Original subtitles

When Bandit came into the house, it just went downhill.

There would be fights, and then they started the pee war.

Whoever pee -pees, she pees.

We clean up pee, and then we turn around, and immediately there's pee

else. It's just exasperating.

Every part of this house has been touched by these cats, so you can see

Wow.

Gee whiz. That's a lot of plastic.

We have a troublesome son, our little cat Bowie.

he will act like he wants to be pet and he will turn on a dime and just attack

you he's drawing blood with the kids bowie to hear the girl screaming away is

horrible are you okay we can't trust him so you couldn't get me here what

happens we get rid of bowie about a month ago i met a couple who told me

much the most amazing story I think I've ever heard. Ziggy 100 % saved my life.

Without him, I don't have a husband sitting next to me today.

Whoa!

Holy! I'm Jackson Galaxy.

What the hell, man?

The animal behavior that guardians call when they're dealing with a difficult

cat. Sometimes I wish that I didn't have her.

Damn.

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

my help. This is fun.

My name's Jeanne, and this is my mom, Joanne, and she has a cat, Bandit, and I

have a cat, Gypsy Rose.

After my husband passed, Bandit and I came to live with Jeanne.

When Bandit came into the house, it just went downhill.

There would be fights, and then they started the plea war.

Wherever he peed, she peed. I mean, there's not one place in my house that

hasn't been touched. From the couches to the kitchen.

Here's another spot where you can clearly see the pee. Our front room is

torn up because the carpet was just peed on everywhere. It's just been chaotic.

Our counter space went from a full -size open kitchen to maybe a little square

footage of, you know, counter space because we have to constantly have

covered. It's a very big guilt on my part. I've seen her lovely house.

of looking like a home, it looks like we're covering everything.

Nothing looks inviting.

It's terrible.

Because of the peeing problem between Bandit and Gypsy, my mom and my

relationship has changed, and we've become way distant.

We end up yelling, screaming at each other, whose cat did it, whose cat

which doesn't matter. The point is that there's pee on my counter, and it's

unsanitary, and it's disgusting.

We're constantly playing the blame game. I mean, that's horrible.

Jackson coming is our last hope because I feel like we've just hit the wall.

We're kind of like at the end of the line here, hanging on.

We clean up pee, and then we turn around, and immediately there's pee

else. It's just exasperating, and I don't know what to do.

Hello. How are you? How are you? I'm good, man. How are you doing? Can you

me a hug? You can give me a hug. How are you?

Hi. This is my mother.

Joanne. This is my husband, David.

Hi. David, Joanne. And Jeanne. Jeanne. Thank you for coming and welcome.

Every part of the palace is in touch with cats. As you can see, plastic.

Wow.

Gee whiz.

That's a lot of plastic.

This is, I mean, this is for real? This is every day? This is every day. Wow.

I mean, on a scale of one to help me, this is really at an 11. When the entire

kitchen is covered in plastic, you know you're walking into some problems.

When did it start?

How did it get this crazy? So it started when we started bringing bandits into

the home. We had our cat, Gypsy Rose, who adopted us.

Gypsy Rose was the first cat in the house?

And she was just great. She would pee in the potty pan or go outside, whatever.

But when we started introducing bandits, because my dad was very sick, and

especially once he passed, bringing my mom so late to live with us, we had to

start bringing the cat in.

My dad was very sick with cancer. And after losing my dad, there came a point

where, like, she just permanently was going to stay with us. And so right

she started to move in permanently, we started bringing in the cat.

You lost your husband when?

2015.

Bandits, that's who's left, right?

Joanne has lost her husband, her home, and now it's just her and Bandit. She's

hanging on to Bandit, and she's trying to hang on to her daughter and her son

-in -law, and a semblance of a home life that she's lost.

There's a lot of loss that's gone on here, and a lot to lose.

So when they first laid eyes on each other, was it immediately game on?

Gypsy became more aggressive.

So now we have Gypsy who picks fights with Bandit.

And peeing happened. Yes. Was Gypsy the one doing most of the peeing? It's been

so hard to catch who's doing it. Oh, so we don't know.

