People look at me funny when I tell them that my cats willingly take medication and that it’s their favorite part of the day.
This is a video of me and my cat Bean and proof of what I say!
How does Bean maintain total choice and control when it’s time to give meds?
First, we have her treatment station. Bean willingly jumps up on her perch to let me know she’s ready to participate. She is always waiting for me there while I prepare her meds in the kitchen.
Next, I give her the predictor cue, “Ready?” I use this cue to tell her that I’m going to pill her.
Then, she gives me her start button, touching my finger with her nose. If she doesn’t touch my finger, I would reassess and start over. (It’s never happened, though.) This is how Bean literally answers my question, “Ready?” and tells me she is okay with what comes next.
I pill her at this point and immediately follow it with reinforcement, her favorite treat.
When you give your animals the ability to make choices and have autonomy, amazing things happen.
I regularly tear up when communicating with Bean like this. She is such a fearful, anxious cat and I can only imagine what a nightmare medicating her could be if I hadn’t spent so much time training and teaching her that she has the right to say no.
I love cooperative care. But mostly I love Bean. She is perfection.
Meet Bella, a senior kitty who is one of four in the home. In this video, you’ll see her perching on the edge of the Tidy Cats Breeze system to urinate, presumably to avoid stepping on the hard, uncomfortable pellets. Have you ever stepped on a Lego? That's what those Breeze pellet feel like to cats!!
Bella also doesn’t dig or cover, both of which are completely normal elimination behaviors for cats, further telling us that she does not want to touch the substrate.
Bella has other challenges as well. She does not use the Litter Robot next to the Breeze at all and consistently poops on the floor in front of both boxes. Cats often modify their behavior to accommodate mobility issues, substrate preference, or past negative experiences.
If you have a cat with similar habits, ask yourself:
🐾 Could the litter box size, entry, or substrate be uncomfortable for her?
🐾 Does she have arthritis or mobility issues that make perching easier than stepping inside?
🐾 Is she avoiding the Litter Robot due to movement, sound, or enclosed space?
🐾 Has she had negative experiences with either box?
For Bella, we’d recommend:
✔️ A large, low-sided box with a soft, fine-grain litter to see if she prefers a different texture.
✔️ Placing a pee pad where she poops to make clean-up easier while troubleshooting the issue.
✔️ A vet check-up to rule out pain or health concerns that could make traditional litter boxes uncomfortable.
What do you think?
#SeniorCats #LitterBoxTips #FelineHealth #CatBehavior
The positive interaction from the post below.
I, Mary, apologize now for the video quality. I am not a movie creator 🤣.
In the 2 videos, you will see my clinic cat, Doodles, interacting with me to be brushed. He does become overstimulated quickly and will bite my hand if he has had too much.
To help curb this behavior, I have trained him to bump my hand while I hold a brush to see if he wants to be brushed.
The first video shows his reaction without me asking him permission, while the second shows his more positive interaction when I do ask.
There are no limits to what you can do with your cat. Tonight, I taught my blind cat, Puff, how to give high fives. Not so easy to teach him to touch something he can’t even see! He did such a great job for his first session. I work on training with all my cats for basic care and for fun enrichment, but I have to admit I’ve always shied away from it with Puff. It was very intimidating to try to get him on the same page when he misses out on so many visual signals and cues. Tonight I saw a window of opportunity with him reaching for my hand when I was putting treats in his food puzzle. I was able to quickly shape that annoying behavior into a high five on cue!
As holiday deliveries pile up, don’t toss those boxes away! Instead, use them to create a magical holiday wonderland for your cats. Here’s how you can turn simple cardboard boxes into a festive feline playground:
1) Plan the Layout
-Create a multi-level structure by stacking and connecting boxes.
-Cut out doors and windows for peek-a-boo fun.
-Add tunnels or ramps to keep your cats curious and active.
2) Add the Holiday Touch (Great Activity for Kids)
-Decorate the boxes with holiday colors, but avoid glitter, tinsel, or anything that could be ingested.
-Add cozy blankets or a sprinkle of catnip to make the space inviting.
-Place the structure near a safe holiday display, like a non-breakable tree or twinkling lights, for extra ambiance.
3) Introduce the Wonderland
-Let your cats explore at their own pace. Sprinkle a few treats inside or dangle a wand toy to encourage them to check out their new space.
Still think cooperative care isn’t possible for your cat?
This one of my outdoor cats, Watson. He is a “friendly feral” who showed up in my yard one day and never left. Recently, he came down with an eye infection that needed treatment. For many colony caretakers, that would involve keeping them indoors in a crate for a week and wrestling with them twice a day. Not a fun experience for anyone.
For me, I go outside on my porch, call his name, and he comes running from wherever he is in the neighborhood, hops up on his station, and willingly accepts his eye ointment. IT WAS NOT THAT HARD.
1. Watson has a strong reinforcement history on that chair on my porch. He loves to sit there with me on nice days and I’ve previously given him treats there (he loves the Delectables Lickable Spoon.)
2. Watson has a strong reinforcement history to me calling his name. It’s almost always to give him food or attention.
3. I combined both of those things here (I started the video after I called him, but you get it.)
4. I used the Premack principle, which states that an opportunity to perform a more preferred behavior increases the probability of an individual engaging in a less preferred behavior. In simple terms, the opportunity to eat an entire lickable spoon (a preferred behavior) increases the likelihood that Watson will allow medication (a less preferred behavior.) It’s like telling your kid they can’t eat dessert unless they finish their broccoli.
5. If Watson had shown strong aversion to medication, like trying to scratch or running away, I would have taken a step back and began by simply holding the ointment near his eye, or asking him to touch it with his nose, before working up to administering it.
