Original subtitles

Big kitty, no. We call Pickles bad kitty because he is forever attacking us and

scratching us.

Oh my God, look at my arm. I am concerned for my children's safety.

If bad kitty does not get any better, I'm going to have to find a

childless home for him to go to.

Daniel and Lucifer. They're obsessed with their food. They're obsessed with

people food.

No! I've woken up in the middle of the night to find the gas on. Woken up in

middle of the night to find a flame on.

I think our cats might be trying to kill us.

Charlie crawled in the kennel with him.

No. And then I was able to get him out and then medicate him.

Cats don't do that. Charlie is the foster dad.

He's so stinking adorable.

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 is Jennifer, and I have my daughters, Alexis and Abigail.

We have a two -year -old cat named Pickle, but we call him Bad Kitty. Bad

the mommy loves you.

My daughters, they wanted a little kitten to love. They got Bad Kitty.

Ow!

Ow!

His attacks are random.

He tends to come out of hiding and pounce on us when we least expect it.

He literally will come at you.

Poor blood.

Abigail is terrified of Bad Kitty. She asks me to carry her down the hallway

because she is afraid of the attack.

I'm really scared of Bad Kitty.

I am concerned for my children's safety.

I wish I could cuddle with Bad Kitty.

If Bad Kitty does not.

get any better, I'm going to have to find a childless home for him to go to.

And I don't want to do that.

I am praying that Jackson can do something for this cat.

Jackson,

please come help us.

Isn't that nice?

Nice to meet you. I'm Jennifer. Hey, Jennifer.

Hi, how are you? I'm Alexis.

Hey, Alexis. What's your name?

Abigail.

Good to meet you, Abigail.

Okay, and what is the situation?

Pickle's bad kitty.

Pickle's bad kitty. All right. How long was it before you guys started getting

beat up? It was pretty immediate.

It's more of my mom than anyone, actually. It really is. Oh.

He hates me.

Don't you dare.

Ow! You little...

I am. You look pretty decently beat up.

I am. He doesn't attack me as much as everyone else. Why? Because I wasn't as

all up on him as everyone else was when we first got him. Where everybody else

is getting beat up.

It's always her. It's always me. Or Abigail.

And are you afraid of him?

No. Well, that's not fun. Sometimes when he lays down and I walk past him, he

gets his claws out and does that.

And when he does that, does he actually get you? Yep. Does he make you bleed?

He does?

You know, what's going on is pretty serious.

I mean, Jennifer is all marked up, but we have a six -year -old child.

It's really a powder keg in this house, and I've got to make sure it doesn't go

off.

But you still like cats.

Okay. My mom had a surprise for me, and it was a new kitten.

What?

You're kidding me. You have a new kitten?

Mm -hmm.

When did you get a kitten?

Last week. Oh, my God.

Okay. She desperately wanted a kitten. She was crying. I don't know why Bear

Kitty hates me.

So I got a little kitty.

And what's his name?

Simba. Simba. Sure, I get it.

Abigail loves animals. She loves cats. She would love to have a kitten that she

could love and hug and everything. But it's almost like, this one's broken. I

want a new one. It's a cat, not a toy.

Does he spend time outside?

He does. He did get attacked once.

Really bad. Really bad.

By what?

We think a hawk. Wow.

He had this wound, and it had opened up, and it was a huge abscess. So the vet

said it looked like a hawk tried to scoop him up.

You've spent more than five minutes with me, you know how I feel about cats that

go outside. I don't like it. I think that cats will live longer inside, and

Pickles is proof.

He came within an inch of being hawk food.

I don't like letting him out at all. But once he goes outside and releases some

energy, then he comes back very calm.

He's only outside for like ten minutes. Ten minutes? Yeah. I tried very hard for

a while to keep him indoors, but if I did not let him out, we all suffered the

consequences.

I want to do a quick walk around. Okay. And let's go to the hallway.

So, Abigail, where does he usually hang out and wait for you? He stays right

here, and when I have to go to the bathroom in the night, he attacks me.