Right, and we wouldn't be able to see them because they're so fat.

How has this impacted you guys?

The relationship between me and my mom is not the same. No.

We've gone so long to be like this.

I mean, I think that says a lot. That's how much I love the cats and the

animals. Yeah.

So we're really, we got backs against the wall. Yeah.

You can't walk into this house without knowing there's some serious damage

that's gone down. And that damage goes beyond the furniture and into the

The humans are wrecked right now.

Over there was carpet.

We took up the old flooring. This was underneath.

Right. This was underneath, yeah. What about that window sill? In fact, you can

see that.

It was hit so much that it's peeling up. So this was covered with a lot of

sentimental items, a bunch of pictures. And so just to show you, I mean, the

pee, this picture's ruined. I don't even think I can save it, redo it, or

anything. This is all pee.

So this room has been completely sacrificed.

The floor, trash, gone.

All the pictures that were in the windowsill and the frames, gone.

Honestly, I don't think this family can take it anymore.

They're done.

Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to grab my little guitar case.

I'm going to go do a little exploring by myself, try to hang with the cats a

little bit. Now I need to gauge where these cats' challenge lines are in

to one another. So what I'm going to do is bring a toy into the situation and

see if they compete over any of those resources.

What about you, buddy?

Best case scenario, I've got two cats playing with a toy. Worst case scenario,

start playing with a toy. The toy lands in the middle of the two of them, and

bang, we've got a fight.

Now what happens?

If a fight breaks out with this much challenge presented to them, we're in a

place right now.

Body language -wise, I'm not seeing anything that is concerning me

You guys hate each other, right?

Like, knock down, drag out. Like, hate each other.

Right?

You would think, looking at the patterns of urine all over this house, that it

is a pissing war every single day.

Well, if that is the case, the war is not against each other. So, something is

not right around here.

Oh my God, look at that.

Nothing like pee on something electric.

But we have an open window.

Maybe cat's outside.

No pee off to the side. Oh, spoke too soon.

Right now, I don't know what's causing the peeing. There are some major pieces

missing to this story, and I've got to ask the family.

Okay, guys, so I need some answers to some questions.

Okay, guys, so I need some answers to some questions.

So I just walked around the house, met up with both cats.

These cats are not mortal enemies. I think we're seeing redirected aggression

based on a problem outside the house.

So do we have an issue with feral cats in the area? Yes. Yes, that we do. Wow,

you didn't even hesitate there.

One morning, I had all the cats all fed and everything, and the feral cat poked

its head inside the window, and then it saw me, and then... What?

You got cats coming in the house, and you're letting that happen? When a feral

cat from the neighborhood poking their head and saying, hey, can I have your

dinner? We've got a problem. When was the last time this area got destroyed?

About two weeks ago, right?

Yeah. That's good information, right? So the house itself is not being destroyed

in the same way that it was only a couple weeks ago. I really do believe

a certain degree, Jeanne, you're living in this traumatic loop.

You are so used to this place being destroyed that you might not be present,

right? That's what I needed to know.

Up until now, this family has done everything they can to save their house.

it's time to give them some homework so they can start solving the problem.

The first challenge that we have...

is to get you guys firmly in the present moment, in this moment, not what was

happening last week or last month or what's going to happen tomorrow, but

here, because we can't solve these problems without it. We have arguments

on with these two cats, but I don't think it's about these two cats. I think

there's something going on that's informing all of this chaos.

So the first thing I want you guys to do is detective work to start recording

incidences. So every time there's a peeing incident, Of course, you're going

clean it up. And then I'm going to have you put some yellow tape, a little X,

right in the spot that it happened. And then you'll have a piece of paper

corresponding what you noticed. This happened at this time of day. It was

cat. I think it was.

The other way we gather information is surveillance.

I'm going to leave you with a bunch of cameras.

and we're going to get what's going on inside the house, right? I want to make

sure that the countertops are gotten in the back and in the front of the house

because we also have to figure out what's going on in the feral world as

The next thing that we're going to do is called border building. If you've got

cats coming into your house, I don't think you guys realize what a massive

territorial transgression that is. For another cat to even poke their head into

this house, that will cause your cats to pee all over the house. So I want to

keep the feral cats away.

