Stephen Quandt: Do You Need Cat Behavior Help?

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In this special bonus episode, we’re joined by Stephen Quandt, a Feline Training and Behavior Specialist and the expert behind Cat Behavior Help, to unravel the mysteries of feline behavior. Stephen offers a wealth of knowledge that every cat lover will find invaluable. Whether you’re dealing with a feisty feline or just curious about what makes your cat tick, this episode is packed with insights that will help you create a happier and healthier environment for your furry friend.

Stephen is a Feline Training and Behavior Specialist certified through the Animal Behavior Institute (ABI). He is a professional cat behaviorist with over 20 years of experience working with cats in private consultations, animal shelters such as Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation, Ready For Rescue, City Critters, the Wisconsin Humane Society, and the Animal Care Centers of NYC and in the field. He's also the author of the children's book "Happy Comes Home."

Links:

• Stephen's Website
• Follow Stephen on IG: @catbehaviorhelp
• Cat Amazing Puzzle (Email Stephen at support@catbehaviorhelp.com for the 15% discount code for any of their products)
• Get Stephen's Book: "Happy Comes Home"

Get in Touch:

• Instagram: @tailsandtasselspod, @gemmasmithnyc
• Come to the Catbaret on 10/31 in NYC! 
• Email us at TailsandTasselsPod@gmail.com
• Leave a comment below

Transcript

Gemma Smith (00:02.574)
Hello Kitty Cats and welcome back to another episode of Tails and Tassels, the podcast where I chat with burlesque and nightlife performers about their craft, their cats, and how the two worlds collide. I'm your host Jemma Smith, and today is actually our first bonus episode where I'll be chatting with one of our feline experts. But before we dive into today's interview, I just want to give a shout out. Happy Halloween. Happy Meow-loween.

This episode is launching on October 31st and tonight is the Cat Beret Meowloween Spooktacular here in New York City. Hope to see many of you kitty cats at the show tonight. It's also airing virtually. There's a live stream. So if you're catching this on the day that it airs, check out the link in the show notes and you'll be able to get tickets to the show tonight, especially live stream.

Hopefully, we'll be sold out by the time this airs, but if not, check out the link in the show notes and we'd love to catch you at a future show, if not this one. Well, I am positively delighted to introduce our first feline expert on the podcast. Today we have Stephen Quant. He's a certified feline training and behavior specialist with over 20 years experience in shelters and in the field. He also has a children's book out now. It's called Happy Comes Home.

Hi Stephen, thanks so much for being here today. Thank you Gemma, it is a real pleasure. Well, Stephen and I originally met because we both work in animal welfare and I was originally turning Tales and Tassels into a non-scripted TV show. So he was part of our, you were part of our sizzle reel and I've gotten to know you a little bit but I'm excited to learn a lot more about you today.

So can you tell me a bit about your background and how you actually became a feline behavior specialist? Sure. So I mean, the short story is I was working for ASPCA's field investigation and response team going around the country on disaster cases, cruelty cases. And finally, I was on a Samoyed puppy mill case in Iowa in the winter. You know those little chemical body warmers you can Yes, I've used those. I had 18 of them around my body.

Gemma Smith (02:22.526)
to stay, you know, like four in each foot and then 10 more distributed all over. And I came home and I was like, Stephen, you're getting too old for this. You got to find some full-time work. I saw and applied for a feline behavior position at the Animal Care Centers of New York City and got that job right away. And went on then as part of kind of building out my own private behavior work, which I also do with private clients.

I went for additional training and got certified in that. And that's how that all kind of came to be. And so now you work both at Animal Care Centers of New York City and with people in their homes one-on-one. So can you share a little bit about the day in the life of your work in both of those areas? Sure. So first thing, my cats walk on my shoulder and my stomach and wake me up and do the paws.

and it's immediately meal time and that's, know, even before coffee and the coffee is already ready. It's like got a timer, but I can't even get my first cup of coffee. Gotta feed Jenny and Cricket. But if I'm doing a day of private work, I'll often be contacted by someone who is relatively desperate. It's at a really tough moment in their life.

because their cat is unhappy about something and so the people are unhappy. And when they contact me, it's usually pretty serious. I don't generally get contacted for things like cats scratching your furniture, although occasionally that does happen. But it usually rises to a higher level, it's more serious thing.

