Original subtitles

Dale pretty much will pee or spray by every doorway into the house.

He's marked on furniture, our sofas, our bed.

I'm happy.

Adoption counselor is something I've had to help hundreds of families deal with,

and nothing is working.

Valo was diagnosed with diabetes.

He eats ham, bacon, beef, and lasagna. I cannot say no to him. He is different.

Valo, please move me. I need to pee.

Jackson, believe me. He tells me things. No, I don't believe you. I'm looking at

this, and I'm doubting what you're saying. He just looks like a cat sitting

the ground.

This is? This is Meatwad.

Star of the show.

Cafe star Meatwad.

Meatwad. Can I get some coffee?

Absolutely. We've got donuts. We've got everything that you could possibly want

here. Come on. I mean, I could live here.

Whoa.

Holy. I'm Jackson Galaxy. What the hell, man?

The animal behavior.

The guardians call, and 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.

I'm Sarah.

And I'm Tim.

We've been married for five years.

I work for Philadelphia's largest no -kill facility.

We have five wonderful rescue cats.

Squeaky.

Hot girl.

Four of our cats we have zero issues with. Our fifth, Dale, is our problem

child.

I just caught him. He peed on the couch.

He's running around the house, spraying and marking.

We're going to be doing this for the rest of our lives.

Dale pretty much will pee or spray by every doorway into the house.

marked on furniture, our sofas, our bed.

We are now taking Dale outside on a daily basis on a leash and a harness to

and stop Dale from spraying or peeing around the house, but we have not been

able to fix our problem.

You know, as an adoption counselor, it's something I've had to help hundreds of

families deal with, and nothing is working.

At this point, I think giving him the ability to be an indoor -outdoor cat at

his choosing...

could possibly help with the inappropriate peeing in the house. I do

in letting cats live outside.

In my career, every day I see all of the downsides to allowing a cat to go in

and out of the house at its own free will.

It's just not worth the risk. Anything is worth a shot at this point.

Hey. Hey. How are you? Jackson.

Welcome. So, five cats.

Yes. I'm an adoption counselor and foster coordinator at Philadelphia

Welfare Society, Philadelphia's largest no -fill shelter.

Wow, cool.

All right. Which, of course, explains five cats.

Yes. And foster here, too? Currently, we do not have any, but yes.

Okay. Talk to me about Dale. What are the issues?

Urination and spraying issues.

And when did he start to spray?

Ten months old.

Yeah, he was peeing on our bed, peeing on couches.

It's been happening for over four years.

Okay. As an adoption counselor, to not be able to control it in my own home is

extremely frustrating.

I'm not surprised that Sarah works at a shelter and still is having problems in

her own home. Hey, man, I've had my own problems. When you're working in this

field, you may have a ton of knowledge about other people's cats, but when it's

your own, it's personal.

It's not like you can be your own therapist.

So let's just go through it, the stuff that you've tried.

Working at an animal shelter, if I do come home and I like to take off my

clothes first thing, so I don't smell like a foster.

Also, he is leash and harness trained. He knows some commands.

Clearly, we're not breaking through because he's still spraying and marking.

The discussion has been put on the table about transitioning him to a lifestyle

without the leash and harness. As an indoor -outdoor cat. It's your

I would be okay with that.

No, I'm not okay with that.

My job to also explain to humans about how this should not be an option.

So it's a real touchy play. For the record, I believe the cats should be

indoors. And in an ideal world, we would let them roam.

But it's not ideal. It shortens their lives. And I'm selfish, man.

I want my cats around.

Where's Dale? He's in his room.

He's not up there on timeout or anything.

Since we first got him as a kitten, he's just decided, hey, this is where I go

to sleep because it's been where he's gone since a kitten.

Yeah. I get it. It's his base camp.

Be that as it may, that is a frustration move, not a compassion move, no matter

how you cloak it.

I want to take a look around. I want you to point out all these hot spots, and

then I want to go meet Dale.

Cool. Let's go. All right.

I mean, there's definitely one area here.

I can smell something right now. I was going to say, I bet you can.

Wait, who the hell is that?

That's the neighbor's cat, Juice.

