, man. That is perfect homework,

I can honestly say, man, your technique, the boiling simmer technique, it really

came into effect. When you left that time, I boiled her up and I simmered her

down. Between the time she's worked up to the time that you got her down to the

final simmer, how long do you think it is?

I say about two hours.

For what? We have a good time. I kind of like, let me have a second, Disneyland.

We try to ride.

Every ride, I bust a toy out right here, and she have a good time with the mice.

Two hours, man. Chris is now playing with Elsa for up to two straight hours.

He's giving her more exercise than most cats I know, and she reflects that in

her relationship with him. That is something I like to see.

I feel proud, like a proud father watching his child.

Yeah, you represent for all cat guys out there, man, because real men like cats,

and that's an important thing, and your relationship with her is very nice, man.

I mean, Elsa's made a lot of progress in just a couple weeks, and...

If you hit that sweet spot and you give the cat exactly what she was asking for,

you're going to get results.

And that's the kind of thing I want everyone to know.

If you're just watching your cat, if you're observing what it is that she's

content with, i .e., there's sponges all over the house, and you go, wait a

minute, she needs a toy, you fix it just like that.

Chris, it's been absolutely real. Thanks.

Good time, man. Good time. Keep that style, man. I like it. Keep the claw

on you, man. Thank you.

I'm a different person now, even with the cat world. And I think that I can

it to a whole other level.

So Jackson, if you need a sidekick, give me a call.

In my years of working with cats, I've seen them contribute to our well -being

in multiple, unexpected, inspirational ways.

And now you can too.

It's my pleasure to share some of their stories with you. Welcome to A Little

Slice of My Cat from Heaven.

I'm Grace. And I'm Mark. We live in Studio City and we rescue cats.

So all my life I've had dogs.

I had no idea the amazing qualities of cats until I read this book that changed

my life. It's called Homer's Odyssey, Odyssey of the Blind Cat.

And the rest is crazy cat lady history.

Man, am I psyched. Not only are these guys amazing adopters, amazing foster

parents, but they concentrate on special needs cats specifically.

Blind cats.

Hey! How are you, man?

I'm seeing a few cats. How many do you have in the house right now?

We foster, so we have cats going in and out.

So on top of the five that we have ourselves, we have five that we're

He might fetch for you.

Oh my God, he totally expected that.

Now at first you're saying, oh my God, that's amazing. It's a blind cat playing

fetch. Watch out for the guitar case. But then, my guitar case is in the way.

He's running back with his little mouse in his mouth and just goes whoop. He's

got your case there, so he just goes around the case. That's insane, man.

cat especially loses their eyesight, the rest of those senses go into overdrive,

down to their whiskers. Everything is just looking for information. And the

Fitz navigated was absolutely amazing.

I love the way he's exploring right now.

What was the impetus? All of a sudden you're like... We're going to do Blind

Cat. What happened?

I read this book called Homer's Odyssey, The Odyssey of a Blind Cat.

It was just such a sweet book.

What's it about?

It's about a cat that is blind and was a kitten and nobody wanted him. And this

woman, Gwen Cooper, adopted him. And it's really just about how capable he

Grace is telling me what a huge inspiration Gwen Cooper's book is. I am

biting my hand because I have a huge surprise for her. I don't want to give

away. I got to play dumb.

But as far as the blind kids are concerned, it doesn't matter. Is that

doorbell? Yeah. Go ahead. We can bring it.

Gwen Cooper!

Oh, my God!

Oh, my God!

Gwen Cooper changed the course of my life,

and not just my life, but Mark's life.

And so many cats that we have saved. She is amazing.

Really, since we read your book, we've probably fostered about and found homes

for about 25 cats. Wow.

Wow.

That's a lot of cats.

You know, the story spoke to you, and that means a lot to me. It really did.

We have to look beyond ourselves, you know, and to be able to be of service in

some way. And for me, I found my path, and that was through.

Rescuing cats.