I want you to put humane deterrents outside.

As far as I'm concerned, neither one of these cats feel safe, so we're going to

put deterrents outside the house so that every time another cat comes up to the

window or the doors, they get either air blown in their face or a little bit of

water. Let me know if you have any issues over the next couple weeks, any

crises. I want to know about it, okay?

All right, guys.

We're at a point where we fit the wall that this has to work. This has to work,

us doing this together.

Because there are no other options for us at this point. Oh, yeah, Jackson can

help us.

We're in trouble.

Yeah, we're in big trouble.

Hi, I'm Shazia. Hi, my name's Stuart.

Shazia and I have been married for eight years.

And we have two daughters, Athena and Aurora.

And probably a troublesome son, our little cat, Bowie.

He's our challenge.

They love Bowie. The girls love Bowie. He's super cute.

Bowie is a Devon Rex, but he will act like he wants to be pet, and he will

on a dime and just bite you, attack you, scratch you, and so we can't trust him.

Bowie, ow!

We're scared that he's going to really injure somebody.

Bowie! Typically, our girls are seen as his prey.

Bowie! Bowie!

I do not like it when Bowie scratches and bites us.

Bowie, stop it. I want my house to be open and friendly and loving. I feel

we're constantly living in terror.

Bowie. I want Jackson to help Bowie because we want to keep him. We need

something done about this or it's time for change.

Hey. Hi. How are you? I'm Jackson.

Shazia, welcome. Hey, nice to meet you. Come on in.

Thank you. Jackson, hey, I'm Stuart.

Good to meet you, man.

Well, tell me what's going on.

We have two daughters.

Bowie has been biting them, attacking them.

When you say attacking, only because that word always triggers a lot of

Attacking is drawing blood.

I mean, so much as to draw actual blood maybe half a dozen times, he'll attack

them while they're asleep.

He'll go into the room. If he sees toes or fingers or even a nose, he'll go in

there. Listen, I've got a healthy amount of suspicion at this point in my career

when people use the word attack so many times.

Attack means play aggression.

And randomly, it means there's a pattern that they just haven't discovered yet.

There'll be certain times where he can be... Wait, what is that? Is that him?

Yeah. What, is he in a room?

Let him out.

Okay. Yeah, man.

Bowie! What's life without a cat?

Come here.

Hi. Come on, Bowie.

So we have a Devon wreck, yes?

Come here, please.

Hi.

Now, you know, one thing I'm noticing while I'm just trying to hang is that

is kind of a toy he doesn't seem all that familiar with.

We have so many toys. We've tried every toy. We've bought the laser. He does not

want to play with toys.

Shazia and Stuart, these guys are just exhausted.

Shazia just seems depressed, where Stuart seems a little over it, a little

angry. It's kind of an uncomfortable situation for me, that's for sure.

Okay, let me mess around just a little bit.

Wow, you're like a solid rock of a cat, man.

When he goes after somebody, any tip off at all. Every time the girls play with

him. The only cat that I consider truly aggressive is the cat.

who has a disorder of some kind. What I'm hearing about Bowie is that he gets

overly playful, and he doesn't know how to control himself.

That's a huge difference.

So Gresham and Bowie, pretty far apart.

So you get him home, and what was your first sign that things were not good?

I think he was good. Over the course of maybe the first month, the kids were

playing with him a lot, and he was cuddly, he was tiny, and he loved the

Perfect.

Perfect?

Yeah. Then something shifted.

What can I say without getting in trouble?

He's really great, he's really snuggly, and then something, we don't know if

it's something we did.

I hear it every day.

No cat is perfect.

You know, he's a year old, so that's, you know, he's a teenager.

Aww. By the time a cat's around six months old, they start entering into

teenage years, and teenagehood is when they start pushing buttons.

Just like a human teenager, teenagehood is about testing boundaries, and Bowie's

definitely doing that. So where are we at right now? You couldn't get me here.

What happened?

Never mind months or weeks. I think it's probably a matter of days until we get

rid of Bowie.

So where are we at right now? You couldn't get me here. What happened?