How many cats are there around here?

Three. That hang out in the yard.

Dale gets along with everybody.

He chases Juice out of the yard. That could be a problem. Yeah. Juice and

not best of friends. And it seems like that's the one cat in the area that Dale

has a real serious problem with. So that gives me a hint.

He'll routinely spray along the door frame and sort of this bin.

You can see the base of the door frame there is completely almost ruined at

point. Wow, look at that.

Dale is actually a four -legged textbook.

I mean, he is peeing around windows and doors. And that lets us know that this

is straight -up territorial insecurity.

I smell pee.

Yeah. The stairs is a big pee zone.

There's a lot of Dale's playground up here.

This is a big, happy space for him. Okay, and nobody's peed here?

Nope. I'm discovering that Sarah and Tim have sort of carved out an area for

him. He's got his room, his base camp, where he spends a lot of his time, and

then he's also got his jungle gym. Dale belongs to the upstairs of this house.

Hey, buddy.

Hi, Dale.

He's the sweetest thing in the world.

He's immediately best friends with me. He's rubbing up against me. I'm petting

him. He is just absolutely unstressed.

And that's great to see.

You want to get out of the enclave, don't you?

Don't you?

When it comes to base camps, they are meant to be temporary safe spaces that

eventually be expanded out. But weeks on end, in a room, just because if you let

them out they pee, that's crossing a line in my book.

Let's just get that harness on him and let's get outside.

There's our boy.

There's our boy.

He is freaked out right now. Yep. He definitely is a little more nervous when

he's not in safe spaces. I actually think if I were to get him out that he

calm a little bit. Outside?

Yeah. If you compare Dale to his safe room and the rest of the house, he's

really insecure.

Okay. Okay.

This is usually the first pee in bush.

He likes to run right into it and go to the bathroom.

Are you hunting?

Hey, Dale.

Oh, are you peeing? Is that what you're doing?

The amount that Dale marks out here, it's par for the course for a cat who

threatened. This is what he's supposed to do to delineate his territory from

others. Aw.

Good boy.

Dale starts to settle in. Now I can see the confident Dale reemerge.

Who's that?

Oh, that's Yardley.

That's Yardley? Yeah.

Hello, Yardley.

Is he somebody's cat?

No. He's a community. Like, he doesn't want to live inside. When Sarah and Tim

are talking about community cats, that encompasses the entire population of

cats. That could be Juice, who lives next door. He's a, quote, owned cat, but

he's indoor -outdoor. It could be free -roaming cats. It could be feral cats.

We put them all in one category. They're community cats.

Is it normal for Yardley to be this present during the day?

All day, every day.

So Yardley comes into the backyard, just saunters in, and immediately Dale is

suddenly not the Dale from upstairs.

Clearly agitated, tail whipping around.

He is squirmy. His eyes are huge.

He's freaked out, so he's like, I want to go.

Okay, enough.

Clearly agitated, tail whipping around.

When they're both in the yard, like if they were out here together, there's a

very clear, this is my space and you're getting too close.

And Yardley will sit there and... And he'll pee. Yeah.

Okay, enough.

Well, I've seen and smelled about everything that I could. So, time to

some homework.

trying to apply everything you know to what has been chaos around here, you're

left with things that are not working at all for you. It's like, you know, you

have this book in front of you and your face is just way too close to the page.

What's going on here is perimeter marking.

Juice and Yardley we saw today.

I want to see what else is going on here that would cause that insecurity on

that side, from without.

We can rule out any insecurity stemming from within because I'm telling you, he

gets along just fine with all the other cats in here. First and foremost is the

community cat cam, all right? I'm going to leave you with one of those motion

-activated night vision cameras.

I want you to set it up right outside that door. I want to see a 24 -hour

snapshot.

of who comes and who goes. Okay.

Next thing, indoor -outdoor thing, you guys personify the biggest debate in cat

welfare.

You guys both know that if I told you I don't want him to go outside, you would

have a peace -plosion in here. I mean, it would be awful in here, you know? We

can't do it.

So what I would like you to do instead is I would like you to really start

ritualizing his indoor -outdoor. Take him out on a leash for walks.