You be him, and I'll be you. So if I'm you, and I'm walking down here,

I'm Abigail. Ow!

Bad kitty!

Right now I'm hearing about what could be play aggression, which is when

hides and he goes after people's fingers and ankles.

Okay, so down here we have baby Simba. Yeah.

Hello, baby Simba. I mean, even though Simba's a really cool dude, he's still

got claws and teeth.

So, Abigail, I would start being a little careful with your friend there.

Abigail.

And Simba, and handling Simba like he's a toy or a doll.

I see that a lot with kids. It is a bad way to start a kitten's life. And

honestly, Abigail's old enough to know these lessons, and Jennifer's got to

teach those lessons.

So, is he more relaxed out here? Yeah.

So, coming out here, it's almost like he's like, I can breathe. Yeah. And then

he comes back in, and he's in a different state.

Yeah. Pickles finds solace being outside, but I don't know what to tell

guys. I don't want to tell them to just lock him inside because that could kick

up the aggression in a big way. At the same time, when he's out here, he could

be hawk food.

It's a really bad place to be.

Where is Pickles right now? In the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom.

I'm just trying to get a read on this cat.

I mean, he's been pretty much MIA all day, so I do want to get some

from him. I do want to overstimulate him a little bit if I can, but in a gentle

way. Listen, I'm just going to mess with you a little bit, okay?

Got that tail going.

Got that tail going.

You know, there's surefire ways to get a cat a little bit off their game. You

know, you touch their paws, touch the tummy, but right now I'm getting

Are you annoyed?

Are you going to beat me up?

Are you going to beat me up?

No, I like that bracelet.

I mean, he's obviously annoyed with me. He just doesn't want to act on it.

Hey, Jennifer?

Yeah? Will you come here? The cat that I'm working with right now is not the

that's been described to me. So I want to get Jennifer in here right now and

what she can get done.

Hi there, kitty.

Now, when Jennifer goes in, she's moving with fear.

She's not trusting him.

Just let mommy pet you. I just want to... Ow!

No!

I just want to pet you.

Ow!

Just let mommy pet

you. I just want to... Ow! Ow!

When Jennifer goes in, he just goes for her. Ow!

No. This is the bad kitty that was described to me.

Look at that.

Dude. That tells me that the relationship between he and Jennifer is

part of the problem here.

God, I'm good.

Okay, enough. Enough.

Today, for Jackson's visit, bad kitty did not bite him. I definitely would

have been able to touch bad kitty like that.

I truly believe it's me. I think that bad kitty just is angry with me for some

reason. I don't know why.

I mean, what you got from Pickles versus what I got from Pickles, basically, I

got Pickles, you got Bad Kitty. Which does lead me to believe there's

that you're doing here that's contributing to the problem.

So, homework time. The most important thing that we can do right now is

additional reconnaissance.

So what we're going to do, this is the Jennifer cam.

This, I want you to have with you at all times. I mean, because there's got to

be a reason why you're getting beat up more than anybody else.

Jennifer's got a pretty specific piece of this homework.

She's the one who gets beat up more than anyone else. So it's time for her to

take a good look at herself.

Now, outside.

You've said, when he comes back inside after he's been outside, he's chill. If

tell you right now, keep that cat inside.

I'm afraid of making things worse in here.

Keep him in his current routine.

That'll work for now.

Right. I normally wouldn't even entertain the idea of a cat being

without a harness or without an enclosure.

But Jennifer keeps one eye on a cat at all times. In ten minutes, he's back in.

I'm forced to break my own rules and to allow them to continue to let Pickles

outside. I've got some tricks I can pull out of my sleeve later, but for right

now, I just don't want to rock the boat.

Last point here.

You are really important, and I think that we need to have you start teaching

Abigail that hands aren't toys, right? I want you to use toys like this toy

here. You are officially a cat play queen.

I need Abigail to learn safe handling techniques when it comes to the cats.

Never too young to learn an empathetic approach to guardianship. I will be back

in a few weeks, and we will figure out.

Pickles, bad kitty.

