Original subtitles

Sidney is Zach and his ex -wife's cat.

After we moved in together, Sidney started peeing all over the house.

It stinks.

Yeah, it's terrible.

This is our brand new pouch.

It started immediately, which made me feel like it was me, like I was this

stepmother. It was like this huge one, two, three punch for Sid.

Here's your new mom. Here's your new house. And by the way, here's your new

brother, and he is the spawn of the devil.

Stella is our first baby, but since Avery's come along, things have gone

cuddles and snuggles to chaos.

The attacks are so frequent, it is truly a daily fear for her attacking her

daughter.

Stop it.

The humans in this house are living in a constant state of fear. It's a really

tense situation.

I hear the most incredible stories about animals and their people every single

day. Our cat, Grace, saved us.

Had you guys not come downstairs, we wouldn't be having this conversation

now. Wow.

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.

I'm Zach.

And I'm Meredith.

We've been together for two years. We have two dogs, Hector and Teddy and a

Sidney. After we moved in together, Sidney started peeing all over the

He peed on everything.

It stinks.

Yeah, it's terrible.

Oh my God, that feels horrible.

He peed in the crate again.

There's pee all over here, and there's pee on this desk here.

It always smells like pee over here.

Cat pee is the worst thing on the planet. And this is my side of the bed.

There's no cleaning cat pee out of stuff. You throw away things that cats

on. I'm so careful in here. I decided enough was enough.

Sidney was not allowed inside the bedroom.

After he's been locked out of the bedroom, Sid started peeing on the

So this is our brand new couch.

Sid peed on it twice a day, every day, and after three months of cleaning it

we decided to just put the couch in the garage.

We have this beautiful home together that we can't fully enjoy.

Sid's peeing problem adds an enormous amount of stress. We never fight about

anything except for Sidney. I don't know if we're fully equipped to handle it.

I can't do this anymore. This is the biggest stress, and it could be the

that could break us.

Hi.

Hi. How are you doing?

How are you doing?

This is Teddy, and this is Hector.

Now, how old is Teddy? He's nine months old, and Hector is six.

We got him right after we lost my other, I had a rescue pit bull for 12 years,

and he passed away in January. Oh, I'm so sorry, man. We had to put Diamond

because he couldn't walk.

After Diamond passed away, about two months later, we got Teddy as a seven

-old pit bull. We got him to refill the house.

This must add a whole layer of fun, whatever cat problems we got going on

Yeah. So what's going on?

Sydney is Zach and his ex -wife's cat.

Before we moved in together, Zach was like, there's this cat that we have, and

he's gone back and forth between us three or four times.

And the reason you guys were switching up was just sort of a custody thing? She

wanted custody, but everywhere she moved to was difficult for her to have him.

This was only about two and a half months into our relationship, but we

were going to be together. So he consulted me, and I said, okay, well,

to take him.

but just tell her that we're going to take him on the condition that we're not

going to give him back. I know it was stressful for him to go back and forth.

Yeah, not for any cat.

Sydney went back and forth from one house to the other. That's a lot of

on a cat. They're territorial animals. They define their safety by their space.

Once we moved in here, Sid has had kind of this, like, peeing problem.

It started almost immediately, which made me feel like it was me, like I was

this evil stepmother.

Evil stepmother. You hear those words, you know something's going on here that

shouldn't be happening. There's no way that just because Meredith is a new

person on the scene that Sidney is suddenly going to start taking

on her. Is Sidney neutered?

Oh, yeah. Okay, good.

Teddy. From talking to my ex -wife, he never did this with her.

He never peed in her house? No.

Crazy.

Teddy, come on.

I just want to get to walking around here, meet him, take a look at... All of

the zones. Are there a lot? There's a few. Right now, there's three solid

that he goes. Well, yeah. I mean, that's because we don't have our couch

anymore. How long has it been since you haven't had a couch?

Two months. Now, without the couch here, has he stopped peeing here?

He stopped peeing here.

Where he pees the most is right over here.

This is all him? Yeah.

Nothing a cat does is random.

Wow, that's all from Sydney peeing. Yeah, from Sydney peeing. They plan out

their days. They plan out what strategically has advantages, what keeps

territory safe.

So this spot was hit all the time. This is pee.