You know, the path to getting Homer's story published was so difficult. And to

meet someone who was so influenced by it and in such a wonderful direction, it's

just an indescribable feeling to be here and to hear this.

Well, we can't thank you enough. Meeting Gwen and Jackson has been probably one

of the best experiences of my life. And for them to tell us that they're

impressed with what we do, it means so much to me.

I wanted to try something with you guys. Knowing I was coming over here, I just

sort of modified one of my toys.

Basically, I just took something that had a little worm on the end of it and

just replaced it with a bell. Here.

Gwen, I present you.

Oh, my God. He's right on it anyway. Remember, blind cats play just like any

other cat. They need that exercise.

I love this. Oh, my God. I love this. There you go.

Sending this message to people who are even thinking about adopting a blind cat

that they do what any other cat does. Absolutely. There are cats dying in

shelters every day.

just because they're blind or deaf or have three legs or anything like that.

Mark and Grace show you that just because they're physically different

mean that they can't bring something to your life. And listen, if you don't

believe me, don't adopt. Go ahead and foster. We just got to get them out of

system, and that will convince you that these guys are special.

So I'm here for my final visit with Megan and her cat, Miki. And the last

was here, Miki basically wasn't. No one's going to eat you.

And Megan was just enabling him. So today, I want to see a cat who doesn't

Who can be in a room with Bear and just be a cat, not a scaredy cat.

And I need to see that Megan learn to give some tough love. Otherwise, she and

her cats are moving out.

Hi. How are you?

Good. How are you?

Good. What's your hair?

That's good.

So first and foremost, what's going on? What's happening?

Miki will spend most of his day up on the top of the cat tree. Oh, my God,

that's amazing. And during feeding, now I know, we had some rough patches, and

you're seeing success with that. Sure. A lot, yeah.

We've marked it very graphically. There we are.

Oh, wow. You really are... It's right up until last night. Very close.

I love when my clients take me at my word. When you put a piece of tape down,

may look like a matter of inches, but if you add that up over a couple of weeks,

it's an illustration how this system works, that getting cats far apart,

them up day after day works. The proof that it works is that Mickey's eating

again.

Wow. Good news, man. Everything sounds killer right now.

And by the way, you've come...

tremendous way with this whole thing, from the person who would carry him

under her shirt, right?

I mean, you've really been a strong parental figure to him.

I am so proud of Megan for learning not to coddle Miki. She challenged herself

and her cat, and that's what everybody needed.

I just want to see Bear and Miki being able to occupy the same space at the

time without World War III breaking out.

I got to see that Miki can be confident sitting there owning the space while

Bear is being Bear.

Miki's got to be able to watch that and know that it's not a threat.

Coming.

And here comes Bear. Here.

What's that?

All right, here we go.

There we go. Good boy.

Good boy. So I got Bear playing. No problem.

And then, their eyes meet.

I have no idea what's coming next.

I was very nervous. I hope nobody bleeds here.

Good boy.

Good boy.

What I need to see is Bear and Mickey in the same room at the same time, not

attacking each other.

Now, watch. He's looking.

Their eyes meet.

I have no idea what's coming next.

Look at that, man.

And then they look away.

It's been about Miki finding his comfortable place up in the world. Now

can be comfortable in the same place at the same time as Bear, that's a

challenge met and a challenge won. Miki is perfect.

I call this game over, man.

Very nice. From this moment on, Miki doesn't have to cower in fear anymore.

He knows that when he's up, he's surveying his kingdom, and all is good.

Game changer.

I'm very proud of him. And you, as well. I gotta say. No, I really am.

You've done amazing work.

Going into the main option for me and my cat, Miki, was move out.

And now that we've had this progress, I can say.

You stepped up, man. Yes, my boy. I am so very impressed with you. Thank you

coming and saving us.

You fixed him. Bye,

guys. Bye -bye.

The hell isn't over yet. Go to the My Cat from Hell Facebook page for

Microsoft's gifts and much more.