Issue 26 | June 2023 — Cat
Non-Recognition Aggression in Cats
Summary: When a cat is taken out of their home and then taken back, for example to the veterinarian, they can experience “non-recognition aggression.” Even cats who previously had a strong affiliative relationship can fail to recognize each other under...
By Allison Hunter-Frederick
When ‘Click’ Means ‘I Love You”: Clicker Training My Cat Zathras Through His End-of-Life
I want to start this with a confession: I used to be extremely skeptical of clicker training for cats. It seemed gimmicky and not particularly helpful, outside of teaching shelter cats tricks to entice adopters. Through continuing education, especially about...
By T Hamboyan Harrison, CCBC, ACSB-C, SBA, FFCPIssue 25 | February 2023 — Cat
Case Study: Mimi and Leo — Sudden-onset Aggression in a Cat
Summary: After years of the two cats living together with no issues, Mimi suffered an acute medical event and started to behave aggressively towards Leo. The aggression continued even after her recovery from surgery, which prompted the intervention documented here....
By Monika Januszewska, CCBCIssue 24 | October 2022 — Cat
Brie Breathes Easy: Training a Cat to Enjoy an Inhaler
When I took Brie to the emergency vet, his respiration rate was over 80 breaths per minute. His two-day stay in the oxygen kennel receiving IV fluids and additional medications brought his respiration rate back into the normal range. The veterinary specialist...
By Prof. Robin BishaCase Study: Jumbo — Extreme Fearfulness in a Cat
Summary: What do you do when your newly-adopted cat refuses to stop hiding under the bed? 4-year-old Jumbo had a rough start in life, and now he was in danger of losing another home. When Certified Cat Behavior Consultant Hongfei Li was called, his caregiver was at...
By Hongfei Li CCBCIssue 23 | June 2022 — Cat
The Sustainable Cat: Making Better Choices for the Environment
Summary: Plastic toys, strip-mined litter, and greenhouse gas intensive food – our pets are a surprisingly large contributor to the climate crisis. A look at the research can give us the numbers, but how can we make more sustainable choices for us and our pets? This...
By Tiro Miller, PhDSpotlight on Research: Courtney Graham
Courtney Graham is a PhD candidate working with kittens in the Companion Animal Behaviour and Welfare Lab at the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph. She is currently investigating the effects of socialization and early management strategies for...
Issue 22 | February 2022 — Cat
Cat-Cat Play: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Summary: Play is an important part of cats’ wellbeing, and in a multi-cat household it can provide exercise and enhance social bonds. Cat guardians should be able to recognize when play is healthy and when it is showing signs of turning into non-play aggression...
By Patience Fisher ACCBC, CVA, DipFBST, BSBIOA Guide to Socializing Older (Fractious) Kittens
Summary: Fosters are often called on to help increase affiliative behaviors, and decrease distance-increasing behaviors in older kittens that are showing signs of being undersocialized. This article explains what this process looks like for kittens who are outside...
By Emily Carl, CCBC CPDT-KA, FFCPIssue 21 | November 2021 — Cat
Beyond the Cat Tree: Feline Enrichment for the New Behavior Consultant
Summary: This guide for new feline behavior consultants looks at the value of different types of enrichment, and offers advice on how to increase clients’ willingness to add enrichment to their cats’ lives. It focuses on helping clients visualize potential...
By Amanda CaronIssue 20 | September 2021 — Cat
Case Study: Barney — Human-directed Aggression in a Cat
Summary: As a kitten, Barney’s aggressive behavior was ignored by his family, hoping that Barney would grow out of it. A few years later, when Barney’s family bring home a new foster son, they find themselves unprepared to handle Barney’s behavior...
By Emily Carl, CCBC CPDT-KACase Study: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Abbie? Using Target Training to Resolve Fear Aggression in an Unsocialized Cat
Summary: An extremely avoidant, aggressive 7-year-old cat is fostered by a Certified Cat Behavior Consultant. Over months of careful environmental management and the introduction of regular target training, incidences of aggression dramatically decreased until...
