Total Cat Mojo Read online

  You can match the grind of the raw food to the style of food she already prefers, you can introduce different meats and cuts, chunks versus ground. Remember, feeding for challenge means presenting the palate with variety . . . even with raw meat!

  MEAL FEEDING—A CAT DADDY NON-NEGOTIABLE!

  We have to make the distinction between scavenging versus opportunistic hunting. One lifestyle suggests grazing; the other suggests HCKE. Free feeding is leaving food out for your cat 24/7 and is basically analogous to scavenging. It’s food for the taking, with no effort involved. It’s unearned and, therefore, unrewarding. No Mojo. My experience is that free feeding undermines the work we try to do, not to mention the cat’s own physiology.

  Cats are built to eat several small meals a day, optimally around five to six hours apart. I advocate somewhere between two and four meals a day, matching the rhythm of your home. The difference between a wild cat who is hunting all the time and your cat is that your cat’s circadian rhythm is hooked into yours. When your family wakes up in the morning, energy in the house skyrockets, and so does your cat’s. So, ideally, that’s when it’s HCKE time. You come home from work, and the same thing happens: your cat’s energy rises. And then once again before bed. Every time there’s a ritualistic rising of energy in the home, you should be ritualizing play and food (HCKE) around that.

  Controlling when your cat eats regulates your cat’s energy. Regulating your cat’s digestion gives you information about when he will eliminate. We tend to overcomplicate things. Keep it simple and connect the feeding schedule back to the Raw Cat!

  How Much to Feed Your Cat

  One-size-fits-all feeding guidelines are unrealistic. Don’t take any one source’s word as gospel on how much your cat should be eating. Do your research, but also get to know what your cat likes and dislikes and how much he likes to eat, and monitor his weight and activity level.

  Cats require somewhere around twenty-five to thirty-five calories per pound a day for maintenance. One mouse is about thirty calories. Outdoor cats eat eight to ten mice a day, but that is after twenty or thirty hunting attempts. Cats who live outside have a different rhythm than our indoor cats and work a lot harder for their food.

  Feeding Time for Multiple Cats

  Of course, as much as I try to arm you with hard and fast rules for cat living, when it comes to multiple-cat homes, that’s where rules go to die. In multiple-cat households, your cats might not all be on the same page when it comes to how fast or how much they eat. If you have an elderly or sick cat, he may need more access to food than your other cats. He might even need food out all the time. Also, cats don’t share mice, and most cats don’t want to share their food dish. So space your dishes out accordingly. Your house cat has a nice-sized personal space bubble that needs to be respected.

  Some cats are part of what we call the “Snarf and Barf” crowd: they eat like there’s no tomorrow. They might gulp their food down just to barf it back up. Usually it happens so quickly that you’ll be cleaning up undigested food that looks almost identical to what you had just put in the bowl. The reasons for Snarf and Barf are varied. Sometimes there’s an underlying physical problem like, for instance, hyperthyroidism. It’s always smart to take repeated episodes as a symptom and have them checked out by a vet. Just as often, however, there are emotional reasons—the cat might have lived out on the street, competing with other cats for scant resources. It could be that before she came to your home she lived with a dog who liked her food as much as she did, and so she got used to speed eating before trouble came knocking.

  Whatever the cause, there is a simple solution. My favorite solution is a “slow down bowl.” These have barriers or ridges that cats have to work around to get their food. You can make your own by feeding your cat from a plate with a few clean rocks she has to work around. Slow feeders not only put the brakes on Snarf and Barf, but can buy you precious time during pet introductions (see chapter 10).

  Food for Challenge

  You may have one cat who won’t eat around everyone else because he is a Wallflower. However, you don’t want to feed that cat in the other room just because he is scared. Instead, use mealtime as a means to slowly move him into the community.

  Everything we provide for cats is an opportunity for challenge. Food is it. They are food and resource motivated, not human-praise motivated. It’s not just routine and rhythm. You cannot get cats to do what you want if they’re not a little bit hungry. When I first started filming My Cat from Hell, the network folks observed my “food challenge” methods and asked me, “Aren’t you just bribing the cat?” Hell yes, I’m bribing the cat! And that’s okay.

  Preventing Pickiness

  The first thing you need to do is take a look at your feeding situation. If your cat has dry food sitting out 24/7, do you think she is going to be that motivated to try something new? Is she being picky or is she just not hungry? This gets back to why cats need meals. They need to be a little hungry to try something new.

  Whisker stress: Many cats do not like the feeling of their whiskers touching the side of the bowl. Feed cats from shallow bowls or small plates.

  Texture: Some cats are particular about pâté, chunks, slices, and even the shape of dry food or treats.

  Temperature: Food should be served at “mouse body temperature.” There’s no self-respecting Raw Cat out there that would choose to eat something out of a fridge.

  Choice: Offer lots of choices, rotate foods, and note preferences.

  Location: Make sure the food dish is in a safe location—that may mean away from other cats or with a view to see the comings and goings of other animals. And let us not forget: dogs love cat food. And young children love to play in it and with it. We all need and deserve a little peace and quiet when we eat.