Never mind months or weeks. I think it's probably a matter of days until we get

rid of Bowie.

That puts some pressure on.

Stuart needs business.

I got a feeling one more scratch, Bowie's out of here.

I've been new to cats. I've never had one in the past. Shazia's had multiple,

but to me it's kind of clear cut.

So I've definitely heard a lot of information from Shazia and Stuart, but

really want to hear it from the girls themselves and see what they can offer.

So apparently your little cat brother is a bit of a problem, yeah?

Yeah. Do you play with him? Do you guys use toys and play with him?

Let me see what you can do with him. I'll just stand up and kind of watch.

Bowie, come on.

Abina picks up Bowie, cradles him like a baby, marches him down the hallway, and

gets scratched.

That's not random. That's not crazy cat behavior. That is just teenage cat math.

Do you have video of anything that I can see? Yeah.

Okay. All right, show me what you're made of, buddy.

Aurora, are you okay?

He's so cute. You want to hug him and kiss him and snuggle him, but he bites

Oh, my gosh, Bowie. Stop it.

Aw.

Bowie.

Poor thing.

You keep getting beat up.

I mean, I feel like I've got a pretty good grip on what's going on here, and

it's definitely not a holy terror named Bowie. I think he's just a really over

-anxious teenager, and he needs to get some of his energy out.

You know, the Devon Rex, they're a very energetic breed, and if you're not

taking that energy and draining it out in a constructive way, you're asking for

trouble. I've got to be, like, straight up with you guys at this point. If you

send him to the shelter, with the stigma that he attacks kids. He's going to get

killed.

Period. The reality of where Bowie would go, we got to make it work.

Nobody's going to take a cat who's doing that. My gut is that we're not dealing

with a crazy, unhinged cat.

We're dealing with a kitten.

What he's doing with the kids, those are his siblings right now. He goes

to them.

Everything that I'm seeing, it's all play.

Cats are energetic balloons.

The energy that goes in them during the day has got to find a way out. I mean,

not so much differently from kids.

Energy in means energy has to come out. Really important that we start to

establish what I call the three R's. We're going to have routines in his

As routines are repeated every day, they become rituals.

Rituals become the rhythm of his life. So it's routine, ritual, rhythm.

Like the kids, you wake up in the morning and you have routines. The same

approach needs to go into Bowie.

Play with Bowie is hands down the most important thing that you guys can do

him. He needs to be able to chase.

He needs to be able to hunt and catch and kill.

And then once he's done that, boom, feeding time.

So the next great thing in terms of releasing his energy is catification,

is... designing a little bit more places where he can go up and watch the girls.

So he's not competing for floor space with them. And the second thing is he

to see what's going on in the world from a safe distance.

Shazia and Stuart have got to commit to the long haul here. Quick fixes are not

going to happen with this kitten, and I don't know if they will. I'll see you in

a few weeks' time, and call me if you need me. All right, bye.

There's pee on my counter, and it's disgusting.

I'm here for my second visit with the cats Gypsy Rose and Bandit and their

guardians. The last time I was here, these two cats were engaged in an epic

peeing war, resulting in this family living surrounded in plastic. I've given

them some hardcore homework. Hopefully they've dug in here, and among other

things, they're living surrounded in the present moment, and we're going to have

a better grip on the problem.

Hello! Welcome back.

Good to see you.

Welcome back in here today. My heart just dropped.

I'm seeing hate X's everywhere.

I mean, I honestly feel like nothing is going right in this house.

Where's David today?

So he's working.

Okay. Before we start, how are you guys feeling?

I think we still feel we're a little stuck, only because it's still

Our big thing between last time and this time was not necessarily curing it.

It was about making sure that we were knowing the difference between what we

fear is going to happen and what is actually happening, you know? Jan is

notorious for projecting her past trauma onto the present moment. And that's why

we got video homework. So now it's time to take a look at that. This is what we

have to wake up to many times. And it's just very, very frustrating.

And then I let him in and he came right over here again.

That's an important piece of detective work because you guys are under the

impression that letting him out is actually going to lessen the urge to

the detective work said that the second he came back in.