and I address it and we do a little back and forth and we set up a zoom call and I do usually typically an hour and then I give them a report written report and behavior plan and follow-up support by email for two months actually but sometimes it's super serious like I got an email once on a Sunday night and I don't generally you know reply to emails on Sunday evenings I just wait till Monday morning but I saw this email and this couple was being randomly attacked

Gemma Smith (04:27.096)
by their friendly house cat for unknown reasons. so I immediately, I understood what was going on. This is a very serious situation. It often leads to surrender, not to mention injury for the people and heartache. And I immediately reached out to them and the very next day we had a session. And then I'm also working on my behavior webinars that I give and kind of organizing my daily life. I contribute to a lot of online periodicals from Reader's Digest.

to petmdrover.com. And so I'm writing these on a regular basis. I get asked to contribute. I get a list of questions. Sometimes I have to research it. Sometimes it's just off the top of my head. Depends, you know, kind of what the questions are. And so my day is some combination of all of that if I'm at home. And if I'm at the shelter, I am typically working with cats. We do an assessment of every cat who comes into the shelter unless they're kind of an easy cat and they just get adopted.

before I need to meet with them. But on the third day, that's when we do assessments and we put them through a little.

program where we work with the cat and we come up with the behavior determination and what kind of home, how experienced that home needs to be. And then we also work with cats who have behavior challenges, are unhappy about something. And then we often will also work with the public who need a consultation in the shelter itself. And we all work really hard. We care a lot about

making great outcomes for every possible animal that comes through our shelter. Well, it's clear that you do really good work for both the cats in the shelter and for people's owned pets and that you have a real passion for giving cats the best outcome in life that they can have. And I'd love to know on a little bit of a more personal personal note.

Gemma Smith (06:25.624)
Can we talk about your own feline friends, Jenny and Cricket, and how did they come into your life? Yeah, sure, happy to. So one of our former cats, Simon, lost his brother, Felix, at an advanced age. And after mourning Felix, we were ready to get a new cat. And we're going to look for an older adult for our older adult cat, right? Not doing that kitten thing.

And I was at the ASPCA at the time and a colleague said, hey, Steven, there's a blind kitten here. Do you want to take a look? And I went and took a look and it was like, my god, a blind from birth kitten. I called Tom, my husband, and I took a money shot, I call it the money shot photo, you know? Yes. Of Jenny looking, whee! And he came down and we interacted with Jenny, who was very chatty in the kennel. But as soon as we brought her out, she was like, ha.

And so we adopted her. She became fast friends with Simon. Took a couple weeks. We did some work on that. They were great friends for two years. We lost Simon finally. And then after mourning Simon, I was at an adoption event for best friends through another cat rescue group, Angelical Cat Rescue. we now had, we tried actually fostering to adopt a cat, a cat named Cricket, but not our cat Cricket.

And it didn't work out. It was super active cat driving Jenny crazy. And we gave it the best shot and we found a great home for that cat. And we got a checklist of all the things we needed for our blind girl. And that whole day I was standing next to this really great cat. And all of a sudden at the end of the day I realized that this cat fit all of the boxes. And we adopted her, her home, got her over ringworm and an upper respiratory infection. She became fast friends with Jenny.

And she's, you know, a great mix for them, for her. I'm wonder... That's wonderful to hear and I'm curious also when you say Jenny was blind from birth. So I know in my job at the kit nursery we have a lot of kittens that come in with ruptured globes, need a nucleation, need their eyes removed. But she, did she have her eyes intact and was just blind? Well, her left eye is not there. It's a socket. Okay. And we kind of have to clean it daily because it...

Gemma Smith (08:48.714)
it tears up and gets gunky. And her right eye, we call it a googly eye. Yes. It's an odd shape and it doesn't see anything, but it tracks. If she's interested in something, you can watch it turn left and right. And if she's stressed about something, it'll even get bloodshot. But she is totally blind, but she has great spatial memory. And she performs spatial mapping. We take her to this cottage in Maine for vacation.

We hadn't been to this particular cottage in six years, and we got back there with her, and she immediately navigated her way through it. She knew exactly where she was. Yeah, and people may not know who don't work with animals or have never had a blind cat, but they do quite well. They're so adaptable, especially if they've not had vision since birth. Their whiskers help them, right? Is that true? Whiskers help. Smells help. Their paws help. Texture changes, carpet the floor.