  Don’t top off: Some cats learn they can get attention by meowing at the bowl waiting for humans to “fluff up” their food.

  Know the difference: Cats that don’t eat may not just be picky. Not eating, even just for a day or two, is a major red flag. Obese cats are particularly at risk of hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease), which can be deadly in no time at all.

  GROOMING AND SLEEPING FOR MOJO

  Unlike the other components of the Raw Cat Rhythm, the last two need very little help; they are products of the momentum created by the successful execution of the first four. In a way, they act as proof of full commitment on the part of the Raw Cat and his human shepherd. If your cat has hunted, caught, killed, and eaten in a way that signals completion—and a fully deflated Energetic Balloon—an infallible instinct to groom and sleep will be triggered to call an end to the HCKEGS cycle and get ready for the next one.

  With that said, here are some general notes around grooming and sleeping:

  To Groom or Not to Groom . . .

  When was the last time you saw your cat grooming herself? If they’re not grooming, something is wrong. Also, if your cat’s fur is oily, or she’s getting mats when she never did before, these are also warning signs. Either way, this is something you need to be vigilant about. If your cat is avoiding grooming, it can be a sign of illness or depression. It’s also sometimes a sign of obesity; note whether your cat is grooming but avoiding her back or butt. The truth is, she may not be able to reach it, which should be a major wake-up call.

  DOES YOUR CAT NEED YOUR HELP GROOMING?

  All cats benefit from brushing, but for some breeds, it’s not optional—you must brush them. Long-haired cats can get painful mats that may require professional help for removal.

  DOES YOUR CAT NEED A BATH?

  My question for people who bathe their cats all the time is this: why are you torturing your animal?

  There is simply no reason to bathe your cat. In fact, unless your cat has been skunked or has soiled himself, he will never need a bath (with the exception of the hairless breeds, who, because of their unnatural state of hairlessness, need to ha
ve a bath once a week). Cats spend all that time grooming to cover themselves with their scent, a Raw Cat staple and a source of serious mojo, and then a human steps in and bathes them, erasing their ID. Some cats can be wiped down with a baby wipe if they are older and don’t groom much, or are obese and can’t clean themselves well. Otherwise, step away from the bathtub.

  The Lion Cut: No, It’s Not Cruel

  I think people tend to look at cats with lion cuts and think, Oh, my god, that’s terrible! Why would you do that to your cat?

  A lion cut is not just something you do in the summer because your cat might get hot. Truth is, you don’t see a lot of long-haired wildcats because it’s not really a natural look. We have come to embrace the long-haired cat look because we have bred it into the gene pool. But cats with long hair are going to be even more sensitive to touch, and to the displacement of their hair during grooming or petting. This also explains why many long-haired cats don’t like to be brushed, even though it’s often a necessary evil in order to help them avoid matting.

  Lion cuts are also recommended for senior or overweight cats who don’t groom themselves well or often enough.

  Just like anything else, ask yourself, Is this for you or is this for them? In this case, given that a lot of cats are a lot happier after a lion cut, we are actually doing it for them, even though the “cosmetic” nature of the cut might first suggest otherwise.

  . . . Perchance to Dream

  Sleep is a welfare issue, and cats under stress can be sleep deprived just like us. So make sure your cats have quiet, calm, and safe places to rest, especially in active households or homes with multiple pets. It’s fine to let your cats share your bed, but they might want their own personal options as well. Offer different textures and styles of beds to see what gets your cat relaxed, and remember, some cats like to sleep up high, some like to sleep down low. (More on this in chapter 8.)

  EVERY SINGLE STEP of the HCKEGS cycle seamlessly feeds confidence into the next. The beauty of applying the Raw Cat Rhythm to the rhythm of your home is that it can be done with relative ease, and the benefits are immense, immediate, and echo throughout every corner of a cat’s life. But, as we’ll see, while the Three Rs—Routines, Rituals, and Rhythm—provide the rhythm of Total Cat Mojo, confident ownership of the territory is the drum it’s played on.

  8

  Catification and Territory

  Mojo-fying the Home Terrain

  BY NOW, I’M sure I’m sounding like a broken record, but . . . territory, the resources that it contains, and ownership of it—these are THE most important components of Cat Mojo. How important? Well, let’s put it this way—I’ve already written two other books on the subject. In both Catification and Catify to Satisfy, the emphasis was on understanding Raw Cat territorial instincts, seeing how your cat expresses those instincts, and then building a world that satisfies those needs in a creative, not destructive, way.

  Why would we need to build a world for our cats in the first place? As we continue our march together from a rural life to an urban one, the onus is on us guardians to do just that. Consider this: our own cats would naturally have a territory of about six or seven city blocks. By keeping them indoors and by living in higher densities, we are shrinking that territory down. The outward world is getting smaller while their inward Raw world remains the same. If that imbalance is not corrected, well, in my experience, bad things happen. Relationships become rivalries, competition for those valuable resources fester. And don’t think I’m just talking about cat-to-cat relationships, either; the strain is felt by all species sharing the space between the four walls.