Yes, and that happens quite a bit. That's really important to remember.

no reason for this cat to be going outside.

I'm going to leave it up to the family. I can't put down a hard and fast rule

around here about the indoor -outdoor thing, but they have to understand there

is a cause and effect.

He's letting you know there's something outside that is threatening me to the

point where I have to put down a marker saying, hey, I own this.

So we're putting cameras out outside the house, and here you guys are setting up

the deterrence in the backyard.

Who's that?

That is that calico stray cat.

Where is that? So that's this hallway outside where you guys locked in. Where

the front door is?

Ah, ah, ah, ah. On that side.

So

we're

putting cameras out outside the house.

Who's that? That is that calico stray cat.

Now, do you guys know if the calico's been trapped and neutered yet?

Yes. Okay, now, that's great.

Ah, ah, ah, ah.

Now, look.

Going right, that's your door, that sliding glass door. Now, let's go back

for a second because she's not done yet. Hanging out.

Oh, she got three.

Wow.

Listen, nobody loves cats more than Jackson Galaxy loves cats.

That said, I am so glad that we're securing the borders in this house. I

proof that our water deterrent totally scared off this calico. I feel pretty

secure that it's trained her for the most part, and she's not going to come

to this one area.

So now we can move these deterrents around the house. We know now that we

have a whole lot of deterrent out front, but worked out back, man.

Worked out back.

Very good. All right. I've got all the information I'm going to get from video.

Now I'm looking around and seeing plenty of X's around the house. There's a bit

too many of them, but it's time to start exploring them and see what they have

to tell us.

Any P in here? Okay, yeah.

So Gypsy came in here one day, and then I shooed her out, and then I turned my

back on her, and then sure enough, I saw Bandit come from here and walked away.

So I came over here, and I touched it, and it was wet, and I could smell pee.

So my assumption was, was it Bandit then peeing because Gypsy was here? So I

don't know. I mean, look, we have a sliding glass door right here.

Easily, in the middle of the night, Calico could be right here. She walks

The other one's like, mm -mm -mm, and they mark all.

Of the panic signs, all of the red flags being sent up by these cats are because

of what's going on outside these walls.

That calico is ruining everyone's life here.

Oh, my gosh.

This was going to be a hard one for me. As you can see, so we have markings here

that's all pee.

This one here is the one that's a bandit.

There's a whole puddle of pee.

It's just frustrating because we've cleaned, we thought we found it, and

there happens to be more.

No, but we're still about almost a week out from the last.

peeing in this room so now again we're going from from what i understand every

day multiple times a day things are getting hit we're down to not all the

it's slowing down guys

Jan, please, please, Jan, please be present with me. This is crazy. I

know, and I'm trying. I'm trying. Try harder. I'm trying.

Try harder because this is amazing.

I mean, I know, I know, I know, I know we still got pee going on, but it's

getting better in here. It is getting better.

No, you're right, it is. Say it again. It is getting better.

All right, let's get down to some homework with this family. Now, once

I don't know what I got to do to get Gian to live in this moment because if

doesn't stay present, none of this works. Things have definitely changed

here. There's a whole lot less pee than there was the first time I was here.

Now, if something hasn't been peed on in two weeks, we need to take the plastic

off. So if something hasn't been peed on in two weeks, stand up. Let's go.

Joanne, can I please have your hand?

That's true.

Let's do it.

Come on. We're not even talking about it.

It's been two weeks off.

Come on.

Let's go.

Bye -bye.

That really is giving me anxiety to think that that plastic's going to have

come off and I'm going to have to trust those cats.

That's going to be my biggest challenge.

Our surveillance just kicked butt.

We got great information.

Not only that, we also saw in the video and the surveillance that the deterrents

are working.

And earlier today, I walked around the house and I identified outside border

soft zones.

So you're going to take the deterrents that are in the back and move them to

where I asked you to move them. Remember, they're training tools. Once

cat's been sprayed a few times, they're going to take the hint and move on. My

perimeter walk around this house showed me there's still open border areas.

Let's seal up that border. I got white tape on the ground that tells you where

those deterrents have to go.

Lock it down, folks. Fort Knox.