Jenny thinks with her ears. She, everything, she perceives everything. I can be just as quietly as possible opening the cat food container and she knows exactly what I'm doing. And so we see her listening for things. Air currents change, a door opens, she knows that the door's open. She knows if I'm on the sofa that I'm there and that she has to jump higher to get up on me. It's really odd and lovely at the same time.

So lovely. And I'm curious, what are your special rituals that you have with your two kitties? Well, I mean, sounds like that's We love them. Jenny likes lap time. So she sometimes actually tells me that she wants me to sit and lay down on the sofa. So I do a lot of work with my laptop and a pillow so that she can kind of get on me and lay down. And and sometimes she gets hangry.

and she wants food between meals. she's a skinny, she's a little thing, she's like seven pounds. So when she wants an extra meal, she gets an extra meal. Cricket loves brushing. We have one of those Furminators, you know, it gets at the undercoat really well. And she just starts purring. She sees the brush and is like, I want it. And she'll lift her cheek up towards it. And so we do kind of ritualized brushing and there's a play area in our apartment. I call it the play area.

Gemma Smith (11:14.862)
And if cricket's heading that direction, she'll either go to the left where the brushing area is, or to the right where the play area is, and then I'll know what to do.

I love that. And speaking of like your apartments and places for cats, thinking about living in New York City, a lot of our burlesque and nightlife performers, they live in small spaces. Well, a lot of us do, right? Here in New York City, we might have apartments, roommates. What are some tips that we can think about giving our cats the most enrichment and best life, even if we don't have like a house or a backyard? Yeah, sure. So enrichment is,

the overall concept, but we can think about expanding their territory vertically. Cats like to climb. They express status through height. So having cat trees are really good. There's a really great type of cat tree, it's on Amazon. are lots of versions of it. But other, not like those clunky base trees that are really fat and heavy, and you have to put them together. It's complicated. These have a pressure plate at the top.

and it just rotates into the ceiling and holds it in place. So the tree itself is super skinny. It's really kind of svelte. Tunnels are great. Puzzle feeders are great. Puzzle feeders require problem solving to get the treat, and problem solving is like hunting, and cats being predators need to hunt in order to have a full life. It's like going to work and getting a paycheck. So if we don't give our cats these kind of opportunities to problem solve,

and get a reward for it, they can become bored. And bored cats can be a problem. There are also window ledges, shelving units that are kind of stepped so that the cat can walk up and walk down. And there are even units like plexiglass boxes that can go in windows so the cat can actually kind of walk out a little bit and see left and right and down.

Gemma Smith (13:18.12)
And so those are things that we can do as well as spending time with our cat doing things like clicker training as an example. I should just mention also, by the way, there is a great puzzle feeder from a company called Cat Amazing. It's a box with different levels of interactive things inside it that produce treats. And I've had friends who use it and clients who use it.

I can give a 15 % discount for any of their products on their website or on Amazon. But if anyone wants that discount code, they can email me and I will send it to them. that's fantastic. And that'll be in our show notes. Well, speaking about like cat owners and you work with a lot of people one on one, what is one behavior issue that you often see in cats that surprises their owners?

Well, that's an interesting question because I have one answer to that. But most of the problems that I'm approached by, I wouldn't say are surprising, so much as distressing. But there is one behavior, it's not very common. And I think it's fair to say it's both surprising and distressing. And that is when a particularly friendly cat becomes unexpectedly and kind of episodically randomly aggressive.

with their human companions. And there's no visible trigger. And it comes out of nowhere, and it's shocking. You had mentioned earlier, yeah, there was a consult. They emailed you on a Sunday, and you were like, let me get back to them. This is so, to me to hear, confusing, because I haven't experienced it, but I have heard of it. What is the cause? Is there a cause that can be just found out? So I've been studying it. I've read abstracts on it.