So he can start marking other things around here and expand his sense of

territory beyond the backyard.

The leash time should be a designated time so that Dale starts falling into a

rhythm. Because for cats, just like territorial security gives Mojo, so does

predictability to their days.

He's a totally different cat up there from down here.

This whole house should feel like a safe zone to him, and it doesn't, which is

why you get perimeter marking.

Okay. So the thing that I want to do is I want to take his face cam.

I want to explode it out.

In that world that Sarah and Tim made safe for Dale, he feels safe.

The downside of that, he feels safe nowhere else in the house. I want to

all the components that make that world safe for him, start bringing it down

here. So when he comes down here, he's like.

Yeah, that's me.

I own that. That's mine.

Give me a whole new cat, okay?

Thank you so much. All right, guys. It was really upsetting to hear that

a majority of the property that Dale lives in that he's uncomfortable with.

has made me question myself, especially being asked to kind of forget everything

that I have learned about cat behavior.

So I know that it's going to be a challenge for me, but I really, really

help Dale, and we need to help ourselves.

Hi, my name is Nazar, and my cat is Bala.

When I got Bala, I used to hold him with two fingers.

He was like as big as a can of soda.

Now I hold him with two hands.

Basically, he eats non -stop.

That's what he wants. He went to 25 pounds, and he's diabetic.

Bala's doctor told me that he only should have diet food. And as a medical

student, I know that he shouldn't eat all of this.

But I cannot say no to him when he comes for the food because he gave me those

sad eyes.

He just sits there and he keeps, like, moving.

And he, like... So I have just to give it to him.

I have given him spaghetti, salami, ham, bacon,

beef, and lasagna.

Since Bala was diagnosed with diabetes, I give him shots twice a day, every 12

hours, and then feed him.

I know it's my fault that I keep feeding him, but on the other side, I feel like

he just lives once.

So I just want him to enjoy this life.

Bala, you're eating that no matter what? Come on, man. I feel guilty for him

being diabetic.

I need Jackson's help to help me to get him to exercise and to get him to eat

less than what he does now. He's my friend.

He's my emotional supporter.

And I will do anything in my power to keep him safe.

I just can't let him die.

How are you, sweetheart?

He's like, wait, I'll tell you, I'm up in the air.

That's how I'm doing.

Thanks for coming.

What's going on with Bala? Well, Bala eats so much.

Okay, well.

And he wants to go down.

I don't doubt it for a second. How old is he?

He's almost 11. When did he start becoming obese?

When I left him at home going to work and school for 12, 15 hours a day and

him with the food.

You just left food out.

Yeah. Helping himself to it. Yeah. This is one of the reasons why I think free

feeding is just the devil. You don't just leave food out to be eaten. Cats

not scavengers.

They're hunters.

And when you take that hunting out of the picture, not only are you damaging

their body, but their psyche as well.

You know, just watching him walk, it seems like he's starting to get a little

bit in the hips. Yeah.

Bala was diagnosed with Phelan diabetes.

Phelan diabetes is when the body doesn't produce enough insulin.

Right now, I guess he's high on glucose, so that's why I want to check his

glucose right now, because when he gets high on glucose, he starts walking low.

You want to do that right now? Yeah, sure.

I mean, I can't believe I just barely got in the door here and Mazat is

Bala's glucose levels immediately.

There's a part of me that wants to think, well, she's just being paranoid.

And how many times a day do you do this?

As much as he acts weird. Well, he's at 421 right now.

Normal glucose levels for cats hover at around 120.

We're sitting here, and we're at a 420. He's way high.

He's way high, yeah. Sometimes he goes to 600.

He goes to 600?

He goes more than that. Sometimes his machine just shows high.

Oh, my God.

He's way high.

Oh, my God.

That is so unbelievably dangerous. It's kind of a miracle that Balazs is still

with us. Mazat needs to get some insulin in his body right now.

All right, buddy.

Well, come on back over. Let's go sit down and we'll keep talking about what's

happening with our boy here.