If somebody pees someplace where there's not plastic, don't throw the plastic

up. Before we fall back into these old habits, we just clean up and move on,

okay? I think for me, it's a matter of trusting Jackson.

I asked him to come into my home to help us, and I need to trust that. I need to

trust him. Thank you. See you guys soon.

Okay. Take care. Bye -bye.

Today, I'm here in Hackensack, New Jersey to meet up with Justin and Aaron

their cat Ziggy. And this cat has done something pretty special. Suffice it to

say that Justin wouldn't be here to tell me a story if it weren't for Ziggy.

Hi, buddy! This is Ziggy. Hello!

My name is Aaron.

I'm Justin. My cat Ziggy saved my life.

I was never a cat person.

Can't imagine my life now without a cat.

I... I suffered a pulmonary embolism back in February.

Aaron had gone to sleep. As I started walking through the apartment, I was

getting really short of breath just walking from here to here.

That's it.

I blank out from there.

The next thing I remember, I'm waking up on the floor to Ziggy jumping on my

chest. Here?

Yeah. Jumping. And I open my eyes, and here he is. He's jumping on me. And

you're saying this happened like four or five times?

Yeah.

Jumping on someone's chest one time when they're passed out on the floor, that

can be explained away. But five times? There's no coincidence.

Ziggy was trying to revive Justin.

Period. He started to lick my face and my eyelids, and I knew something was

really wrong. That's when I literally, like, I used this to get to my feet, and

that's when it hit me. What's happening in here at the moment?

Part of the clot had passed through his heart.

causing him to go into cardiac arrest.

That's why now you can't breathe. Now I can't even breathe. I'm gasping for

breath. I'm thinking to myself, I can't say my wife's name to get her attention.

Oh, my God, this is killing me. Ziggy followed me to the bedroom. He beat me

the door.

It was terrifying.

And I looked right at the doorknob, and I looked down at Ziggy, and I said, is

there anything that you've got? If there's, like, something you can do for

buddy, please do it now.

And I just remember reaching out for that bedroom door. Everything goes blank

after that.

Justin must have had enough strength to turn the doorknob. And then Ziggy jumps

on the bed.

Licked my face, meowing, basically really, like, aggressively to get me

He was, like, wobbly.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't speak.

He had no color to him whatsoever.

He was grayer than a sweatshirt. And I just remember he gave me one look before

he went out, and he gave me this look, and his eyes were just, like, bulging

of his head because he couldn't breathe, and he was so frightened.

I woke up in a panic, scared for his life.

Called 911.

I was petrified. We rushed right over to the hospital.

Justin's condition when he was admitted was very severe, and he definitely could

have died. It was probably about a 50 -50 chance that we were going to get to

this in time.

The way the cat had intervened to help get him the care that he needed, that

gave Justin one of his nine lives.

It is an incredible story, the idea that Ziggy could be that intuitive.

For Ziggy to know that there was... Trouble afoot, and that he could solve

jumping on Justin's chest, goes beyond what any of us can explain.

We adopted him about five years ago from a pretty rough situation.

After rescuing him, we ended up volunteering for the rescue.

I've become very involved in all these different cat initiatives, and I'm

that Ziggy's story can change the mind of one person and adopt.

I'll sit up again in a minute, I promise.

This is fun.

What else could you call Ziggy besides a cat from heaven? Take care, okay? Bye.

Bye.

I mean, sometimes you hear a story that just restores your faith in everything.

Ziggy saves Justin's life. Justin and Aaron then go out and save hundreds and

hundreds of cats' lives. It's enough to warm your heart, which, you know, on a

day like this, is a good thing.

I left this house last time a little nervous because what I saw was a cat who

thought was predictable and was just really overstimulated.

And the family saw him as being pretty evil.

Now, if they did their homework, they would have had that sort of aha moment.

know who this cat is, and I can work with him.

If they were looking for a quick fix, they're not going to get that moment,

I don't know what I'm walking into right now.

How are we feeling?

I feel like we've learned how to deal with him a lot better. I think it's been

easier to predict some of his behavior now.

But he's still attacking the girls.