Look at all that.

In Sydney's world, wherever he pees, there's a good reason behind it. I have

figure out what that reason is.

Did the peeing on the sink start recently?

That's real recent. That's real recent. So is that after the couch went away?

Yeah. Okay. The fact that it's everywhere means that this territory has

some level of instability for Sidney. That is a ton of pee. Come on.

The very first place that he started to go was right here.

Oh, wow. It does stink over here. Yeah. And this is my side of the bed. Ground

zero. Ground zero.

Holy cow.

It still clearly smells over here. Yeah.

That's a big spot right there. The entire room is covered in pee. Some of

stuff could be from my old pit bull, Diamond, from his incontinence, from the

past. Oh.

Diamond had degenerative hip disorder to where he could not walk anymore and

eventually losing all function of his bowel control.

Diamond passed away eight days after we moved in here. You move in. Diamond

passes. A week later, Sid starts peeing everywhere.

Dear Sidney.

and you're trying to figure out what happened to my life, where the dog that

grew up with is suddenly gone, and now there's this new dog, but I smell the

dog every time I come into the bedroom. You understand why he's so confused and

why he feels the need to feel territorially permanent, to spray on top

everything. I really love animals. I love Sid, and I just feel like he's

unhappy, you know?

And do you really feel like you're part of the...

When Diamond was sick, you know, that was really stressful.

And sometimes, I don't know, sometimes I feel like, you know, us moving

in together was part of the reason why you decided that, you know, it was time

to let him go.

In retrospect, the decision to adopt Teddy, it was too soon.

Now I just feel like it was like this huge one, two, three punch for Sid.

It was like, welcome back to your dad.

Here's your new mom. Here's your new house.

Say goodbye to your brother. And by the way, here's your new brother. My heart

absolutely goes out to Meredith.

I mean, she is the new factor in Zach and Sidney's life. And the second she

comes into their lives.

Bang. Everything falls apart.

I get it. I get where she might feel responsible, but she shouldn't.

Oh, there you are.

Hi, Sid.

So that's where he spends most of his time.

By nature, he's a social cat, right? Oh, my God.

Come on.

Teddy. Teddy is bouncing off the walls, literally bouncing off of me. Cup shot.

He is a bundle of energy, and I'm sure that Sidney responds to that on some

degree or another.

Go ahead, I just want to see this.

What the hell, man?

Why is your dog humping your cat?

He was just trying to pin him down.

There's nothing normal about this theme right now at all.

Oh, maybe he's doing a little humping.

What the hell, man?

This happens every day?

Yeah. This is not normal.

So, we let that happen?

He's not happy playing with Teddy, but he could stop Teddy from doing that, in

our opinion.

Huh.

These guys have clearly seen this happen many, many times before, and that may

speak to the fact that Sidney doesn't seem to be overreacting, but...

It seems to me that unless Sidney was screaming for help, these guys are just

going to keep letting this happen. Is Teddy neutered? Yes. Is he extra

because we're here, or is he like this all the time? He's kind of like this.

He's pretty energetic.

I really do feel like I've got a full vision of what the problem is in this

house. Maybe a little bit too much, but now it's time to sit down with this

couple, give them some homework, and start laying out a course for the

From what I'm gathering, there's a lot of change that's happened, a lot of

change. For a cat, there's nothing more important than territorial security,

than knowing tomorrow I will wake up and my territory will be what it was

yesterday, what it was the day before yesterday, and will be tomorrow until

end of time.

For Sid, it has all gone.

And Sid is just... expressing it the way he expresses it. For a cat who is

feeling no sense of territorial permanence, pee's all you got, man.

It is your way of saying, I belong here, I live here, there's proof of my

existence. First of all, what do you guys do in terms of Teddy's exercise?

I run him. You run him?

Yeah, I walked Teddy. I ran him this morning before you guys got here.

Shh. That dog is a nutcase. He needs that aerobic exercise to really work

He needs to go out to the dog park. He needs to play. And when he gets back to

this house, boom, he's tired and he's not humping the cat.

The next thing I want to explain to you is the concept of the mojo map.

Mojo, which is confident ownership of territory. You're going to mark on your

map with a certain color where he sits.

where he watches things out the window, where he hangs out but doesn't pee.