There's obviously something much deeper that's causing this relationship to

perpetuate. I feel guilty in every possible way that you can imagine. So

feel guilty if you do feed him, you feel guilty if you don't feed him. If I

don't feed him, I feel guilty that I have left him for hours. There is so

guilt coming off of Masad. It's painful to listen to, let alone live with. And

it's hard to imagine that this relationship has any joy left in it.

What do you want me to do? Make him understand he shouldn't come for food

whenever I have my food because he wants the same food.

So you want me to make him understand?

Jackson, for 10 years I haven't been able to dance.

But, yeah.

I'm hoping you can understand me. I've got to work on you first, then I'll work

on your cat. But I can't just sort of whisper to your cat and say, hey, back

off. I don't have that magical power.

Tell me what you feed him.

I will feed him salami, ham, bacon, beef.

Depends what's on my pizza. Yeah. And then he likes the lasagna.

It's not enough that he doesn't look like Garfield, but you feed him lasagna.

All those things for a diabetic cat are terrible. I know.

We have got an overfed, overweight diabetic cat who is quite literally

loved to death.

Do you consider Bala your soulmate?

Growing up, I needed my mom to be around me, and I didn't

have my mom. Sometimes I wanted the food. Just, you know, every mom makes

and I didn't have that.

And I feel like I owe him that.

My thought is coming to terms, as we sit here, with...

The fact that she has been trying to make room for something in her life that

she's trying to fill with Bala, which is the first step to getting through it.

Oh, see, he's already kind of psyched about this.

Let me see if I can get him moving around a little bit here. Come here,

I need to demonstrate two methods that Bala will play.

Period. And if that's for 20 seconds, it's for 20 seconds. She needs to see

proof of it, and that's really important for her. We wanted to get him to hunt,

and... He is so used to you giving him things that the chasing of things

is not really part of his makeup. There we go. Good boy.

Remember, he's 11 years old. His body is slowing down, but he's still got a

little mischief in him. I need to change things today because the whole

situation, both from a human and animal perspective, is pretty scary.

So the first part of your homework is guilt -free parenting.

Get rid of all of this.

heaviness that sort of defines your relationship with him. Because every

you look at him, you think about what he wants and he's not getting.

Part of being a protective parent is saying no and staying away from guilt at

the same time. I want Masad to realize that love actually means support and

consistency and rituals and actual love.

Our second piece of homework, diet and exercise.

It is important that we start feeding him a bio -appropriate diet.

By bio -appropriate, we're talking about what he would be eating in the wild.

90%, nothing but meat. I'm not talking about meat that you have to take apart.

Keep him away from everything else. It is so important that Massad learn to

Bella through the catkins diet. The catkins diet is playing into cats being

obligate carnivore. They need to be eating meat, meat, and nothing but meat.

The other thing I want you to institute is exercise with him. Now, remember,

play, you want to speak to that little hunter in his head that's there.

Really, like, invest in the play with him because he will do it. Every single

cat has it in their body to hunt and catch and kill and eat. And if Mathod

Bala into that method of waking up in the morning...

and then exercising and then eating. She's regulating his body clock and also

regulating his digestion and the sugar in his system. Why is this making you

sad?

Because he said that Hunter is still there. I felt like he's there and he's

asking for help and I'm ignoring helping him.

You're learning this right now. I'm teaching it to you.

I know. It just bothers me that I know this.

I know this and I...

You can do it.

I'm watching Mazad break down as I'm giving her very obvious information.

There's a good and bad news to that. The bad news is obviously this is hitting

her very hard, but the good news is she was ready to hear it. That means that

real progress can happen.

You've been a wonderful companion to him. It's just you learn as you go

I am committed to do everything for Bala only because he only got me.

I mean, if I don't do it, who's going to do it? And I need to step up because he

needs me.

We're going to be doing this for the rest of our lives.

I'm here to meet up again with Sarah and Tim and their cat, Dale.

Last time I was here, Dale was everywhere.

Vera, as a foster care coordinator, could solve problems at the shelter, but

home, she was too close to the problem to recognize the signs of Dale's

territorial insecurity.

Now, hopefully, with the homework I have assigned, we'll be able to tell if Dale

is insecure about perceived outdoor threats or his lack of indoor space.