And get them to meet in the middle, okay? Good. Thank you. All right, guys.

looking forward to the next visit. I am hoping that pickles will show

improvement.

I'm Anna. I'm Ben.

And we live with our three adoptive cats, Charles, Daniel, and Lucifer, who

call Luke. We love our cats. They're three of the best cats, but they're all

obsessed with Luke.

Hey.

They're obsessed with their food. They're obsessed with people food.

obsessed with eating things that aren't food.

Daniel was adopted from a high -kill shelter.

Lucifer, we found in the front yard. We sort of fell in love with him and

decided to make him a permanent part of the family.

Once we brought Luke inside, we found out that... Maybe just because he was

almost feral, but he's obsessed with food and wants to eat anything he can

the time. Lucifer started this just during feeding time, but it's progressed

the point where he was stealing food from the cabinets, going and fishing

out of the garbage disposal, bullying us off of our food.

We pretty much just can never have food around when he's around. So we have to

put him away in another room if we're going to cook food, if we're going to

home with groceries.

I was cooking once, pulling things in and out of the fridge, and turned around

to the stove. About 15 seconds later, I hear this meowing coming from the

fridge. Sure enough, it's in the fridge.

Every little thing that we do is affected by this.

It's too much to manage to a T, and there will be mistakes.

We need Jackson's help, because my cats are my babies, to think about...

something potentially happening to them that I could have prevented or changed,

I would never, never forgive myself.

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

Anna, nice to meet you. Hi, Ben. Hey, Ben. Sit down. All right.

Who's this?

That's Daniel.

Hi, Daniel.

So in general, what's going on with Lucifer? We are dealing with a case of

obsession, sometimes bordering on food aggression. Because he'll eat everybody

else's food. Oh, yeah. You guys found him?

We have been doing a number of PNR work for the neighborhood.

Are you guys been trapping around the neighborhood?

Yeah. So we have... Yeah, maybe.

TNR, or Trap New to Return, is proven to be the only humane solution for the

feral cat overpopulation crisis that right now we're in the middle of. He was

almost feral. He just came from outside where he was eating whatever he could

find. Is he the one who's the more aggressive? Yeah, he just wants to eat

everything all the time. So anything he can get to in the cabinet, he'll find it

in the cabinet and pull it out. So we have child locks on all the cabinets.

Well, so I worry about them getting into things that...

are either poisonous or going to be bad for them. Daniel will chew on and ingest

anything made of rubber, wires.

Has he been hospitalized at any point for it? Yes. He had a surgery to have a

toy removed.

We had to rush him to an emergency surgery to the tune of $4 ,000.

It's one of my worst nightmares that one of my animals... would be exhibiting

some kind of distress, and $4 ,000 later, there's the toy inside the cat.

a big problem, man, and he could have died.

They don't seem to have a fear of open flame.

I've woken up in the middle of the night to find a gas on.

Whoa. I've woken up in the middle of the night to find a flame on. Wow.

I think our cats might be trying to kill us.

What a terrifying concept to wake up in the middle of the night with the gas on

or an open flame.

Or something worse could happen because these cats aren't afraid of open flames.

So we have since child -proofed our... Okay, we've done that too.

We just don't leave anything out. Everything's locked up all the time. So

we're cooking, we either have to lock them away or be guarding everything all

the time. It's just incessant. We've gotten to this place where it's just so

frustrating because...

We feel like we've done everything we can possibly do, and we still have that

fear of making a mistake.

Anna and Ben have done a lot. They make changes every time their cats show a

little bit of ingenuity. They slam it down, but they can't get ahead of the

game. I want you guys to go through your normal feeding routine with the

exception that we're not going to separate the cats. All right. We just

them all eating in the same place at the same time so I can see how bad it

actually can get.

Oh, wow.

Now, of course, as you're doing this,

They are all over the stove.

Luke, Luke.

Wow. Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me right now? It's like these cats have

been starving for a week. They just charge the cabinets. They're not dainty

about anything.

All three of your cats have serious...

Food drives.