Then I want you to identify those places that mark unconfident ownership of

territory. That's where he does pee. And the mojo map will start to rid us of

the concept of random behavior and start identifying patterns.

The mojo map is a map of mojo or anti -mojo. When I come back here next time,

not only will I see patterns, but you're going to see them too.

Now, that carpet is done in your bedroom. You've got to pull it up. He

your old dog, Diamond, constantly. And he is not given that chance to, just as

you would, mourn. A cat's nose is more sensitive than our sense of smell.

And they define their world by that sense.

So that smell of your friend the dog who suddenly disappeared a year ago, but

his pee lingers, that messes with your head if you're a cat.

How are you guys feeling about the level of homework that we got going on here?

It's definitely...

going to take some work, but I'm willing to put it in to make things better.

Right now, I am so motivated to start working on this homework.

All right. Thank you. Bye, guys. Bye. If this is what's going to make Sid happy,

if this is what's going to make our home a home again, we'll do it.

I'm Morgan.

I'm Eric, and we have a one -year -old daughter, Avery Grace.

Hi, Abe.

Say hi.

Yeah, say hi, everyone.

And we also have our fur baby, Stella. She was our first baby. When we first

brought her home, she would cuddle with me.

She was essentially a companion for Eric and I. But since Avery's come along,

things have gone from cuddles and snuggles and playful times to attacking

chaos.

Stella will bite our ankles, our hands, legs.

Any extremity she can get to, basically.

Stop! Hi, Stella.

Oh! She's even swiped and got me in the eye once. What if that had been Avery?

My worst nightmare is that she gets Avery in the eye and Avery loses vision.

attacks are so frequent now that, you know, it is truly a daily fear for her

attacking Avery.

Hey.

Stop it.

I feel like it puts me in a constant state of fear and anxiety trying to...

Make sure Stella doesn't attack her.

I'm afraid that if Jackson can't help Stella, they're never going to be able

coexist together, and we won't be a family unit.

We really, really, truly need help, and the safety of our daughter is the most

important thing to us.

Hello.

How are you doing?

Hi. Eric.

Eric. How are you doing? Hi, Morgan.

Who's this?

Say hi, Avery. Say hi, Avery.

Say hi.

It's good when I get a smile right on my face.

Can you say hi?

She's like, I like cat toys. Yes. I cannot lie.

So.

What's happening?

Stella's always been a little bit off and kind of rambunctious, and she's

unpredictable, but since Avery's been here, it's definitely gotten worse. We

kind of don't know what to expect, and like I said, she's bitten her, she's

scratched her. She broken skin on Avery before? Not on Avery.

But you?

Yeah, me, definitely. She's got her eye before. Yeah, she's got me in the

eyelid. My thought is that it's just the general state of energy that a 13

-month -old child brings to the table. If that cat's energy is not drained off

of them every single day, that static builds, and then you've got the

unpredictable motions and behaviors of a child. And that, I think, is that

combustible combination.

I'm just watching Stella's tail.

It's always going.

Always? Always. Most of the time. Even when she's like...

laying and she seems to be resting like it seems to be going. We used to joke

that she like sleeps with one eye open. She's always kind of on guard.

Stella is a classic tail talker. When she's not feeling altogether grounded,

that tail is not grounded. First it starts to flick, then it starts to whip,

then it starts to wag. She's letting you know I am just feeling like I'm

crawling out of my skin a little. Just by watching every circle around Stella,

can see that they've got a history.

Seeing Stella sitting on this table and seeing Avery eye level to the cat

sitting in her little chair, it's a really tense situation.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Hey,

hey, hey, hey, hey.

Come over here.

Okay, so that didn't take much. Yeah, no, it doesn't. You look at her again.

And she's like, nah. She's like, no, I like Stella. But she's very persistent,

and she loves her cat.

Avery is suddenly hit with the soft paw, just a little bat like that, just a way

of saying, you might want to get out of my face.

Expecting Avery to understand get out of my face and go take a seat someplace

else is unreasonable. Now, as this one gets a lot more active, I notice

it being mirrored by Stella. Stella starts getting ramped up as well.

Are you ready for a nap?