How are you feeling? Are you a little more encouraged than when I first met

a couple weeks ago? In the past couple days, there's definitely been some

spraying. A couple of days?

Well, we had a couple really good moments, but then when I... Found the

It just took me so far down.

One look at Sarah's face, and she's defeated.

I can't imagine that it could still be that bad here. I got a feeling that

looking at the homework, I'll be able to judge for myself.

For the last two days, Tim's been taking out Dale on a leash.

We've been working on walking the side yard along the house around mealtime.

This is what I found to be.

Most exciting is that he's been doing a lot of things that we haven't seen him

do.

Amazing stuff I'm seeing. He doesn't have to go outside and mark every six

inches with urine anymore. That was a completely unconfident way of working.

he's starting to replace that urine marking with face marking.

That's a positive signal he's sending out there. It's a whole different Dale.

Now, who's that?

Who is that? Is that Juice?

Yeah, that's Juice.

Who's that?

But that's not Yardley, is it? That's bigger.

Look at that. That's a raccoon. That's a raccoon.

Who's that at the door? That's Yardley. So Yardley's at the door, and clearly

our boy is not happy.

Right? Here by the back door.

We have a new mark spray.

Stop right there.

Okay, let's take a look at this real fast.

And up on this place where normally he would be confidently down on the floor.

And then the pee that we found right there. Yeah. I can almost guarantee you

that the pee that you found on the ground had to do with either this

one just like it.

Textbook. Cats use urine to communicate in the absence of verbal language.

Hello, I really am not happy with your presence. Oh, yeah? Well, I'm not happy

with yours. I'm going to talk to my lawyer. Well, you know what? I'm just

to piss on you.

The one thing I didn't notice was base camp expansion.

We've got the bed that he had in the window in the bathroom is down here now.

Does he use it?

I mean, he hasn't peed over there since we put the bed down over there.

Expanding base camp.

was one of the key components to this homework.

And all you did was take his bed, move it downstairs, and then give up.

Show me especially the places in the past couple of days that he's been

targeting. One thing left right now is I got to take a tour of the house. I want

to see some of the heavily marked areas.

But in my book, what doesn't have pee on it speaks as loud as what does.

That's pee.

Huge amount.

That's pee.

Yep. It's almost every step. There's a big splatter here, and then once you get

up to the top, it gets dicey again.

Okay, turn the lights on, please.

Okay.

Now, come on, man.

All I asked you to do was start bringing the stuff downstairs.

You didn't do that, and so you're getting peed on instead.

So you totally asked for this. This is, like, obvious stuff.

Well, come on, man.

All I asked you guys to do was start bringing the stuff downstairs. You

do that, and so you're getting peed on.

But this is, like, obvious stuff. You know what I mean? I am so frustrated

now.

Sarah and Tim know better.

None of this had to happen. We are seeing plain and simple. If he is

face mark, to rub up against, to scratch something, he won't pee on it. So his

cat towers, his beds, all the stuff that's inside his base camp?

is free and clear.

I need you to do this, okay?

This, to me, is as explainable as the front and the back doors. Okay. We know

that wherever he can confidently lay scent, he's going to do it, and wherever

can't, he will pee. Yeah.

Now, seeing all this, I do want to spend a little bit of time with Dale. The

last time I came here, Yardley comes into the backyard and...

Dale was as terrified outside in what has traditionally been his safe area as

was around the rest of the house. What I'm hoping for today is just going

outside. I don't see that Dale.

Look at him.

Perfect. This is great.

Yardley's just a couple of feet away from him, and Dale doesn't care.

That's a confident Dale. Hey, I'm seeing a lot of progress with Dale. He's

sniffing around.

He's checking stuff out. And most importantly...

He's not walking around and spraying every leaf on every bush on their

That's all good stuff.

I'd say that's one of his mojo zones right there. He's a bush dweller. I

actually have a name for that. We take that information about bush dwelling

outside, got to bring it inside.

All right, guys.

Let's start with the good news.

Every time we address a problem in a complete way, he responds.

So what I want to do is we're going to...