  The good news is that we can beat the territorial squeeze. Catification is the art of creating an enriched environment that is acceptable to both you and your cat. Catification teaches us that every square inch of the home can be shared in a positive way. Allowing our cats to own spaces through scent distribution and finding confidence in the vertical world can be accomplished—all while respecting and adhering to our own personal aesthetics. In this new, significantly reduced world that we share with our cats, nobody loses as long as we embrace compromise. If we don’t . . . well, like I said, it’s a good bet that bad things will happen.

  ALL CATS NEED a place where their Mojo can bloom. And that leads us to . . .

  Base camp is a defined area of your home that is the heart of your cat’s territory. It is often a place of introduction and acclimation (for cats moving to a new home) and it is also a place of safety.

  Create a base camp for:

  Moving

  Remodeling/renovations

  Introducing a new animal

  Introducing new human family members

  Having guests over when you have a shy cat

  Preparing for emergencies

  When cats have a base camp to return to, the stress of all of these transitions is minimized.

  WHERE TO SET UP BASE CAMP

  Base camp should be a room that you spend time in. It’s a socially meaningful space where you can mingle your scent with your cat’s. Offices, family rooms, and bedrooms are examples of a good base camp room. A laundry room, garage, or basement is not a great place to set up base camp, since these are not rooms you likely want to spend a lot of time in, and they probably don’t smell strongly of you.

  If you are introducing a new cat into a home with existing cats, you may not want your master bedroom to be the new cat’s base camp. If your resident cats sleep with you, you don’t want to kick them out of that “home within the home.” No place smells more like you than your bed. You might be setting up your cats for a rocky start. (For more on introducing a new cat to your resident cats, see chapter 10.)

  BASE CAMP EXPANSION

  Base camp needs plenty of signposts. As your cat’s territory expands, and he spends more time in the rest of the home, the signposts should also be expanded.

  Base camp expansion happens when you move signposts out of base camp into other parts of the home as a way to introduce your cat to the rest of the territory.

  The signposts and scent soakers you used in base camp will now expand your cat’s territory in a Mojo-boosting way.

  When your cat is ready to move out of base camp, take some of those signposts—a bed, a scratching post, or a litterbox, and place them in an adjacent area. When your cat explores the home, these familiar objects will help her feel like those new areas are already “home.”

  When are they ready, you ask? Cats are ready for base camp expansion when they are visibly at ease: tails up high, exploring the space, eating, drinking, and using those scent soakers. Use body language and behavior to inform your base camp expansion.

  Base Camp Rotation: Replace objects that have been expanded out of base camp with new scent soakers and signposts. This means your cat always has areas of the home that smell familiar to her and give her a sense of ownership. Beyond these basic prerequisites of base camp, signposts, and scent soakers, we have to consider the entire house as territory.

  Cat Daddy Dictionary

  Signposts are objects that signify territorial ownership for your cat. By definition, a signpost is something your cat has left a visual sign or scent on, such as scratching posts, litterboxes, and cat beds. We’ll talk in great detail about litterboxes, the most important signpost, later in this chapter.

  Scent soakers are soft items that absorb a cat’s scent and can also serve as a signpost. They say “I live here,” and allow for rubbing, scratching, or lying in. Beds, blankets, carpets, cardboard scratchers, and scratching posts are all excellent scent soakers.

  SCRATCHING POST EQUALS SIGNPOST/SCENT SOAKER

  What I often hear from clients is “My cat is wrecking my house.” What they usually mean is “My cat is scratching the furniture, and I’d rather not have a beige carpeted cat condo in my living room.” Fair enough.

  In many cases, what humans ex
perience as “nuisance” behavior is a necessity for their cats. Scratching on things like end tables and sofas is a good example. But for cats, scratching is not a luxury (or a pathology). Repeat after me: scratching is not a luxury for cats. It’s how they stretch their back and chest muscles, how they exercise and de-stress, and how they shed loose nail sheaths.

  But scratching serves two even more important and Mojo-rific functions for your cat:

  Scratch marks are proof of ownership.

  Scratching allows cats to mingle their scent with ours (and one another’s).

  To truly understand a cat’s territorial impulse to scratch, consider this: we humans tend to decorate our living environment with stuff—material possessions, such as furniture, art, photos, books, and keepsakes. Cats tend to decorate their living environment with scent and visual signals, which they like to maintain and “keep fresh.” Scratching is an excellent means to both ends.

  When your cat has scratching options throughout the home, it leaves both a visual mark and scent in the fabric or wood. Just as you would update, rearrange, or tidy your photos, cats will “adjust” those scent marks as they pass by. Scratching gives them a sense of security and ownership—and turns those areas of your home into signposts and scent soakers.

  And although cats want their own turf to scratch and mark, they might still want to scratch other areas . . . areas that smell like . . . you. Cats love to scratch couches and chairs that you use for a few reasons, the key one being: just like they create a “group scent” with other cats they live with, they probably want to do the same with the other mammals in the home . . . especially the big, hairless ones who provide them with food and love. Your cat is trying to comingle her scent with yours to show the ultimate in cat sharing: co-ownership of territory.