It is not well understood and there's it's not like there's lots of funding for these sorts of things and you know If there's a there's there's definitely a trigger, right? Just because we can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist there. There is a trigger and If you can't see the trigger at all and you dig deep and you still can't see it That's when it becomes a real mystery. There is one suggestion. I

Gemma Smith (15:35.104)
one place that I've seen anecdotally evidence for, which is that if a cat's living space is too small, some cats, and you know, cats evolved to live in large outdoor spaces, you know, North Africa, desert spaces, and they have large territories. And if we artificially compress their territories in a home and some cats may do trigger stacking, in other words, the size of the home by itself isn't enough, but

then something else gets added in like a noise and you go, well, is the noise the trigger? Well, it only sometimes is the trigger. So we can't say that the noise is the reliable trigger. But I've seen cats who've been in apartments that are very, very small, like 250 square feet, and engaged in this behavior. And then I've seen cats at our shelter that were basically unhandleable. You couldn't really touch them. And they went to a sanctuary where I live.

very close to where I live. And I've seen these cats all of a sudden, and I've been told by the person who runs the sanctuary that it only took one or two days for the cat to be able to be pet. And now the cat has all this space and it changes them. So I think that is on track for a potential cause, but I don't think we really have definitive information on that. Well, it's fascinating that this is something that you're really studying and hoping to help people with, because I can imagine just how distressing that would be as a pet.

parent and I'm glad that people have you to reach out to should something happen and that there could be more space could be helpful. know it is my my goal in life is to help cats and the humans who love them. I love that you're the perfect person to have on this podcast and for people listening and performers I know so many performers who come on the cat beret who love cats and people that come to the show and

You know, you could be a cat parent for several years and your cat's behaving normally and you don't really have any concern. So they may never reach out to a behavior expert, but I've had to when my cat had a urinary blockages. And so that was so helpful for me. So it's good to know that you're a resource for people to connect with one-on-one. and when, because people come to me usually in in stressed condition, right? They're stressed out.

Gemma Smith (17:59.118)
I think it's really important to be compassionate, non-judgmental, to provide a judgment-free space because they're hurting and they need someone who cares and isn't going to look at them and go, you know, why did you do it this way? Why did you do it that way? And that's not really an appropriate conversation. We all do the best we can and we need to help each other and our cats. That's so totally true because I know we all want to be the best pet parents that we can be and

Sometimes people are learning. Like when I adopted my first cat, Lionel, he was what we call a singleton in the shelter and probably should have adopted him and his litter mate. I learned a year later, I adopted a second cat. But I didn't know and I wasn't really fully prepared when he came into the home, but I've learned and I've grown and I'm giving him a good life. So I think the best way that people can learn and feel safe to grow is to have a non-judgmental space. So I really appreciate you saying that. Yep. Really important.

Speaking of performers or just like people who have more than one cat, because a lot of my performer friends have mentioned they have two cats that aren't litter mates. It's kind of like myself, Lionel and Luna. They're not litter mates. They coexist. They might lay on the same bed, but they rarely ever snuggle. They might back to back like lay. And sometimes there's, I guess we call it in the shelter world,

maybe more with dogs, but cats too resource guarding where, you know, I have multiple litter boxes. I have multiple like beds and hidey spaces, but there is this cardboard box. I tried putting a second one out, but that lion has claimed as his box. It is on the couch. And whenever Luna comes near it, he like gets her out. He like licks her head until he bites her. I try adding a cardboard box.

to give her one, but this kind of thing happens often with several other items too that might be new in the environment. Lion-O attacks Luna or is like negative towards her when she tries to use it. I'm curious, how can we help this? So it's tricky. Dogs and resource guarding is typically a little bit different. It's usually about food, toys, maybe a chew toy.

Gemma Smith (20:22.542)
something the dog finds really important to them. We don't usually see food resource guarding in cats, although I have seen it, in a street cat who had to compete for food a lot. But cats just generally don't always share resources well. And in the wild, they don't have to. And so it's always helpful to look and see what they're doing outdoors as wild animals and how that translates

well or not well into the home environment. you know, to your question, we want to provide as many resources as possible. It's tricky if, you you try and provide a second box for the cat who's possessive of the one box and they're like, no, no, no, no, that's not the right box. And that's, that's tricky. That's just hard. You know, we try and give them as much as, as we can, maybe move things around so that they're, because there can be a sense of place, not just a sense of object.

in terms of guarding. so, right, so favorite box in a new location might do a partial reset on how important that box is. Maybe putting the new box where the old box was and taking the old box and putting it in a new location, might, if you're lucky, discover that the behavior doesn't translate 100 % after you've done that. I see, maybe it's that spot.