Let me tell you something. I've dealt with a lot of food aggression, a lot of

food obsessions and cats, but I've never felt as bad for a couple of guardians

as these guys because Ben and Anna, although they're committed to solving

problem here, you can tell they're at their wits' end.

Let's just say I'm a friend coming over here and we're going to have a snack

together. Do you have something you could break out, like some food? Human?

Food. These cats literally just ate, so they shouldn't be hungry. But I'm going

to bait them with some food so I can see firsthand the extent of their food

obsession. Uh -oh.

And Daniel is on it.

All right, Danny.

Wow. Holy.

And Daniel is on it.

All right, Danny.

Wow.

Holy.

Basically, it was just an example of what we go through in our daily life.

Stolen food, destroyed toys, broken dreams.

So many broken dreams.

Damn.

Hey, hey, hey.

He was going to take a finger with the chip. I dare you to try and take it away

from him. Oh, yeah?

Just like that, like a steam shovel or like a T -Rex. He comes in and just

obliterates four or five chips. Never. I've never seen that before. I almost

fell out of my chair, man. That was crazy looking. So I want to take this

opportunity to just hang out with him a little bit. All right.

Food can't be the be -all and end -all if you're a cat. The process of securing

food, that is the be -all end -all. I want to see if these guys have that

connection to their raw cat, to their instincts. If I can get these cats as

interested in hunting and playing as they are with the act of eating, I got a

leg to stand on. Otherwise, I got nothing.

Wow.

You are born to do this. They are.

obsessed with hunting. I mean, they're going after the toy with the same kind

veracity as they went for the food. The raw cat is blossoming out of all free

cats.

Seriously? That's really cool, though.

Well, Lucifer, the good news is that Luke is like, I want that toy. I want

bird, and you can hang on to the treats for now. I'll come back for that.

That's what we wanted, because it gives me an approach, an in to their life that

I didn't have before. I want to remove...

The perception that you're powerless.

Your cats, and this is all of them, not just Luke, are incredibly wonderful,

what I call raw cats.

they are in touch with their hunters, right? They look like wild cats when

are following a toy.

Now, the very beginning of your homework is going to be speaking to the raw cat.

They're eating dry food right now. I want you to start making the transition

a raw diet. I think that that's really going to satisfy them in a way that

they're not being satisfied.

You can buy raw food at a lot of different pet stores. They come frozen,

thaw them out, and there you have raw meat with the supplements that cats

and it's great that that's available.

One other thing I want you to change is I want you to institute what are called

slow feeder bowls.

Slow feeder bowls are bowls that have bumps in them, little walls, things like

that. It's going to force Luke to slow down his eating. I don't want you to

to separate these guys during feeding. I don't think there's any reason that you

would have to if they're all eating at a normal pace.

Because they're slowing the process down of chewing and swallowing, their body

can register feeling full, and that compulsion has a chance to be a little

mellowed out.

Your next piece of homework is what I call the three R's. And three R's are

routine, ritual, rhythm.

So the idea is that when you have a routine around feeding, and that becomes

ritual. And those rituals repeated day after day become their rhythm. Hunt,

catch, kill, eat. This is my life. This is what I've got to do.

Play is going to become a precursor to the meal.

We have to get them tired.

Seeing that these three cats will choose the hunt over the kill tells me that if

we institute playtime before meals, we can get something very natural out of

their system so that the eating itself is not so desperate and frenetic. One

more piece of homework.

Well, we're going to use deterrents. So there are remote deterrents that you put

up, and I just want them up when you're not in the room. So you set up these

little air canisters so as soon as they jump up on that counter, and then down

they go.

Any place where there is food, there's going to be a little blaster. Have you

tried it before? No, but I love this idea.

I've never heard of this.

Yes. Now, clearly, the countertops are a problem in this house. By using the

deterrent, we're letting them know this is not the best place for you to go.

Not, we the humans shall punish you, but the space itself doesn't want you

there. Keep your heads up, small steps, but I've got a feeling we're going to

start getting a little bit of a handle on this thing, and hopefully the cats

won't eat the handle. We're definitely committed to the homework and to making

it work because there is no other alternative for us right now.