This is what happens before nap time is that she starts getting... I've gotten

all the information that I can get right now from Stella and Avery's

interactions. Now we can get Avery down for the count for a minute so that I can

really spend a little more time with Stella.

Stella!

The best way that I can challenge Stella to see if her behavior is predictable

or not is to bring out a toy and bring out my hands. If she chooses my body

parts over the toy...

Well, it's bad for everybody, including me.

Good girl.

Get that tail going.

Get that tail going.

Good girl.

Now what happens?

Now let's play a little bit.

Now we're going to use our hands.

What is that?

What is that? What I'm seeing is that she's looking for the toy. She's going

around looking to see where that toy went. She doesn't want my hands. What?

And I'm telling you, I am going to town right now. I am rubbing that cat's

belly. I am picking her up, putting her down, juggling her, basically.

And she continually wants to remove herself from the situation.

What finally sets off Stella is not me petting her, over -petting, over

-stimulating. It's when I remove all of that attention and just sit in

stillness.

Oh, now she's all wound up and she doesn't have an outlet, and that's when

goes for me. Now we got it going.

Yeah?

Okay. I know you're angry. I'm sorry.

I don't mean to anger you, but if that's as bad as it gets.

I've got all the information I need from Stella, and I'm actually really excited

right now because I feel like I can give these parents tools that will save the

relationship between their child and their cat and save this cat from hitting

the bricks.

The ability to forge a positive relationship between these two that's

last many, many years is the most important thing. The cat's 100 %

So it's really important that you guys start to be able to identify what is

what. So I've got to send you guys to cat class right now.

The first thing we're going to start with is body language 101.

This is your clue.

She's a tail talker. When you see that tail talking, you have to start

a bit of a protective bubble around Stella.

So next, this is your cat's favorite thing ever. Okay. So that's cool. I

would literally, what I was doing was playing with her. Then I'd put it in my

back pocket and present my hands just like she would.

And she's like, I don't want that. I want the toy. Okay.

Your second assignment is the play technique called boil and simmer.

Realizing that with cats, they are built.

For speed and not distance. So when they play, it's like, go, go, go, go, go,

go, go. So that's the boil. Then they're just going to, this one is just going

to go.

Okay. But she's only going to do that for about a minute. That's the simmer.

Then you're going to go at it again. Every time you do it, you're going to

more and more truly tired. And then at that point, you feed a meal.

Okay. Boil and simmer is so productive for Stella and for Eric and Morgan as

well. It actually takes all of this.

unpredictable energy and just drains it out so that you have a purely

predictable cat. And if you can predict Stella's actions, you can stop an attack

before it happens. So your last assignment needs to catify this world in

way because what happened today was thoroughly predictable, right?

It's their eye to eye, which is already a little bit offensive to the cat.

We give Stella some vertical space here.

Stella could be up on a perch somewhere looking down, watching as Avery does

these unpredictable movements. And this one owns the floor. Right. And the four

-legged owns the sky. Yeah. Even though I'm ditching a lot of work on you guys,

the payoff is so huge. That's why I'm excited right now. Because I really

that you're set up to do a really cool thing right now. Awesome. All right.

Thank you.

Guys, you are very welcome. I will see you in a few weeks. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Don't get up. I'm just going to leave.

Bye -bye.

Bye, guys.

Bye. All right. Thank you.

Yeah. The homework assignment that Jackson gave us is definitely going to

the situation.

It's going to be challenging. My focus most of the time is on Avery, and then,

you know, I'm going to have to learn to kind of split it up a little bit more.

You peed on everything.

It stinks.

You know, going in to meet up with Zach and Meredith today, I'm just hoping for

a baseline.

I mean, if they cleaned up the place and Sid just went and remarked everything,

we've gotten nowhere.

And there's our boy.

Hello, my friend.

There's Teddy. I'm just going to ignore Teddy for now.

That's the kind of Sid we want to see.

That makes Jackson happy.

The last time I was here, Sid wasn't psyched to have someone strange in this

house. This time around, there's a lot more welcoming happening. That lets me

know that Sid is on the road to confident ownership of territory.

That's a breakthrough.

Woohoo, I'm so happy. Since Jackson came and visited us the first time, we laid

out a plan of action and took it step by step and had, in my opinion, a lot of

success. I was very motivated by what you said about we're going to get rid of

the word random.