I will try that and thankfully it's not, you know, it's not a type of behavior that I find as dangerous for them. They squabble a bit, she finds another place. I just feel a little sorry for her. And I should mention on that kind of sub to cat to cat behavior. It's the number one reason above all else why people contact me is cat on cat aggression or sometimes cat on people aggression. But cat aggression is number one and

it can be difficult to treat urination and defecation, know, inappropriate elimination is number two. And those two things take up most of why I talk to people. But the goal, you know, people say, I want my new cat to be best friends with my resident cat. And our goal should really be initially, can they become roommates? Like maybe your cats are, because that's a more reasonable goal than BFFs, right?

Gemma Smith (22:44.17)
And if we can get them to become roommates, then we might be able to get them to become best friends later on. But the initial goal is to get them to tolerate each other so there's not fighting in the home where the stress level gets really bad and all of that. Yeah. OK. That's nice to hear because I do feel like mine are definitely roommates. And when we leave, say, we're gone all day, I have some kind of comfort knowing at least they are next to each other and they have each other in the home as another living being.

when we're gone for extended periods of time, like we have a cat sitter that stays, but say she also works. Do you think that cats also get comfort from having another one of their species in the house? Well, yeah, frequently. The cats are in this interesting category of sometimes they really appreciate the presence of their own species and sometimes they just don't. it's, you know, some combination of early life experience genetics can all factor into how that

kind of plays out. But yes, they do often enjoy the company of their own species and they get to do natural cat behaviors that they wouldn't necessarily get to do if they were just by themselves. That might mean snuggling, grooming, playing in a way that is not quite the same in terms of how they play with us. So yeah, I think on balance, know, I've always had, we've always had two cats other than those short.

absences after the loss of a cat. But you know, it's one for each lap. Yeah, it feels like a nice number for me too. I like the two cat. Now this is a personal question for me because I just never know when I'm spraying feel-away spray, if it really does anything. I used to have the diffusers. like, am I just spending 25 bucks a month on this thing? And so now I have this spray when there is cat on cats, you know, those times where they're not getting along.

I noticed them sniffing after I spray it and it does have a little smell to it, but are they really getting anything from these pheromones? So yeah, let's explain a little bit about what we're actually talking about. there are cats have scent glands all over their bodies, including their cheeks and their forehead. And those scent glands release friendly cat pheromones. Pheromones are neurotransmitted sense that go not through the nose, but through an organ called the Jacobson organ in the roof of their mouth. And it's a different pathway.

Gemma Smith (25:09.768)
And feel away, which is a brand of artificial pheromone, attempts to replicate the social pheromones in cats. And I have seen multiple studies on it. I've seen an NIH study. I've seen a study of cats at vet offices. they're kind of, to me, they're inconclusive. There's some evidence that they work, but they don't work in a vacuum. In other words, if there are stressful things going on, the feel away by itself.

may not make a difference. That was especially true in the vet visit study. If it was noisy and if there were other things going on, the feel-away didn't seem to help. But other evidence suggests that it might help. The way I discuss it is it might help on the margins. And if you have a particular issue going on, particularly having to do with inappropriate elimination, it can be helpful there. And sometimes with cat-on-cat aggression, it may help a little bit. But it's not a replacement.

for all the behavior work that you're gonna wanna do and it's certainly not a magic bullet. That's so good to know and it's also good to know, hey, it can't hurt, it could only help. So while I have the spray, give it a try and thank you for explaining it so clearly. That's really helpful and I like that you mentioned the organ in which they breathe through because I didn't know about that until I had cats started working in animal welfare and noticed, why is my cat like...

open jaw hanging down and mouth is open. What's going on? And now I love when I see that because that's when I know they're really getting that smell through that organ and they really like whatever they're smelling or interested in it.

And I think I wanted to also ask for people that might be listening to this that they are new to being a cat parent or they just love pearlesque and so they're listening to the podcast. Are there any myths about cat behavior that you'd like to debunk?