Go back to what didn't happen last time, which is expanding base camp. We have

those cat trees right outside the bathroom, which he has not hit. We have

scratchers outside the bathroom he has not hit.

Seriously, your boy is handing us the solution on a silver platter, so let's

take that risk and start moving this stuff downstairs. Of course, he is.

A bush dweller. Yep. He gets his confidence out here. So we're going to

that. And my friends over at Pet Treehouses are going to hook you guys up

great treehouse for Dale that will bring that feeling of the outdoors inside.

We know that the leash walking is completely paying dividends. So I just

you to keep doing it. What we found with Dale is that by extending his

perimeter, he is then becoming more confident about the inner boundaries of

territory. There's only so much we can do to expand his confidence.

Well, there's still shenanigans going on outside with the community cats.

So I'd like you to get deterrents that we can put at the side doors. These cats

on the outside of these walls are causing a huge problem for Dale. We just

to keep them away. Sometimes deterrents are the best way to do it and basically

just teaches them a lesson. You kind of don't want to be around here. We got

this. All right. All right. Come on. Let's go. Thank you.

Absolutely.

Now here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I'm about to meet up with Kristen and

her cat Meatwad at her place, the Kauai Kitty Cafe.

Meatwad has become the poster child for adoptions here and for all the right

reasons.

It's a cat!

It's a cat! It's a cat! Come on, baby!

Hey, Jackson.

Hey, how are you doing?

I'm Kristen. Kristen, great to meet you.

Nice to meet you, too. I'm Kristen. I'm the owner of the Kawaii Kitty Cafe in

South Philadelphia.

The Kawaii Kitty Cafe is half adoption center and half coffee shop. And the

live in the front, and we have a full functioning coffee shop in the back.

is? This is Meatwad. Star of the show.

Our cafe star, Meatwad.

Uh, Meatwad. Been here how long? A year and a half now.

A year and a half. Mm -hmm. 200 cats adopted.

Say that one more time. 200.

That's so beautiful. Thank you. That is a mammoth number, especially in a city

like Philadelphia, where there is an overpopulation crisis. Meatwad kind of

informed.

The kind of cat that you adopt out of here? My friend and I, we saw him as an

adoptable cat, and he was perfect. We fell in love with him.

He has a few little issues. He has little, missing his back feet, and he

like a unicorn horn, and he has some issues with his ear.

But we both fell in love with him instantly.

After adopting Meatwad, I started focusing the cafe on special needs cats.

A place like this would be such a good venue for cats that usually get

overlooked in shelters.

When people come into shelters, they want kittens. They want bubbly little

cats. They are afraid of special needs cats.

But here, Kristen has proven that you don't have to have the perfect cat in

order to have adoption.

Over here we have Aime.

She's our representative from PAWS. Oh, hey. How are you? Nice to meet you. Nice

to meet you as well.

My name is Aime Wiltzius, and I am the manager at PAWS, the Philadelphia Animal

Welfare. society.

We almost think of it as if this were a very large foster home.

So PAWS and the cafe have been working together from the very beginning to make

sure that the cafe was going to be a perfect place for cats to live and wait

adoption. Okay, so what is an ideal kawaii cat? Very human social, since

meeting people all day. Very cat social, since they're living with other cats 24

-7. We are entering an era where cats will be saved because of the synergy

between rescue and business. And that's what Kristen represents.

Enough just to have a big heart anymore. You've got to think like a business if

you want these cats to go home. Can I get some coffee? Absolutely.

And I noticed, I just happened to notice that you've got vegan donuts here. I

mean, we've got cat face in the foam. We've got donuts. We've got everything

that you could possibly want here. Come on. I mean, I can live here.

What I'm missing, however, is a cat. Do you mind if I hold Meatbot?

Buddy, do you mind? He's very warm.

Spending some time with Meatwad just reaffirms what anybody who has a special

need cat knows.

They don't think of themselves as special need cats.

They're just cats.