It's been easier to predict some of his behavior now. But he's still attacking

the girls.

Shazi with no time in telling me that.

He still attacks the kids.

Bowie is not a random attacking cat. There's something going on here.

Tell him about what happened today.

Okay. What happened today?

He bit me on the knee and it hurt really bad. I almost cried.

Do you remember what was going on when he did that? After we ate breakfast and

we were playing a lava game, I went in the hallway to go to the bathroom to

brush my teeth. What was the lava game?

It's a lava game where you're not allowed to touch the ground because the

is called lava.

So. We're playing the lava game. Mom says brush your teeth. You go running

there to brush your teeth.

Chomp. Is that when it happened?

There it is.

Don't step on the ground because it's made of hot lava accompanied by a lot of

yelling and screaming. You then run into your room. There's Bowie ready to jump

you. That is called cause and effect.

And I'm still explaining to this family what that's all about.

Kind of crazy. When she went to go brush her teeth at that point, she stopped

buzzing up here. So that's where her energy's at. He just followed.

He's with her.

He treats them like siblings.

As that energy is rising in the house, he's right there with it. He's just like

another one of the kids, except that he's another one of the kids with claws

teeth. The last time I was here, I gave them a lot of homework. I've got to see

what these guys might be doing wrong, because by now we should have seen some

improvement.

Over it. See?

Totally over it.

Can I pet you?

Please don't bite me.

Please don't bite me.

We're not going to let this moment go. I'm not letting this moment go.

You got him to the boil.

It's play, play, over it. Well, he gave up, yeah.

That bite, you know you totally asked for. What she's complaining about is a

frameable picture of a cat being overstimulated.

That's not, I'm going to rip your head off.

That's, I'm excited and I need to get this energy out of my system.

This is what overstimulation looks like. You made that cat bomb bed in that

moment and then just slept in it. You're right.

I had no idea that a kitten is so different from a full -grown cat.

Energetically, a kitten's crazy compared to a cat. Now I have empathy for it,

and I know it's a phase.

Your playing could really use some help.

So I'm seeing dangle, dangle, wave, wave.

Like there's no investment whatsoever in what the game actually is, which is

chase this thing and kill it.

If you're not going to put the effort into the game, how do you expect the cat

to play along?

You've still got an energetic balloon filled to the brim.

Pretty good.

We are castifying our host.

Wait, did he get up there by himself? No, no, no. You put him up there. Okay.

loved it. The best thing that I'm seeing in catification is the look on Bowie's

face when he's up on that top shelf. He is like, I am home.

He just loves it up there. Good work, guys. Good work.

I finally have the understanding from the guardians. Now, it took us a while

get here, but hey, I'll take it, man, because that means a better life for

and these little girls and, of course, for the parents. Did I introduce you to

the concept of boil and simmer the last time I was here? So essential that when

I leave this family, they know how to play with Bowie. If you leave Bowie

hanging energetically without finishing the hunt, he's going to hunt somebody

else. Boil and simmer is the technique that I use with cats. The play sessions

are short spurts. This counts.

That's all play. He's using every muscle to focus on that thing. So that's

really using his energy. And then bang, he'll go after it. Let him stay down for

30 seconds.

Then start again. Until the last time that he hits that down position, you

know. His breathing is heavy.

He's like, you've gone boil, simmer, boil, simmer. He's hunted. He's

He is now ready to go into grooming and sleeping. You can then take a walk.

On cue, there's our boy Bowie. Perfect opportunity to have the family see him

this state.

Grain out that energy, and he is a normal cat. Now they know the standards

they've got to live up to when I leave.

Such a good boy.

The last time I was here, Stuart was very clear, very honest. He was just

away from rehoming Bowie. I want to check in with Stuart. How are you

feeling about this whole process?

I am committed to the long term.

I think there will be levels of frustration along the way. Yeah. But

here for good. It makes me really happy. When Jackson first arrived, Bowie was

on his way out the door, but no.

We better understand him as our little boy cat. I think that's given us real

empathy into why he's behaved in the ways that he has done in the past, and

certainly a lot more emotionally invested.

All right, you guys got this.