Gemma Smith (27:06.126)
Well, there's so many, that would be almost be like a separate podcast, but a couple. There is this widespread belief that dogs are more social with people than cats. And there's a recent study, really interesting. They didn't study the cats and the dogs in terms of the type of affiliative behavior they were engaging in. Dogs are very effusive, right? Cats are much more subtle, much more restrained. So they didn't measure.

how the cat and the dog interacted with the people. They simply measured the amount of time the cats and the dogs wanted to be with the people. And they discovered that on balance, it was exactly equal. Mind you, some cats, some dogs spend all their time with you. Some spend a lot, some spend, some spend not very much, but averaged altogether, it turned out to be the same. it's just that cats are more subtle in the way in which they show

their affection or their attention and dogs are more demonstrative. So that's one myth. So there's a myth that cats aren't social with each other, which they absolutely can be. We've talked about that a little bit. There's a myth that cats don't require much social interaction with people. It's completely untrue. They are very focused on us. Cat people know that they have this deep communication with their cats and that's a big deal.

They're not low maintenance animals. People think, you just put food down, litter box, scoop once a day, and you're done. Also not true. There's a myth that cats can't be trained. Well, just go to YouTube and look up cat.

what's the thing, circuses, right? And you'll see that they can. But also clicker training, as we talked about, is absolutely doable for cats. It's the same really between cats and dogs. And if you go to YouTube, you can also see great videos of cats ringing bells for food, you know, like the bellhop bell at a hotel in the old days, right? They go ding, ding, ding, ding. There's a great one. I use it in my webinar of not only the cats ringing the bells for the food, but the one cat rings the other cat's bell to get the food, right?

Gemma Smith (29:13.806)
And then there's the idea that cats are unlucky. It all started with Pope Gregory IX in the 1200s AD. He made this kind of thing, this speech, a document where he was really directing it apparently towards this village where there was a cult. But it spread all through Europe, that cats are bad, black cats in particular, and it resulted in killing of lots of cats.

A myth about pregnant women should avoid cats because of taxoplasmosis. The parasite, the oocyst, it goes through your mouth. It's not airborne. You have to basically get it in through a cut or through your mouth. So wear gloves and you're okay or have your partner clean the litter. There's nothing bad can happen. You're more at risk of getting that illness, which transmits to the unborn child, right, which is really serious, through unpasteurized cheese, gardening in your garden.

So that's a myth. Cats are nocturnal, not true. They're crepuscular, meaning most active during dawn and dusk. Guess what? What? That's when their food source is available. Mice and birds are all waking up or active at those times of the day. They're also just, for that record, polyphasic in their sleeping, which means they take lots of naps. The myth cats always land on their feet.

Yes, they have a self-writing mechanism if they're falling, but landing on your feet doesn't help if you're falling from 10 floors above. And I know that we get high-rise syndrome cats at ACC every week. And then there's the myth that only male cats spray. Yes, it's more common in unneutered male cats, but unspayed females can spray as well. And then lastly, and this is not an exhaustive list, and I realize we've already hit tomorrow, but cats purr only when they're happy or content. Not true.

They can purr when they're sick or stressed. So there is a list of about 10 or 12 things. I'm obsessed with this list. You could make this a book. You could make this your own podcast. Like, this is really fascinating. Even though I am a cat person, I work in animal welfare, I do know a lot of these. I still find the facts and the tidbits of, like, where certain myths came from fascinating. And I still, in my head,

Gemma Smith (31:33.784)
think cats are nocturnal. But when you said that, I'm like, yes, I've heard this before, dawn and dusk. That makes sense. It all comes together. This is just really fascinating. So thank you. I'm glad I didn't forget that question, because that was a good one. Absolutely. understanding cats and cat behavior is really about understanding how they evolved and what they're like in nature and what their needs are and how that translates or doesn't necessarily translate into the home.

So true, and I love that you mentioned also earlier that cat parents have a special bond with their cats and they can tell like their behavior, like a slow blink or just noticing your cat's ears and tail and understanding. There's good charts. Maybe we can link one or I'll find one online showing like cat behavior signs. There's even a study that shows that cat parents know their cats meows.

much better than a stranger knows what the cat's asking for at the moment that they give that particular vocalization. And I certainly know it with my cats. know exactly, and I know what Jenny wants. yeah. Yeah, same. My Luna, she wants food when she cries with that certain meow. And it really all speaks to the bond that humans share with cats. Yep. Now, I would love to hear some of your tips, your

piece of it a piece or two of advice that you have whether it be a tip to cat parents a product that you really recommend and also in a moment we're going to talk about your book you're a fellow creative and you know you mentioned that you write for different publications about cat behavior so if you have any tips on that kind of career we're happy to hear it too.