I will be back in a few weeks. The homework that Jackson gave us can help

make some progress, and we're ready to try it. All right, bye, guys. Bye.

Pickle, the mommy's not coming.

No. Ow.

The last time I was in New Jersey visiting Jennifer's family and their cat

Pickles. Bad kitty. Also known as Bad Kitty.

I met a cat who pretty much left me alone. You gonna get me? But really tore

into his guardian every time she tried to pet him. Ow!

Look at that.

Hi. Hi.

Come on in.

How have things been going?

Oh, not bad. How was he after I left? He was his normal...

Okay,

so I think first the best thing for us to do is to go through your video

homework. Okay.

Big kitty.

I'm having a tough time looking at Pickle's behavior outdoors. It's the

conundrum with the indoor -outdoor thing. Big kitty, you want to come in?

Yeah. But in this case, what I do like is that the second he gets outside, his

body changes.

And he becomes much more relaxed.

So that was good footage. I like that.

Good. Looks like Abigail has her cat toy.

And now she doesn't. Did you find that you were having to just stay on top of

her at all times? Yeah.

So did that make you more aware of how her relationship really is with him?

Yeah. Get down.

What in the hell? Get down.

I'm scared.

I'll help you.

No. Can you please just get him off the bed?

What are you doing?

Are you?

Come here. Come here.

Come on.

No. Come on. Get off the bed.

Come on. Get off the bed.

Off the bed. Wow.

Good boy.

Let's go back. So we walk in here.

His tail is still.

Nothing's going on. His body is somewhat relaxed.

He's not in attack mode at all. No.

He's pointing at Abigail going, what's going on here?

So I want to know.

What scared her in that moment?

Can we get her in here?

He's not putting out something that she should be screaming about. I'm looking

at body language that's just not saying, I'm going to kill you. And clearly,

Abigail is misinterpreting his signals.

We are all really curious.

I'm watching your homework.

What happened right before your mom walked in?

Bad kitty came on the bed and started attacking my feet.

You were just laying on the bed, he came up there and started attacking you? Um,

when I start moving my feet, he attacks them.

Aha!

Okay, we've got feet down there, and he saw it as a toy, and he swiped, and she

got overly scared.

That's a lot different from, I sat on my bed and he attacked me and chased me up

on the desk.

Come on, we love you.

Jennifer? Strike one.

Is this normal too? Yeah.

Ow!

Ow. Strike two.

Look at you.

No. Strike four. Strike seven. Strike eight. Come on, Jennifer. There's got to

be a moment where you stop striking out. Just let mommy pet you. I just want

to... Ow!

Ow!

He is being really communicative right now. Look, his ears are going backwards.

He's totally defensive.

His tail is whipping all over the place. He might as well have a big neon sign

over his head saying, don't touch. Right? And then what happens?

I continue.

And you're going again.

What are you trying to accomplish here? I just, because he let me pet him once.

Gotcha. You know?

Famous last words.

Just let mommy pet you.

Part of the reason that I show this video homework to my clients is to hold

very big mirror up to their behavior, not their cat's behavior.

And I think Jennifer is getting it. She's seeing how, in a consistent way,

they're asking for it. And they're getting it.

In the meantime, our other friend just came out.

Hi, Tickles.

I just want you to be really hyper aware of everything you're getting body

language from him right now. So, Abigail, we're in school right now,

want to teach you everything you need to know about your boy, okay?

Right now.

What do you think?

I think he's nervous.

Okay. What are you seeing that tells you that?

Well, he's staring with big eyes, like on guard.

Also... Ears?

No, you're missing the big ones. The tail.

He talks very loudly with his tail.

Anytime that his tail is twitching like that, he's letting you know that he's

getting agitated.

Pickle is predictably overstimulatable.

And he does have a short fuse. But you can still respect that short fuse

walking on eggshells. Notice that he's sitting there.