Thank you so much. It was great to meet you. Thank you so much for having me,

guys. How cool is that, right? A bunch of good coffee, donuts, 200 adoptions,

and all because Kristen fell in love with a cat named Meatwad. Only in

I'm back for my next visit with Masad and her cat, Bala. And the last time I

here, we were dealing with a diabetic cat whose mom was wondering when he was

going to die while she still fed him lasagna.

Hopefully, with a program of diet and exercise and guilt -free parenting, he

will have lost weight. If not, we are in deep trouble.

Hey. Hi, Jackson.

How are you? Good to see you again. How are you doing?

How's life going?

Good. Great.

Great, yes. How are you? I'm all right. I'm all right.

How's Bala doing?

He's good. Yeah?

Yeah. That's my good boy. I got to be honest, I'm not seeing a smaller cat.

So, tell me what the past couple of weeks have been like for you guys.

Overall, we're fine.

We're really good. You know what? Let's go take a look at your video homework.

Okay.

I have tried to play with him. He didn't like to play. He would just play for

five seconds and that's it. He would just lay down and then ask for the toy

come to him.

So now he does move around. He runs after it. But after that, he wants his

treat.

If he doesn't get as much as he wants, then he doesn't play next time.

I do not want the treat to be the reason he plays. It should be a reward.

But as a cat, he's not necessarily going to run around for a half hour. That's

not what they do. And plus, at his weight, he'll never do it.

But he should want to play with it.

Mathod still believes that the only way to get Bala to play is with treats. I

want to prove to her that Bala will play even without food as a motivation.

Cats spend a bunch of time letting their motor get running. So first thing I

want to get going is his eyes.

See, now we're getting going.

See, deep down inside, he's got the same thing in him that every cat has, which

is the hunter.

That's what we want to see.

I completely empathize with Massad. Believe me, I've been down this path

There's a part of Massad that doesn't want to make Bala work for a reward.

That time is now.

Okay, let's move on.

So I believe Bala's diet is working because he has lower glucose

level, but he has gained weight, like about 2 .5 pounds.

Excuse me? Yes.

He has gained weight.

He's gained two and a half pounds?

He has... He

has gained weight, like about 2

.5 pounds.

Excuse me? Yes.

He's gained two and a half pounds?

But his glucose level is lower.

I have stuck to the diet you told me about.

Wait, now, if you stuck to the diet I told you about, there's no way that he

gained two and a half pounds. He did.

I feel completely lost.

I don't know what's going on here. There's no explanation I could think of

all that would explain Bala's glucose levels going down while his weight went

up. I want to get back to this guilt -free parenting.

No, don't look at me like that. Why are you so sad?

See how he's sitting there? This thing right here? That look, yeah, I have to

give him the food.

Cats don't express through facial expressions the way humans do.

Just believe me.

He is different.

He tells me things. No, I don't believe you. I'm looking at this, and I'm

doubting what you're saying. He just looks like a cat sitting on the ground.

got to stop this. This is madness.

Watching the video homework just makes me feel powerless. I feel like there's

way for me to say what I need to say any clearer than I've said it before and

that I'm saying it today, and it's not getting through.

You are not going to.

Say no.

I literally say no. I swear to God. There's not one moment on here that

saying no to him. No, I can't.

You haven't said no to him one time. You have fed him what he wants because he

has you trained, right? No. I was sure that I got through 10 minutes out the

last time I was here. And now I'm seeing that we didn't. Right now, I feel like

I have failed completely. I've got a cat who's gained two and a half pounds and

a human who doesn't understand the weight of her action.

You have to understand that you're his.

parent and as his parent you get to say no if he's sitting on the ground and

he's like you don't listen to him he's your child

man and in that respect you have to say no i know i have cheated but i haven't

cheated like the crazy way i used to like you have no idea i am not going to

stop breaking you over the coals because he gave two and a half pounds a

tremendous amount of weight no stop It is a tremendous amount of weight. In

23 years, I have never had a case where I prescribed a diabetic diet and

exercise program and the cat gained weight. My goal is to get him well. I

care what his glucose says. If his weight goes up... Those joints are not

to hold him. He's too fat. Your relationship with him, to a degree, is

by you trying to give him what you never had. The intentions are wonderful.

The execution sometimes gets in the way.