Sure. one thing we haven't talked about, and this is a slightly different type of tip, which is an adoption tip. Yes.

Gemma Smith (33:35.724)
Right? People go to adopt cats all the time. in my webinars, I've been all over the country from the heartland to the east and west coast. And most people adopt from shelters or rescues, or some street rescues. But I see very few cat parents who've actually gotten a breed, although it does happen. And I watch people adopt in the shelter and in different shelters all the time. And I watch them sometimes make mistakes. And so from my point of view, the number one thing

you should look at when adopting a cat is if the personality of that cat, the temperament of that cat matches your hopes and dreams because that's what you're going to get. And if you want a super active

crazy playful cat and you're looking at a couch potato. You're not gonna get what you want. And conversely, if a cat's showing a behavior challenge, like overstimulating, you you pet them and they like it for a minute, but then they don't like it. The idea that you're gonna train them, that you're gonna fix that problem like right away, you're not. It's gonna take work and it may be slow. So I like it when people...

pay a lot of attention to the temperament and personality of the cat they're looking for, and they don't underplay a behavior challenge and think it's gonna just evaporate when they get that cat home. So that's one big tip. In terms of being a cat parent, love on your cat, be connected to your cat, and spoil that hell out of them.

Love it, I'm on that train.

Gemma Smith (35:26.52)
Great, and so now I would love to share a little bit about your new book. It's called Happy Comes Home, and I know you have it near you. Could you tell us a little bit about it and where our listeners can find it? Sure, so I'll even hold it up in case there's a visual clip. It's illustrated by my husband. A friend gave us the idea to do it to help people and their kids who are

thinking of adopting a cat or already have a cat. And it starts out in a shelter where the family goes to adopt the perfect cat. And they find this great looking cat who they name Happy and they bring Happy home. And it's what we call in the book a catastrophe. Happy steals food off the dinner table, wakes mom and dad up at three in the morning, turns the sofa into a pin cushion, all these sorts of common disasters that happen.

And so they do some internet searching and they find a guy named Mr. Top Cat who shows up at the door. He's a full-size human-sized cat with strangely blue and green eyeglasses like mine and a big tail. And he kind of helps them figure out how to work through all these problems so that Happy can be the happiest cat possible and the humans as well.

That's kind of the gist of it. It's on Amazon. It's in hardcover. It's on Barnes and Noble My website you can get a signed copy through my website if you want. We had a great time Writing it and Tom's illustrate his illustrations are fantastic And so yeah, well, I'll make sure to link where they can find it where our listeners can find it in this show notes as well and I think it's a great opportunity to plug that

Just like the book can help families adjust to adding a cat, so can cat behavior experts like yourself. So when people are the only time to reach out to a feline behavior expert is not just when your cat's in distress, but also if you have a child, you're adding a cat to your family, or maybe you're a first time cat parent, and you just want to set yourself, your partner, your family, your cat up for success, it's a great time to reach out to you. And if you're about to have a baby.

Gemma Smith (37:46.03)
Yes. I have counseled people who are having babies or have had a baby and the best time to reach out is when you know you're pregnant and you can start prepping the cat for the baby's arrival months in advance. I know some people who might even be thinking about this now. Yes, yes, my husband and I are thinking about growing our family and we know that we want our children, our cats, and our future child to all coexist.

peacefully and so if people want to reach out to you for any of the above mentioned or just to follow you for tips or on Instagram They can follow you at cat behavior help, correct? That is correct Thank you so much Stephen for taking the time to chat with me today You've shared a wealth of information that I'm sure our listeners are really excited about and again anything that you've mentioned specifically will link in the show notes and just want to say

Go follow Stephen on Instagram, email him for that discount code, and thank you for being here. My pleasure. And my website, catbehaviorehelp.com, also is a great resource. And thank you so much, Gemma, for having me. It's been a real pleasure. I hope to come back someday, and I will send you links.

for some behavior products. And that's a wrap for this episode of Tales and Tassels. So if you have any questions, comments, or just want to say meow, feel free to send us an email at talesandtasselspod at gmail.com.

Thank you for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review our podcast. Also join our community on Instagram at Tales and Tossels Pod for more updates and behind the scenes fun. See you next time, kitty cats.