By Kate Luse, CCBCIssue 19 | May 2021 — Cat
Enrichment at Home and in the Wild: Comparing Enrichment in Black-Footed Cats and Domestic Cats
Environmental enrichment, shortened here to enrichment, provides captive animals with stimuli needed to participate in species-typical behavior and increases the amount of time an animal spends in goal-directed behavior.1 It is often used in zoos to decrease...
By Gavin FraserIssue 18 | February 2021 — Cat
Another Way Out: Friends For Life’s Fraidy Cat Program
Summary: How can a shelter help its most frightened cats? The Fraidy Cat behavior program at Friends For Life was designed for severely undersocialized cats who cannot live outside safely. It is an intensive program that requires a high level of resources, but data...
By Melissa Taylor and Alese ZemanIssue 17 | November 2020 — Cat
Working With Cats After the Camp Fire
Winner of the 2020 Rebecca Park Animal Behavior Consulting: Principles & Practice Scholarship In times of social isolation, Laughter can be the shortest distance between two people. Under the current pandemic crisis, I am reminded that the best resilience is built...
By Rachel ZarntCat Reintroductions via Online Consultations
I did more virtual cat behavior consultations in March, April, and May of 2020 than I had done in my previous four years of consulting. I feel that I’ve really improved regarding being efficient at getting and giving information! In this article, I will share some...
By Patience Fisher ACCBCSeparation-Related Problems in Cats
Cats often suffer from the perception that they are the easier option, the “set it and forget it” pet that requires less attention and is less impacted by our absence. In reality, they are complex individuals who are capable of forming deep social attachments and are...
By Denise Johnson, DVMSeparation-Related Problems: Anxiety Is Not the Only Cause
Separation anxiety (SA) is the term commonly used to describe the collection of behaviors exhibited by a dog who is significantly distressed when left alone. It is one of the most well-studied behavioral disorders in dogs, and yet there is still no consensus of...
By Sharon Carroll CDBC, CHBCIssue 16 | July 2020 — Cat
Training to Keep Cats Safe in Cars
Veterinarians must do the impossible to preserve the physical and emotional health of their patients. Advising owners on how to transport their pets in a vehicle is essential, since it is common for dogs and cats to travel for clinical consultation by car, where if...
By Dr. Silvia VaiBeyond the Gate
Have you done cat reintroductions for clients, where everything was going fine until they removed the gate? Perhaps a cat chased the other one once the gate was removed. Or a cat just turned and hid when there was no gate. Or one cat played in a manner that was too...
By Patience Fisher, ACCBCIssue 15 | April 2020 — Cat
Training Cats to Become Therapy Cats
“I’m so happy to see my favorite cat!” the older gentleman said as Rainy and I entered his room at the senior retirement community. He held out his shaking hand to pet Rainy and said that he had been feeling down and in need of company. After he had stroked Rainy a...
By Allison Hunter-FrederickScratch This, Not That!
Cats scratch for many reasons such as nail care, exercise, tension relief, and communication that includes both physical and chemical messages (DePorter, 2019). Scratching behavior is so innate that even cats who have undergone partial digital amputation, also known...
By Denise Johnson DVMHow to talk about….
Everyone has different strengths in how they communicate with clients, and one way to approach a situation won’t work for everyone. In our “How to Talk About…” series, IAABC members talk about the strategies they use to approach tricky situations in their behavior...
What Are We Going to Do With These Cats?! Case Studies in Difficult-to-home Shelter Cats: Murray
Murray was probably the scariest cat I had met in my five years of working one-on-one with shelter cats. The handsome 5-year-old neutered male Nebelung (a breed I’d never heard of before!) was surrendered by a married couple who was going to have a baby. Although they...
By Cheryl Kolus, DVMIssue 14 | January 2020 — Cat
Using Rotation to Reduce Stress in Multi-Cat Situations
Multi-cat homes where all the cats live indoors are growing more and more common in today’s feline world, as shelters, breeders, and behavior consultants recognize the benefits of bringing more than one cat home. In fact, most people who have cats have two or...
By Kathryn WeilOutdoor cats: Science and Welfare
Recent research (Chalkowski et. al 2019) into whether outdoor access was a risk factor in the spread of 19 different pathogens, some of which transmit to humans and wildlife as well as to other cats, revealed that cats with outdoor access were 2.77 times more likely...