Bowie and you guys are going to grow up and be very happy. I just know it. The

great thing here is that we caught this just in time, before Bowie got kicked

out of this house, just in time before both Aurora and Athena became scared of

cats for the rest of their lives.

Man, now we have a foundation to build a friendship on. Thank you so much. Of

course. Thank you. My pleasure, guys.

Bye, guys.

Bye. You know, before we embarked on this journey with Jackson, we weren't

about the future of Bowie.

We have learned so much, and he's not perfect, and I'm not going to expect

perfection. I'm going to let Bowie be Bowie and help Bowie be a kitten.

There's pee on my counter, and it's disgusting.

So I'm here for my third visit with Difty Rose and Bandit. Now, the last

was here, Jeanne almost convinced me that things were getting worse, even

they were clearly getting better.

I'm hoping today that I'm seeing a self -assured family, and they're not going

to sink in to a reality that just leads to more plastic.

How are we feeling?

Feeling very good. She's been happy.

I can see that. It's been happy.

She's been a lot more happy. She's happy, everybody.

Good. I'm pretty stoked. And honestly, I want to get right to it. I want to grab

your video homework and let's start going through it. Okay, so we are

deterrents and moving them now to a new spot to, again, try and keep any feral

cats.

Since these guys rotated their deterrents, really just fortified the

around here, made sure that they were covering every possible entrance and

point for the ferals, nothing. No cats, and that's important around here,

because Gypsy Rose and Bandit were dealing with incredible amounts of

from the barbarians at the gate. And now that we've driven them back from the

gate... They can breathe, and they can exist around one another and not

their aggression or their insecurities on one another or on the house.

Ah, the big one. So far, the counters have been clean, but... This morning, I

just caught my eye, and this is an area in which Gypsy Rose has been caught

spraying the backside of my counter.

Oh, boy.

This morning... Just caught my eye.

And this is the area in which Gypsy Rose has been caught spraying the backside

of my counter.

Did you put out the deterrent before or after that pee happened? It happened

before. It would make sense. Of course, the less we have feral cats closing the

boundaries in on this house, the less these cats are going to pee around the

house since the deterrents went up.

Nothing. She's been...

Itching, and now she feels that she's ready to do this. I mean, just hands

the best part about video homework is it's Jianne. She is so happy.

Yay!

First of all, props.

I mean, I know it took a lot. It took a lot to get all of this plastic away,

really start embracing this moment.

Literally from one day to the next, there was a change.

In the middle of talking to this family, in comes Bandit, and he's just

strutting around the house. Look at that. Look at that cat.

Mm -hmm.

He's taking ownership of his home.

Good boy.

Bandit and Gypsy Rose progress makes me feel pretty great. The confidence level

of these cats is pretty demonstrative right now. We got one thing left, and

is the forbidden zone.

I gave these guys very clear guidelines. If the cats haven't peed somewhere in a

week to two weeks, Off comes the plastic. Now, it's been 10 days since

accident happened, and I'm not going to call it a problem because it never

happened again.

So get the plastic off.

Okay, let's go. Come on, honey, because you two have to do a lot of cleaning.

Ready? Do it, do it, do it. Yes, clean.

You know, I'm not just watching a moment with this family reclaiming their

house. I'm part of it. I'm really happy right now. I feel like I've invested a

lot in this home with this family. Come on over here. I want to sit.

My counter's back!

I think I was just so excited that when I saw my counter all nice and clean, I

was like, yes!

And I rubbed it, and I didn't want to hug it.

Got your house back. Got your house back.

Very nice.

And your mother.

And your mother. Don't forget that part.

It's all about relationships in this house. The cats now have one, where they

really didn't have one before. The humans have a better one now that the

have figured theirs out.

Oh, what is that?

I'm glad the family can see this. This is what their life is now. They know

their territory is safe from outside forces.

Call me if you need me, guys, okay?

Thank you so much.

Take care.

Bye. Bye.

Coming through this journey from beginning to end wasn't just about the

was about the dynamics of us as a family, too, as a whole, incorporating

cats. Jackson helped us to get to this moment, and I think me and my mom now

really enjoy each other's company more.