So there you go. COMPLETELY choice-based eye medication administration in an outdoor cat with the ability to run away and not get caught.
(This was probably the 6th or 7th time Watson has gone through this routine in the video. I am not tricking him
"I've worked with Laura for X months on inter-cat aggression. I had gotten a new kitten for my oldest kitten to play with. She was being aggressive with my new youngest cat and despite following every single piece of advice out there on the internet and trying absolutely everything when it comes to introducing cats, I was super lost and knew I needed some help. At the time of working with Laura, my kittens had to be kept separate for 4 months up to that point. I was at my wits end and feeling very, very hopeless. Laura was an amazing resource! She was able to use her expertise to analyze the behavior of my cats that I would have never seen, the primary one being that the older kitten actually really liked my youngest and wanted to play with her, but she was so unsocialized, she was playing and interacting with her aggressively and all wrong. Being that I had my eldest since she was 4 weeks old and was alone till 7 months of age when I got another cat, I didn't realize she was basically suffering from single kitten syndrome and all the behavioral issues that came with it.
We spent several months training my first cat using various techniques to get her impulsive behaviors under control, I learned how to do things to respect her space and gain a better relationship with her, and Laura also introduced me to a bunch of ways to engage my cats with stuff like windows perches and bird feeders as well as other fun toys that would make them both happier and learn to co-exist. We tried different techniques every week to see what did and didn't work and what we had to tweak. Periodically, I would feel so hopeless and Laura would always re-assure me because she was SO sure that they were so close, even when I couldn't see it, and she was right! She taught me that my own behaviors were not helping their situation and so I had to learn to let them figure things out. I'm happy to say after 9 months, they are getting along wonderfully! Within a week of trying something new, they c
The results are in. My math professor husband spent an hour yesterday crunching the numbers. This is what he wrote:
“Cats widely prefer clay to both pee and poop for every other type of litter. Otherwise there is no general overall preference.
For peeing, cats prefer Grass and Tofu. In a head to head matchup, cats prefer Grass over Pea Husk, Cereal, Olive, and Coffee Grounds (in order of strength of preference). There is no preference for Grass or Tofu, but cats will take Tofu over coffee.
For pooping, cats will use coffee over anything that isn’t clay. The only other litter they used was pea husk and grass and neither was statistically significant different from no usage.“
It’s worth noting that out of 10 cats who participated in the experiment, four were 5-month-old kittens who had been raised on clay litter for as long as they had lived indoors. Had we started them on tofu, would the results have been different? Did they just go to what they were familiar with?
The same could be asked of the remaining six adult cats in the study. Out of six, four had been with us since kittenhood and always used clay litter. The two remaining had been using clay litter exclusively for at least five years in our home, although since they were adopted as adults, we can’t know their history prior. Interestingly enough, although we did not track individual cats’ preferences (too much work), it appeared that these two cats who were adopted as adults were the most likely to try the new choices.
All cats had access to eight other litter boxes, all with their usual clay litter, in other rooms of the home at all times during the study. These boxes were not tracked, though all were used regularly, especially at night.
What are your thoughts? Although not in his write up, my husband also was able to determine that there was no strong preference between scented/unscented litter, which is something that cat behavior professionals including myself preach on all the tim
My litter box experiment will still be running for a few more days. Yesterday, I switched up the order again and refilled/refreshed all the boxes. Here is foster kitten Peter acting like a human woman in the ladies room considering which stall they want to use in a long line 😂
So far, the clay litter is winning by a landslide. In second place is the grass litter, and tofu and pea husk are following. Coffee grounds has been the least used. My personal least favorite is the olive pit. Just sticky and disgusting to scoop.
I’m very excited because my math professor husband’s colleague will be using my data for her statistics class project this semester!
This is a video of me giving Perry his medication. It’s clavamox, so it’s bitter and terrible. This video isn’t perfect, and I get nervous about sharing videos of me working with cats because I’m my own worst critic. However, I want to show that it is realistic and possible to drastically minimize stress levels even when giving a nasty horrible liquid medication. Even in this type of chaos.
When he was prescribed clavamox, I cringed. He is a foster through a rescue, so I’m limited in what I can request because he’s not my cat and I’m not paying for his medical care. I desperately try not to have to give cats liquid meds, even compounded flavored ones, because it sucks every time. Perry was trapped outside at between 8-10 weeks old and was totally untouched by people, so socializing him has been difficult and a process. I’m so proud of how far he’s come. He’s actually getting adopted tomorrow by a great family, and I’ll probably cry. But I desperately did not want to hurt our relationship and trust that I worked so hard on building.
So this is what I did. This is my “sandwich” method. Perry actually comes running when I sit down on the floor and put the blanket on my lap, even though it means meds are coming. First, he gets a bunch of good treats. His favorite is lunchmeat. I have to go with super high value to make it worth his time. Then, once he is warmed up, I gently blanket wrap him in my lap and administer the meds. The blanket wrap is there to allow me some gentle control over his body without having to resort to anything harsh like scruffing.
This part isn’t perfect. He scrambles when I go to lift him, but settles down quickly and stays calm and quiet while I get the bad stuff done. Yes, his face shows signs of stress, but look how quickly he bounces back and comes to me again for more treats. He knows what’s coming next. This the Premack Principle – the idea that an animal will put up with something undesirable because th
Today’s update: Puff tried the tofu litter last night. I actually really liked how it clumped. Really low-mess. I wish the cats liked it more. Maybe they’re still figuring it out.
For now, enjoy this video of old man Sunny considering his options and ultimately deciding on the grass seed.
Tonight, I intend on moving all the boxes around and changing the order to see if anything exciting happens when I do.