He's super relaxed right now. So that's really good news. In the meantime...

I can tell you that no matter how relaxed he is at the moment, if you were

over there and do your whole I want you to love on me thing, you're going to get

it.

I'm hoping Jennifer gets it by now. Between everything I've told her,

she's witnessed, the video homework, watching herself, that she is definitely

part of the problem here, a big part of the problem.

If she doesn't get it, I don't see any changes happening here.

So. Bad kitty's on you a little bit. We can keep calling him bad kitty, but we

can stop setting him up and don't want to come back here next time knowing that

he's not being given the opportunity to clear his name.

No. Homework time.

Right. We've set up this expectation that when you or Abigail come around,

you're going to be seeking something from him, and he immediately starts

shrinking back.

So the first piece of homework we'll call love from afar.

Okay. Over the next two weeks, no touch.

Okay. No petting. No going after him. If he wants to pet you, he will. Okay. I

do not want to see any more footage of Jennifer diving in for attention and

saying, just love mommy or anything like that. Hands off. Just like any other

relationship, you've got to respect your other's boundaries.

I think the family is convinced that the way to interact with a cat, period, is

through loving and touching, especially with Abigail.

Encourage the toy.

Discourage the pet pet. The other thing I want these guys to do in terms of

overstimulation is daily play therapy.

He's got to get that energy out of his body one way or another.

You can either do it appropriately or you can get hurt.

Now, moving on. Seeing Pickles outside, we saw in the video that relaxed,

present body language of a cat in his element doing his thing that you almost

never see in the house. Right. So what I'm going to do is hook you up with a

friends of mine. We're going to set up a catio for you. Okay.

If we want to address Pickles' overstimulation problem, the first thing

got to do is ritualize his daily experience so that his body is expecting

stimulation at certain times and he's not seeking it in inappropriate times.

Okay, cool.

All right, let's go back in. I learned today that we are a lot of the cause of

bad kitty's behavior.

It makes me feel terrible. I am hoping the homework that Jackson has put in

place will help me help Pickles.

He just wants to eat everything all the time.

Woken up in the middle of the night to find a flame on. I think our cats might

be trying to kill us.

So I'm here for my second visit with Ben and Anna and their cats, obsessed with

putting anything in their mouth, whether it be food or otherwise.

Hopefully we are moving from much mania to a measure of civility. We'll see.

Hello. Hello.

Come on in.

How have things been with you guys?

Things have been okay.

Yeah. Work in progress.

You had to do that look.

Let's go through your video homework because I know you guys have a lot of...

Tough to show me.

Luke has already destroyed three of these fishing line toys.

You got a simmer, buddy.

Yeah,

baby.

You don't get any more raw than that, man.

This is my kill.

That is fantastic.

This is what we want from these cats.

Their behavior is extreme behavior of what I call the raw cat, the natural

the ancestral cat. That's what Luke is doing. And now he's got it channeled

the right place.

Okay, so moving on.

Hey, so I got these super cool deterrent thingies. I'm going to put it over here

by the sink.

Oh, there you go.

Deterrents, I think, are working.

There you go.

So here's some raw food that I warmed up, and I'm going to put it in these

-feeding bowls.

We're still having challenges feeding them all together.

Okay, so that's interesting.

I mean, we've got one, two, three bowls, and one, two, and three cats

triangulating one bowl with slow -feeder bowls. They don't look like they're all

that slow -feedy.

I asked these guys to get slow feeder bowls to help slow the cats down from

eating. What they got, I don't know what you want to call it, but it wasn't what

I wanted. The other thing that I would recommend, let's put all three bowls in

the same socially significant area so they can see. They can look over to the

other guy, eh, he's got what I got.

What I want to do is a feeding exercise because I want to bring in the right

slow feeder to show you what's possible.

Oh, they'll eat.

I think it's really important that I observe the feeding exercises today

I want to introduce an actual slow feeding bowl to show them the effect of

slowing down a cat's eating. So with this bowl, we've got a big hole here,

all it is is a recipe for mess.