I'm still really worried about him. The fact that his glucose level is lower, it

just makes me happy. You have no idea how relieving it is just to see that his

body is functioning.

I have given Masad all the tools that she needs to help Bala. Now all she has

do is apply them.

I have no doubt that Masad loves Bala.

But she has to show that love in a way that's not going to hurt him in the long

run. All right. I'm going to get out of here.

And let me say goodbye to your boy.

Goodbye, Bala.

Goodbye. Do me a favor, buddy.

Exercise.

Yeah?

Run around.

Eat well.

Just please don't feel bad because I am feeling good. Good. Okay.

Jackson doesn't think that we have succeeded, but the fact that glucose

low, I don't have to be worried that I'm going to lose him.

Last time I was here, Dale was still peeing all over the house because Sarah

Tim had not properly expanded base camp.

Hopefully now they've dug into their homework and Dale is doing a whole lot

better.

Hey, how are you? Good to see you. The news is good?

Yes, I'm feeling really, really good. There's been a lot of ups and downs, but

this past weekend we had a big up.

We were away for a couple nights, three nights total, and we came home to a

urine -free household. Like, that is huge.

That hasn't happened in three and a half years. And we came home to Dale rolling

around on our bed. Yeah. Yeah, I immediately sat down and started talking

him. He came up and started rubbing all over me and kissing my face and purring.

That's incredible, man.

When I first met Sarah, the shame that she felt over what was going on here was

dominating her.

And to see her open and confident and laughing, that's great stuff. What I

here is your video homework.

All right. I'm going to take Dale's cat tree and I'm going to replace it with

another bed.

And he seems to be enjoying it. This is his cat tree that he really loves that

we're going to put downstairs.

Good work.

Looking on setting up a new tree for Dale. Yeah.

And he is already loving it. The tree that they built him is actually a

duplicate of what he loved outside.

You want to talk about bringing the outdoors in? Sarah and Tim have base

expansion down.

Checking with the blacklight and down here by the front door, which was a huge

problem.

There has been no issues.

Woo!

Couches are looking okay.

And there's nothing new on the steps.

Really feeling good about stuff.

Dale and I are out for our 5 p .m. walk, checking out the perimeter outside of

the immediate house.

Good work.

We're going to start putting these deterrents outside our doors, try and

we can get all these yard cats and possums and raccoons right up to the

property.

Here's the moment of truth.

What? Here's the moment of truth.

Yes, these animals are responding in a very dramatic way, but it's a puff of

air. It is completely harmless, but it's the surprise factor, and that's all it

takes. But look, look, look, look.

He's like, oh no, I remember that. The deterrents have been working

Juice comes back to that side door, and he's like, do I want it?

No, I don't want it. And he's gone.

They're not just deterrents. They're teaching tools, and Jesus taught.

Now, in terms of the indoor -outdoor thing, Tim, when we first started, you

thinking of taking Dale off the harness and making him an indoor -outdoor cat.

Where are you with that right now? Yeah, everything's been working well. All

that I really wanted was for him to be happy and not be peeing around the

I am so happy that Tim's agreed not to let Dale roam free outside.

If you want to let your cat outside because they have mojo out there, if you

want to help them out with leash walking, that is a great option.

But never let your cat outside because you're out of options.

Oh, look who's coming. Hi.

I am so proud of you. Oh, my God.

To see Dale downstairs, that is the icing on the cake. The first day I met

the only place he was comfortable was in that bathroom.

Now Dale's got his mojo.

That is a big change in Dale, and it's a sign of things to come.

He's happy, you're happy, I'm happy, and I'm out of here. Awesome. I am very,

very grateful to Jackson. We are seeing things in action that are working.

As an adoption counselor, through this experience, I have such a bigger wealth

of knowledge that I can pull from, that I can give to people, and I'm really

excited going forward to try and help even more people.

Since the last time Jackson was here, we do everything that Jackson has said.

His glucose level is lowered down. We're injecting less insulin.

He's at 6 units a day.

When Jackson got here, we were at 11 units a day. And he has lost 2 pounds.

boy! Thank you so much, Jackson, for helping us and making our lives better.