By Jane BowersIssue 13 | October 2019 — Cat
How To Talk About…Adding More Litter Boxes?
As trainers and behavior consultants, we’re often tasked with telling clients things that they might not want to hear. We’re experts in knowing what needs to be said — in identifying behavior challenges and creating ways to address them — but sometimes we can all...
By Dilara Parry CCBC and Sarah Dixon CDBCAsk the Ethics Committee
The world of animal behavior consulting is always changing—we’re seeing new clients in unique situations, working with individual animals, learning about innovative techniques and cutting-edge research, and trying to navigate business, marketing, and social media....
By IAABC Ethics CommitteeIssue 12 | July 2019 — Cat
What are we going to do with these cats?! Case studies in difficult-to-home shelter cats: Craisin
Her big green eyes sucked me in the moment I saw them. They had the potential to be so beautiful, but right now they were filled to the brim with fear. And they wouldn’t change much for a good 10 weeks. Craisin came to our Colorado limited-admission,...
By Cheryl Kolus, DVM, KPA-CTPRebecca Park Scholarship Winning Essay
Twice a year, IAABC holds a contest for a Rebecca Park Scholarship, which grants the winner a free place on the IAABC Animal Behavior Consulting: Principles & Practice online course. The following essay was the winning entry for Spring’s scholarship, and was...
By Allison Hunter-FrederickIssue 11 | April 2019 — Cat
What are we going to do with these cats?! Case studies in difficult-to-home shelter cats.
Case 1: Oomie I finally had a moment to get some work done on my laptop, so I pulled a chair up to the desk and started typing away. Oomie joined me. The sleek black cat jumped on my lap and settled in comfortably, purring. After a minute or two, Oomie stretched his...
By Cheryl Kolus, DVMHunting Enrichment Part 2: The great outdoors
If you ask clients why they do not allow their cat outdoor access, you will hear a few common things: The client is fearful that harm will come to the cat, the client lacks knowledge on how to safely provide outdoor access, or the client simply doesn’t feel the...
By Kathryn WeilCooperative Care: The How and the Why
Cooperative care involves training an animal to not only tolerate handling and husbandry procedures, but to be an active, willing participant in these experiences. In this column, we highlight some useful behaviors to teach clients to facilitate cooperative care, and...
Issue 10 | February 2019 — Cat
Cooperative Care With a Cat: Using a Fun Trick to Facilitate Easy Nail Trims
This video series shows the training of my cat, Spree, to willingly accept nail trims by using a previously learned behavior of “shaking hands.” Part 1: Before training /wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Kolus-Part-1-NT-Before-Training.mp4 This is what our nail trims looked...
By Cheryl Kolus, DVMHunting Enrichment for Indoor Cats Part 1: Indoor Activities
When one thinks of “enrichment” for cats, typically food-based activities such as treat balls come to mind, along with cat toys. A few cats are unmotivated by the treat ball, and a lot of adult cats couldn’t be bothered to give chase to that tired old mouse toy. Most...
By Kathryn WeilFrom Foes to Friends: Using Positive Reinforcement to Teach a Cat and Dog to Happily Coexist
Background Si is an approximately 6-year-old domestic short haired tabby cat. He was found as a stray when he was about a year old. At the time, our home consisted of two dogs and two other cats. Si instantly snuggled with the cats but would only observe the dogs from...
By Tori Ganino, CDBC, CPDT-KASpecial Challenges of Senior Cats in Shelters
How do senior cats end up in shelters? For over a decade, I have volunteered in the cat areas at Dallas Animal Services (DAS), a municipal shelter which has the fifth highest intake volume of animals in the United States. I routinely see senior cats on their rescue...
By Molly DeVoss, CFTBSIssue 9 | October 2018 — Cat
Cat Training Corner: Preparing for Bloodwork
Periodically, bloodwork may be required as part of your cat’s annual exam and in times of illness. Blood draws require the cat to be exposed to various novel stimuli that may result in anxiety. Getting kitty accustomed to the technique, sights, sounds, and...