This is a true slow feeding bowl. The thing that you want to do is do your

to smush it up against the ridges. So we want to do something like that. I want

one of you guys to take over for me. All right.

Go for it. Now, the cool thing about using bowls like this, other than the

obvious that they slow down, is also the natural aspect of problem solving. That

cats who are indoors all the time actually lose that ability to solve

around their food. So this actually also, just with the play, helps them get

touch with raw cats.

Okay, so let's place these down here. We got the raw food out. It is pasted up

against the walls of these slow feeders. They're put in the right place at the

right time. It is time now to free the beast.

And please let this go well.

Okay, here we go.

Oh, and here we go.

Here we go, cats.

Oh, come on, Luke.

Okay, here we go.

Oh, and here we go.

Here we go, cats.

Nice going, guys.

There we go.

Perfect. Do you see how slow mealtime is at the moment?

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Do you notice that nobody's hopping from bowl to bowl?

They can't really go after each other's food. They're focused on getting the

food out of their bowl.

Good job, dude.

Yay, civilized mealtime. Yay.

All right, guys. Everything here is set up. Cats aren't calling the shots

anymore around here. The humans are laying down the rhythm of this

not the cats. This is the way it should be.

Thank you so much. It's been a lot of work, but we're putting in the effort,

putting in the time, because we love our cats more than anything.

I'm in New York, New York, to meet up with Chandler and her cat, Charlie. Now,

Charlie found his calling, and that calling has saved the lives of countless

other kittens. Can't wait to meet these guys.

Hey. Hi. How are you?

Give me a hug. How are you doing? Good. How are you? I'm doing great.

Charlie. Hey, Charlie.

Hi.

Hey, Charlie, my city boy. Hi.

Time to get kisses.

Oh, my God, he's so stinking adorable.

I'm Chandler, and I have a precious cat named Charlie. He's very sweet, he's

incredibly loving, and he helps me foster and rehabilitate kittens here in

York. You've been fostering for... My whole life.

Really? I hooked up with the AFPCA. You remember the first foster you did for

the AFPCA?

Yes. Bitsy and Jitterbug. They were probably about eight or nine weeks.

kept them separate at first, but Charlie was really interested in meeting them,

so I kind of opened the door to the bathroom, and he just started bathing

cleaning them, cuddling them.

Right off the bat. Right off the bat.

Wow. We had a foster named Boing who wouldn't let me anywhere near him. He

terrified of people.

He hissed at me. He spit at me. He wouldn't leave his carrier.

But I needed to medicate him. Charlie crawled in the kennel with him. No.

Bathe, boing, and then I was able to get him out, medicate him, and then I just

put him right back in with Charlie.

I think it's amazing that Charlie is providing the service, basically.

is a foster dad.

He is providing a role model for little kittens to follow.

Having a cat like Charlie around to teach, but only a cat can teach another

That's gold. Do you usually do kittens? A lot of times ASPCA will give us

animals that they're special needs or they need socialization.

And he's a huge help. Do they actually give you cats at this point where they

know? Yeah, these are Charlie cats here.

There's like a Charlie wait list. That's amazing, man.

Special needs kittens are usually the last ones who get adopted. So Chandler

makes sure that she and Charlie take the kittens that need them the most, and

then she makes sure that those guys get a home. How many?

Kittens have you fostered over the years? At this point, we've fostered

30. Wow.

Yeah. We're dealing with a New York apartment.

I mean, there's not a lot of room here. Chandler and Charlie are knocking the

foster game out of the park. These guys have had over 30 special needs cats come

on through here. Those guys would have had a really hard time finding a home.

don't have kittens here, do we?

We do have kittens here. Lucy is about four or five months.

Okay. And we just got Patty, who is 10 weeks.

They are like last night.

Have they met even?

No. Patty is completely blind, so that's going to be, that could be touch and

go. Well, this is actually a really good opportunity. This couldn't be any

better. A blind kitten who has never met Charlie before. So I get to see the

whole beginning of this storied relationship right here, right now.

Who is that?