That really helped me, too, to feel like, okay, well, there's a method to

madness, then there's going to be a method to ours.

Like that.

That's a good way of saying it, for sure.

Let me get into my case here, and we will start going through your homework.

When I left Zach and Meredith last time, I wanted them first and foremost to

clean up the place. We took a look at a carpet in their bedroom. Diamond, the

dog that passed, was all over that carpet.

Get rid of it. All right, here we go.

There's Zach back there. The room's empty. We're about to start ripping up

carpet. Oh, boy.

Yike. I have assigned things like pulling up carpets before.

And it's a crapshoot whether the Guardians are actually going to do it or

Zack and Meredith just did it. They pulled it up. And that is a sign of the

commitment that these Guardians have. Now, let's see how you're exercising

Teddy. Teddy, I'm about to take him on a run right now.

No, Teddy, no.

O -M -Z.

Teddy?

No, Teddy, no.

That's a problem. The first time I was here, Teddy was basically mounting Sid

front of us, and the Guardian response was, huh, look at that. Now I'm seeing

video proof of the same thing. We've got to put an end to that.

Teddy's a problem.

Do you think Sid just shakes it off, or do you think that it bothers him?

I would like to think that he's fine with it, but he goes in the closet when

Teddy bothers him.

Teddy does raise that stress level pretty high. So that's something to

about. Even after Jackson left the first time, I was still kind of in denial

about Sid caring about the way that Teddy was treating him. And then to

watch it back and see, that was definitely tough to see. Where's your

at? In the kitchen. Now it's time to take a look at the mojo map. Hopefully

information that I get from that really starts enlightening the guardians and

myself as to the patterns that make up Sidney's every day. In this...

World, good mojo, is purple.

Yellow, of course, is pee.

These spots here are where he hangs out. Where we'll catch him fully

comfortable, laying down awake, just relaxed, to sleeping.

Since the last time I was here, that's it?

Yeah. That's it? Yeah. That's fantastic. We have now pulled out the carpet in

here, and it is a pee -free zone. Without all those competing scents in

it's gone.

He's now starting to sink into that sense of permanence.

Really, really good news.

So this was never peed on in here. He never peed on there. Nothing's never

yeah. He's there every day. That's where we spend the most of our time.

This room holds a lot of...

keys for us. What I'm trying to establish for Sid is base camp.

Base camp is where you put all of their belongings, anything that smells like

them, where they can say, I own this one little space.

And then as they start to establish a sense of security in that room, we start

to expand base camp. We take the belongings that are in there, slowly

the house with those things. That's going to be really important to get us

the point where this is base camp. Once this becomes base camp, we're home free.

The really good news here is that through the homework, I feel like we

understand Sid. We understand his motives and what makes him unconfident.

can use that information to make him confident. This thing right here, that's

huge hint of where we need to go because we know he hangs out here and he hasn't

peed here.

Why doesn't he pee here? Because it's a scent soaker. When they scratch, not

only are they leaving a visual marker, they're also leaving a scent marker.

There's scent glands between each one of their pads. It makes it unnecessary for

him to spray that basket. He doesn't spray the piano. Just because of this

thing that says, I live here. This for him is this for you. So when you walk

around the house and you have these pictures of you guys, and every time you

walk by, you have even that little bit inside you that goes, this is my life.

That is that for him. We've proven that Sid can live in both the bedroom and the

TV room and not mark them with urine, just with his body scent. We'll start

there. Put all kinds of scent soakers in those areas and then blow it out. We're

going to take the cushions from the couch that are in the garage.

And then in base camp. Filling that room. Right. We're marinating scent

Then we can start taking those things out, putting them in the rest of the

house. I am still nowhere even close to comfortable putting any piece of

furniture in here without knowing that it's going in the trash.

I'm acknowledging that there's a little bit of risk involved here. We have to at

some point start taking risks.

I'm working with the feeling that it's going to work just fine.

But if it doesn't...

This family is going back three or four steps, and I don't think we can handle

that around here.

Next, you knew that there was no way we were going to get through the day

without talking about Teddy, right?

Teddy needs training.