By Lisa BolinInsights from Cat Agility
Over the past twelve years, I’ve trained five cats in agility (three of whom are still part of our family), and from them I’ve gained insights into cat behavior. Some insights were not unfamiliar to me due to attending dog training classes. For example, each animal...
By Allison Hunter-FrederickCareer Paths: Jessica Fritschi
One of the most common questions IAABC gets is about how to get started working with pets and their people. The truth is, there’s no set career path, and no single qualification that prepares you for this uniquely challenging, endlessly fascinating work. In this...
By IAABC Editing TeamBring Home the Catwalk: Stylish and Enriching Designs for the Feline-Friendly Home
Whenever I tell people that I cat-sit in a house that has been decked out with features specifically for the four cats who live there, they shudder. The idea of cat furniture instantly summons the image of a home where it snows cat hair and smells like kitty...
By Lillian Ciardelli, MSIssue 8 | July 2018 — Cat
Pet Retention Programs in Play: A Case Study
In July 2017, the Pet Retention Program at Contra Costa Animal Services (CCAS) got a request for the return of a young tabby cat adopted from the shelter a few months prior. When Stefani Buzzard, the pet retention coordinator at the time, responded with a request for...
By Dilara Göksel Parry, CCBCDisaster Preparedness Skills for Your Feline Behavior Clients
When a client contacts you for help with their cat’s challenging behavior, you have an opportunity to give them tools that they may not even realize they need. In the course of identifying the problems their cat is having and coming up with a solution, a behavior...
By Kathryn WeilFeral Kittens
It’s springtime, which means kitten season is upon us. Shelters around the country will soon be inundated with box after box of kittens that need to be bottle fed or “tamed.” These kittens will come from under a person’s porch, a live trap set for skunks, and inside...
By Kayla FrattIssue 7 | April 2018 — Cat
Cat Training Corner: Training a Kitten to “Go to Box”
Go-to-box training is a very useful tool. It enables you to not only relocate a cat, but more importantly to refocus him. It is an excellent tool for teaching impulse control. I find that target training is the best first step to teaching this. Below is a case study...
By Patience FisherCareer Paths: Katenna Jones
Animal behavior consultants come from all walks of life. One of the most common questions IAABC gets is about how to get started working with pets and their people. The truth is, there’s no set career path, and no single qualification that prepares you for this...
By IAABC Editing TeamIssue 6 | February 2018 — Cat
Feline Foraging Toys: How to Implement, Motivate, and Stage the Difficulty Level
Having cats work for their food, just as they would if they were living outdoors is, in my opinion, one of the most overlooked forms of environmental enrichment for indoor cats. The amount of time adult cats spend hunting varies based on sex, age, activity level, and...
By Ingrid Johnson, CCBCCat Training Corner
This column highlights some of the great training you and your cat can do together. We’ll start with how to train a foundational behavior, and build up to showing off some of the fun and useful tricks that build on that groundwork. This issue we’re looking at...
By IAABC Editing TeamIssue 5 | October 2017 — Cat
Post-Surgical Rehabilitation and Behavior Modification of a Foster Cat Through Guided Play
History Medical history On March 1, 2017, I picked up Sal, a long-haired orange tabby from the Animal Rescue League of Boston (ARL). Sal was brought to the ARL with injuries consistent with being hit by a car. Sal’s right front leg was broken and his left back hip had...
By Lillian Ciardelli, MSCat Training Corner
This new column will highlight some of the great training you and your cat can do together. We’ll start with how to train a foundational behavior, and build up to showing off some of the fun and useful tricks that build on that groundwork. Our first installment will...
By Victoria Blais, Julie Posluns, and Cheryl Kolus, DVMIssue 4 | July 2017 — Cat
Cat Social Lives: Current Knowledge and Future Directions
Although cats are stereotypically thought to be aloof and unsocial, domestic cats display great flexibility in their social behavior. Cats have the ability to live solitarily, to live in extremely gregarious colonies, and to live socially in homes with humans and...
By Kristyn Vitale Shreve, MEnIssue 3 | April 2017 — Cat
The Clinical Animal Behavioral Gold Standard
In the 1940s E. R. Guthrie and G. P. Horton designed an experiment to test feline problem-solving ability using a test box and cats that met the scientific standard. In the experiment, they placed individual cats inside a test box, outside of which they placed a food...