So look, they're just meeting for the first time, and Charlie's going right in

for it. And Patty seems totally cool.

Oh, I hope this is.

So this is really interesting.

Even though she just pushed his head out of a food dish, he grooms her and just

walks away.

Charlie is allowing Patty to push his head out of a food bowl. What does he

He cleans her head and he walks away.

You know what? You take my main resource that secures my territory. I'll go over

here. Cats don't do that. You've got a really special cat.

That makes my heart happy. Without Charlie's help, fostering would be much

difficult. He really is.

An angel. Bye -bye, Mr. Charlie.

Goodbye, little kittens. You're in good paws and good hands.

Here's a way to make a huge difference for the animals in your community.

a foster parent. Go to thejacksongalaxyproject .org to find out

something, because every something you do saves somebody.

Big kitty, no.

Ow!

Ow!

Someone.

We're going into my third visit with Jennifer and her kids and, of course,

Pickles, a .k .a. Bad Kitty.

Just let Mommy pet you. I just want to... Ow!

Now, the last time I was here, I was really seeing a pattern of

in the form of unwanted petting. If Jennifer hasn't been petting Pickles all

time, she should have some success here.

Hey, you know what? Before I sit down, did you guys get the catio done? Yeah.

Can we go? Absolutely.

Yeah!

Yeah!

That's a catio.

That's fantastic, man.

That works exactly as I had pictured it in my mind. Right. Got this whole thing

here, so if he ever tries to crawl out, which I'm sure he won't, but bye -bye.

He falls right down.

One of the things that makes the fence work is that it's curved at a 45 -degree

angle, so when the cat looks up, they know they can't get out. But if they do

try, it sort of collapses in on them with that curved section.

We also have fishing line going across the top of the catio to keep the hawks

out. I mean, really, everything is just as I was hoping.

Has he been taken to it?

Yeah, it's been good. We'll go around the center side, he loves.

I love because I feel he's very safe in it. And this is all he likes to do.

Pickles.

He seems happy when he comes in from outside.

Good. I mean, you notice a little bit less of the craziness. Much less.

Yep. Here we go.

Very nice. All right. Well, it looks like the guys from Perfect Fence knocked

out of the park again.

Yep. Just by giving Pickles a ritualized date gave him an outlet for his energy.

Easy fix.

Let's go back in and check in on your video. Okay.

Let's do this.

What, pickles?

What?

Want some lovins?

We're two seconds into this, Jennifer.

The two -week no touch.

It didn't work, huh? I mean...

What, pickle?

What?

Want some lovin'? We're two seconds into this, Jennifer.

He wanted me to pet him. Fail, Jennifer.

Fail. I mean, if I can keep your youngest child from doing this, it's got

start with you.

No.

It looks like in the video, Abigail totally understands now that play looks

this. And that's a big deal because it's so great to see her have those nice

moments with him.

Do you feel better with him?

Yes. Good.

It's so good to see you laughing with him instead of crying.

The last time I was watching homework, I was watching Abigail sitting on the top

of a roll -top desk screaming.

That's gone.

It's a child on her bed with a cat playing with him.

Score. Do you feel like you recognize what it is that gets Pickles into

the bad kitty place?

I do. Too much hands -on, too much affection and attention. He doesn't like

that. Good. And there's our boy, Mr. Pickles.

Excuse me.

I'm sitting on the couch talking to the family, and there's Pickles. Look at

that. That is so lovey.

Just hanging out with Pickles is such a wonderful change.

He's so much more at ease with his surroundings. The cat hug is when he

his belly like this.

It's their way of saying that I trust you. It's a cat hug.

All cats want to be able to come to you and explore you. With Pickles, it's just

that much more important, and now we have proof.

Goodbye. Thank you.

Oh, I get the biggest hug in the world. Yay!

Thank you. I am so grateful to Jackson.

I cannot believe how much Pickles has changed over the past month. When I

Jackson to help me, it was because I was on the verge of looking for another

home for him. And now Pickles is here to stay.

Oh my God, he's letting you pet him.

This is so good.