Sid has to feel safe in the house. Right now he doesn't because here's the

bottom line. If you can't predictably put your dog in a down stay and have

cat walk across the floor and know that your dog is not going to go crazy on the

cat, then we're not there yet.

Teddy needs structure just as much as Sid needs structure.

So it's up to Zach and Meredith to give Teddy that structure.

If you guys have any problems over the next couple weeks, call me and we'll

it out. Thank you again. Thank you.

My biggest worry right now is for us to get on the same page about how we're

dealing with Teddy and to keep Teddy from attacking Sid.

I am here in chilly Reedsburg, Wisconsin, and it was a winter's night

this one about a year ago when a faulty water heater sent carbon monoxide

pouring through a home, almost killing everybody in there. But of course, this

is not a sad story. There's a very different ending here, and that's why

here to talk to Kevin and Annette and their cat from heaven, Grace.

Hey, Jackson.

Well, hey, man. How are you doing? I'm doing good. Good to see you.

My wife, Annette. Hey, Annette. Good to meet you. Thank you for coming.

I am so excited to be here.

I'm Kevin.

I'm Annette. And our cat, Grace, saved us.

Tell me what happened that night. It all started. It was Saturday night.

Our tank of hot water here, something had got stuck in it. So all this carbon

monoxide.

was ending up back in the house. Wow.

The carbon dioxide, if you can't smell it, can't taste it, so you don't know

what's going on.

Right. For some reason, that night, Gracie came in the bedroom. I'm

and all of a sudden, I hear just banging, banging. And it rattled. So I

I knew something was wrong, because I was all wavy and stuff. I thought I was

having a heart attack. Oh, God.

So I woke up in tremendous pain. I think that she knew something was wrong to

begin with. So I opened the door, and she took off.

I was like, call 911.

I mean, that came to my head, luckily.

Annette went, stumbled downstairs to try to get help for the carbon monoxide.

Do you know what the levels were at this point of carbon monoxide?

About 650.

Okay. What's normal?

Zero to five.

Yeah. So literally, had you guys not come downstairs.

We wouldn't be having this conversation right now. Right. I always say it was

saved by grace. She was saved by grace.

I never even thought of that. Listen, one of the great things about doing what

do is I hear the most incredible stories about animals and their people every

single day.

This one, though, there's something special about it. She's doing a little

of this.

Yeah. Yeah, see how it rattles? It was gone. I mean, she was gone.

We wouldn't have woke up without Gracie. Now, at this point, where are the cats

at?

We didn't know.

After we got out of the hospital, we came back here, and we were worried

Grace because she was in a room with us. She was upstairs with you, right? Yeah,

she had had the carbon monoxide poison. So finally I looked down in the

basement, and there she was, all curled up in the corner. I did find her, and I

picked her up.

She started bawling. The whole experience just hit me as soon as I held

my arms and knew she was okay, and we were all okay.

When did you guys start putting it together?

that Gracie basically saved the day. When I was in the ER, you finally get

thoughts back, what is happening, and it's like, holy mackerel, Gracie's the

one. Without pounding on the door, we wouldn't be here. I mean, that's how it

is. Unbelievable, man.

What I've learned from this incident is to check your carbon monoxide detectors

because they will go old.

After five years, you're supposed to change the whole thing. People at work

stuff, and they've seen what was happening to us, and they actually

their CO detectors, and they actually put them in their house. So it's

that happened to us, and we're helping other people.

They're getting their stuff, too. I mean, when you think about it, Gracie

just save Kevin and Annette's life, but the whole town of Reedsburg has been

made aware of carbon monoxide poisoning.

She could have saved the lives of countless other people because the

here are long.

Heaters are on all the time, and things like this could happen to anybody. It's

been a pleasure hanging out with you guys. Thank you for having me. Thank

It was wonderful.

Thank you. Nice to meet you. Take care of her. Take care of all you guys. Thank

you very much. All right, man. Take care of yourself.

Bye. See ya.

What an amazing story.

I mean, honestly, to think of all the things that had to fall into place in

order for this entire family to be alive.

I mean, Annette hit it on the head, man. This family was saved by grace.

Hey, dude, with the mouth.

Let's go ahead and put Teddy outside.