By Myrna Milani, DVMCat Training: “But it’s so difficult!”
I have never understood the difficulty that some people have training cats. I find them intelligent, interested and engaged when I work with them, so I assume it should be the same for other trainers. However, I frequently hear that people are having trouble and...
By Jacqueline MuneraAn Interview with Sarah Ellis, Author of “The Trainable Cat”
Patience Fisher discusses Dr. Ellis’ research and new book with her, uncovering additional details and insights on how to train a cat. Sarah Ellis’ life of research, consulting, and educating people about cats has been focused on undoing the decades-long acceptance of...
Case Study: Cat Attacking Dog
Case information Cat’s name: Smudge Breed: Siamese/ Domestic Shorthair mix Sex: Neutered male Age: 7 years Other animals in home: 13-year-old spayed female Pomeranian dog named Bee History Smudge was found by his owner in a box full of kittens of mixed ages, which had...
By Emily StrongIssue 2 | January 2017 — Cat
FeBARQ: Applied Research on Domestic Cat Behavior
Over 10 years after the release of the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (CBARQ), cat owners finally have a feline version of this behavioral assessment tool available online. The Feline Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (FeBARQ)...
By Miranda Workman CCBCThe Science of Finding Lost Pets
If you were to ask me to spend the day searching a remote, wilderness area like the Cascade Mountains for a missing person, but you gave me no details about why they were out there, I would have a very difficult time knowing just what tools to use and where I should...
By Kat AlbrechtPanic and Pain as Complications of the Cat-Dog Relationship
You have—or your client has—a dog who is completely non-reactive to the household cats; in fact, she may even appear to love them. She might engage in mutual grooming and cuddling, and not mind the occasional cat-slap when she tries to sniff a butt. Does this mean...
By Jessica ElliottIssue 1 | October 2016 — Cat
Behavior Consulting and Declawed Cats
If you work with cats in the United States or Canada, you will face a few conundrums related to phalangectomy procedures (onychectomy/declawing).[1] The topic is considered controversial by many people, including some of your clients and their vets. This means that...
By Jacqueline MuneraBest Practices in Husbandry and Handling
They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. I’ll add that video is worth a million. As professional trainers, we offer our services in a time where modern technology can be our best friend. A baseline video here, a quick video of us working with our...
By Laura Monaco TorelliCountering Counter-Surfing
When my cat Lassie was young, she had springs for legs. I’ve never seen a cat jump as quickly or with as much agility as she would, especially when it came to accessing canned cat food as we opened it on the counter. We took video of her doing this once because it...
By Adria KarlssonCase Study: Blade
Case Information: Cat’s Name: Blade Breed: Domestic Shorthair Sex: Neutered Male Age: 7 months Background: This kitten was presented at my practice for pouncing, biting, and scratching at both owners in the household. He was adopted through another veterinary clinic...
By Sally FooteFeline Cognitive Dysfunction
The joys of keeping our cats indoors with plenty of environmental enrichment, good food, health care and an enormous amount of love and respect are all well-documented: besides having a happier and healthier companion, those fur-kids are living longer. Much longer....
By Jane EhrlichBrie Breathes Easy: Training a Cat to Enjoy an Inhaler
When I took Brie to the emergency vet, his respiration rate was over 80 breaths per minute. His two-day stay in the oxygen kennel receiving IV fluids and additional medications brought his respiration rate back into the normal range. The veterinary specialist...
By Robin BishaIssue 27 | June 2016 — Cat
Environmental Considerations When Treating Feline Osteoarthritis
Our friendly feline companions are starting to live longer lives, and with longevity comes inevitable aging woes, such as feline osteoarthritis (OA, or shortened to ‘arthritis’). Animal care professionals (ACPs) such as veterinarians, behaviorists, behavior...
By Morgan RedellCase Study: Excessive Vocalization in a Cat
Summary: A case of a cat who vocalized day and night in the presence of her preferred human companion, across a wide variety of contexts — including if her guardian tried to take a nap. Resolution was almost completely achieved through intentional extinction,...
By Kate Luse, CCBC