Come on, Teddy. Teddy is going from cute to scary in a heartbeat. If I left this

house without helping to address the problem that is Teddy, I wouldn't be

to live with myself. So, here's a surprise I got for you.

Hey, stop.

Stella?

Stop!

Last time I was here, I got to see exactly what Eric and Morgan didn't want

see, which was Avery getting swatted by Stella.

The reason really was just a lot of shared space, a lot of excess energy

a young child and a young cat.

Pow. How you been, bro? Doing good, man. Good, good. Good to see you. Hi.

Good morning.

Now, hopefully with the homework that I gave these guys, they should have been

creating lanes of traffic and little bubbles for the two to operate in

actually coming together.

Hopefully, that's what I'm going to see. I love this.

Stella does, too. I love this.

Catifying is one thing.

Making it look like it belongs in your house.

Do you realize that I walked in here and missed it? Yeah, it's pretty cool.

How's Stella been?

Good. Doing good. One thing I've noticed a lot, too, about Stella, her tail

doesn't move. When she's resting, yeah. Seeing Stella up on this cat tree, eyes

are relaxed. She's kind of sleepy. Her tail.

It stops because she's not just relaxed, she's safe. I know you guys have been

up to a lot over the past couple weeks. When Avery is playing loud,

we notice signs of Stella, her tail moving back and forth rapidly.

We are getting better at... recognizing it, I think.

Okay, Avery and Stella were kind of getting into each other's space.

Stella was trying to get in Avery's little chair that she's sitting in and

to get her up in her own space up here.

She chooses, as she's chosen today, twice now, to remove herself rather than

engage. Eric and Morgan have done brilliant work really being able to

Stella's behavior through her body language. She's a very clear

They know to back off at a certain point, to separate the two of them

things happen.

Moving on. So I'm going to play with Stella.

Woo!

There she goes.

Having a routine is helping. I think she likes that.

She's loving all of her goodies that we've gotten for her. Everything's going

really well up to this point. I mean, everything that I've heard, everything

that I've seen on homework, but I want to see a little bit more. Time to look

the catification.

We've been busy today. Nothing like a handyman.

There we go.

Trying to make our home more Stella -friendly.

Eric is just walking around, putting up shelves and everything. He did an

amazing job.

Scratching posts here.

Yay!

All the way around, man. All the way around.

The flow of shelving around the room is really solid, but there is one thing

that's missing, and that's the concept of an on -ramp or an off -ramp. And

that's our cue to adjust our catification.

Now, let's get up.

I'm a little worried about this thing. Okay.

We have a problem here where Cat Superhighway meets human lane of

Given Avery...

this as the Kidzilla zone. She can do whatever she wants down here, right? My

fear is, as Kidzilla comes through here, swipe.

Okay. And we don't have a decent on -ramp here.

You see where I might be going?

On that there? Yep. Okay. If it lines up the way I think it's going to, she's

out of the lane of traffic. Okay. Let's do it. Okay. I'm going to help you guys

out. All we got to do is take the cat tree from where it is for Stella, and in

the meantime, put the bookcase...

over where the cat tree was, and that's a perfect off -ramp into the kitchen.

Wow. Hey.

That's fairly perfect. Now this room has the feeling of flow that we always look

for from catification.

I think we're done here. I think that we've got an amazing beginning.

And I think that that's really all I could hope to give you guys is a

you know, like they say in Casablanca, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Yes, you too. Thank you so much. You've been absolutely wonderful. I feel like I

need to give you a hug.

Absolutely.

And give a hug to Avery for me. Will do. All right. Thank you. Bye, guys. Bye.

It makes me happy just seeing Stella and Avery coexisting peacefully and being

sisters that love each other. I think that we're going to live in harmony

together.

You peed on everything.

It stinks.

The last time I was here, Sid the cat was still dealing with issues of

territorial impermanence. And Zach and Meredith were dealing with a lot of fear

and a lot of challenges laying in front of them. And hopefully they've embraced

those challenges and they're not going to be sitting in here paralyzed by pee.

We'll find out.

Yay!

Oh, hi, Teddy. Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi.

Hey,

dude, with the mouth.

Let's go ahead and put Teddy outside.

Come on, Teddy.

Go, buddy.

Teddy is a ball of energy, and he just about takes my fingers off this time.

He's going from cute to scary in a heartbeat.

Let's take a look at the video homework.

Added to a base camp.

Stuff for Sid.

Mm -hmm.

He's happy it's here already.

Sidney is using these scratchers exactly as I hoped he would.

I mean, he's body marking them. He's rubbing his face and his entire body.

scratching the heck out of them. And he's marinating them.

Exactly what you want to see at a base camp.

Marinated belongings that you can move out to the rest of the house.

You were bringing cushions in.

You were... Couch cushions? Yeah, baby. Couch cushions. They haven't been peed

on? Not yet. Not yet. Oh, yeah.

That's amazing.

The cushions are actually here. These guys took that initial risk, went into

garage, got the cushions out, allowed Sid to just body mark the heck out of

them, sleep on them, and now they're in the family room and they haven't been

peed on. Moving on.

So we've got this new harness for Teddy for when we take him out.

He's still got energy, as you can see.

He's just got this fascination with Sidney.

Wait, where'd that come from? He's still chasing Sid around. You know, the

issues with Teddy...

seem to be getting worse.

Trying to, you know, work on him not being crazy has been really kind of

challenging. I am really happy with Sidney's progress.

Now, Teddy, that's another question altogether, but I got a plan.

Oh, Sid.

Good morning, my little buddy. Sid is...

standing in front of me, eating his dinner, that's ownership of territory.

That is saying, this is my place.

Welcome to it. I'll be eating. You can do whatever you want to do. I am

absolutely convinced at this point that this house and this cat are totally

ready for a couch in the living room. Now, you know what's coming, right? I'm

going to help you. We're going to get the couch in here, put the cushions on

and say, job well done. It's your call.

What do you think?

Now, you know what's coming. I'm going to help you. We're going to get the

in here, put the cushions on it.

You know, what the hell?

Let's do it.

Moving the couch into the house is still a terrifying thought to me, but I just

have to bury my fear and get on with it. Ready, babe?

Let's do it.

Biggest hope that I have for Zach and Meredith is not that their couch isn't

going to get peed on. It's that if something happens, they own the solution

as much as they own the celebration of this moment. So this is what your house

is supposed to feel like.

I haven't seen you smile, by the way, in quite a long time. I feel really

excited and confident that the strategy that Jackson had us take is correct.

So here's the surprise I got for you.

A good friend of mine is coming over, and he's going to work with you guys in

Teddy. That's fantastic. That's so great. If I left this house without

to address the problem that is Teddy, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

I've got to be able to address the whole problem. And training Teddy is

definitely going to help. It's territorial permanence.

Welcome to the world of Teddy.

I'm Zoe Sander. As a dog trainer, my job is to make sure that people can have an

uncomplicated relationship with their dog. I'm guessing this is part of the

problem, guys.

Mm -hmm. Yes?

The jumping?

The jumping, the mouthing. All the behaviors I'm seeing today are extremely

typical, both of adolescent dogs and of pit bulls. Pit bulls are all about the

body contact.

You'll notice that that's how they play with each other. It's heavy on the

wrestling side.

So if I'm in a pit bull and I'm trying to communicate to another dog, would you

mind backing up?

I'm going to get tall and move directly into them.

Versus if they want to come play. They're like, come play with me. They'll

of turn and run the other way. So every time he jumps on me, I'm taking steps

directly towards him. I'm not kneeing him in the chest because that's not what

it's about.

It's about using the body language that he knows.

Three minutes of being here, Zoe showed me how to deal with one of Teddy's

biggest problems.

Brilliant.

The magic is happening. That's right. The magic is real. That's right, baby.

Zoe is teaching us all the things that we need to combat Teddy's worst

behaviors. Fit.

Great. Fit.

Good boy. Yeah. With Zoe's help, we're going to train Teddy to listen to us.

and not follow his impulses like chasing fit around and treating him like he's a

chew toy.

I'm going to leave you guys because I know you've got a lot of work to do.

been wonderful, man. Thank you so much for everything.

Thank you. And for all your work with your cat.

Thank you. I'm here for you guys if you need me, okay?

You just, you know, fix the dog.

I got this.

If Meredith and Zach follow what I told them to do today and they stay calm,

this dog's not going to have any problems in a matter of weeks. That's

good, guys.