Addressing cat behavior problems: A visit with Allison Hunter-Frederick, owner of Allison Helps Cats

Does your cat not always use the litter box? Maybe your feline runs and hides each time the doorbell rings. Those are two of many behavior problems you might encounter with your cat. 

On this episode of The Hissing Feline, I visit with Allison Hunter-Frederick, a certified cat behavior consultant and owner of Allison Helps Cats in Lincoln, NE. She discusses common feline behavior issues that prompt cat owners to contact her, and how she works with cats who have various behavior issues. 

Website: allisonhelpscats.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:35

My guest today is Allison Hunter Frederick. She is the owner of Allison Health Cat, a cat behaviorist in Lincoln, Nebraska. She serves that basic area. Thank you for being on the Histing Feeline today, Allison.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

You are a certified cat behavior consultant. How did you become interested in studying cat behaviors?

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Well, when I was growing up, I only had dogs. But as an adult, after taking in a stray cat, I fell in love with cats and how affectionate and smart they could be. And she was the type of cat that would get on uh my chest and sleep with me at night and curl up with me and uh during the day, shadow me. So uh I fell in love with cats and then uh after she died, uh my husband and I got more cats, and I also began focusing exclusively on cats in my volunteer work because I uh because I had uh loved her so much. And uh because of our cats that we got, I started uh reading a lot about behavior. Uh my cat cinder uh food guarded, so I had to read about that and figure out how do I help uh her become less aggressive around food and protective of the her food, more comfortable uh that sh she was gonna get to have her food and not have it taken from her. Uh when I got a second cat, uh I read a book by cat behavior consultant Pam Johnson Bennett on cat introductions. And her book kind of got me interested in even more in cat behavior. And then when we got Rainy, uh we got her has a kitten, so I read a ton about kittens. She was also that type of cat that was I mean, she's a kitten, so she was into everything, but she was also that type of cat who, even as she was growing up, she was just so high energy and had so many needs uh as far as being active, that you know, I read how do you work with those type of cats? And so, you know, all of that got me interested in behavior. And then when I was blogging for our local spay neuter group, Lincoln Animal Ambassadors, I kept seeing in my research that behavior was a top reason that cats were surrendered. And that made me want to read about cat behavior even more, and not just so that I could learn about my own cats, but also because I wanted to help the cats that got surrendered to the shelter. I wanted to help the cat owners that uh were struggling, and I wanted them to have a kind of relationship that I had had with uh you know my cat, Lucy, my first cat. Uh so that's kind of how I got into uh you know studying cat behavior.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Right. Is is there a range of problems that cats can have from a behavioral standpoint? Are there things that are more minor or major that you have to deal with?

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Yes, definitely. There are uh problems that are frustrating but manageable, and the uh ranges from that to serious problems can affect the safety and the home. So some of the minor ones would be chewing, countersurfing, excessive vocalization, boredom, carrier aversion, and then the more major ones would be uh scratching furniture, uh uh going outside the litter box, uh, fearfulness, poor socialization, intercat aggression, human-directed aggression. And obviously all of those problems matter, but the those bigger ones, those usually take more time uh for me and a cat owner to resolve and more structured help. And they're also more often the reason why cats will get surrendered to the shelter.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yeah. Do pet parents contact you when they have concerns about behavior initially? Do they try to fix problems themselves? I imagine the problem increases if something isn't done to help the cat through those situations.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Yeah. Uh a lot of owners will try to fix it themselves first. Sometimes they're just doing what someone has told them has worked, or they've heard somewhere or read somewhere. Uh, you know, there's a lot of people that will use the skirt bottle, or they'll say, let the cats work it out themselves. Both of which are very wrong ideas. Uh, then I also have people who they'll wait a few weeks or they'll wait a few months. And sometimes by the time they contact me, they are really past the point of having patience to try ideas, so I have to give them something quick to get them started, or I'm gonna get that email or that text or call that says, yeah, we decided to surrender. Uh, but other times, there and I get a lot of these, and I'm very fortunate in this. A lot of times I get ones who they've waited a few weeks or months because they're doing a lot of research and they're doing a lot of trying things, uh, and that research is good. You know, they're they're solid books, they're looking at solid uh, you know, they're looking at other cat behavior consultant videos and stuff like that. They've done a lot of research, they've tried a lot of things, and by the time they get to me, it's a matter of us looking at, well, where do you need to step back or what creative outside the box idea are we going to do? Because uh and building on what they've already done. Um, but yes, you're right, the longer a problem goes on, the more ingrained it can become. Uh you know, introductions they've if they're getting it, cats are getting in conflicts, they've learned those patterns, and then we have to undo those patterns. Or if it's going outside the box, again, they might have they might be they're practicing that and they're learning that, and then we have to figure out why they are doing that. But we also have might also have to teach them, you know, this isn't what we want you to do. So it's it's better ultimately if people contact me early, but I do really appreciate those people who they've done a lot of good research, and I'm just building on some really great things they're doing. Um, but I if you know that delay can mean household stress, damage, more risk of injury, so it's kind of a balance there.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah. And and you uh you focus on Nebraska and the Lincoln area, because that's that's the people you work with in that area. But obviously, this podcast goes out all over the place. And would you recommend that when people start to notice uh a habit that a cat has that looks like it's gonna go on for a while that they contact perhaps a behaviorist in their particular area?

SPEAKER_03 8:06

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

What are some of the most common behavior issues that prompt cat owners to contact you? You named some things earlier in the show. Uh are there one or two that uh are pretty prevalent that you see?

SPEAKER_03 8:21

Uh so early on, a lot of what I got was cats going outside the box in intercat aggression cases or you know, failed introductions. Uh probably in the past year, I've started getting a lot of human-directed aggression cases. Gotten a lot of cases where cats go outside the litter box. One of the most challenging cases for me, uh, the family had five cats and a couple dogs. They ended up having three cats that they put in a basement room because those cats they believed were going outside the litter box, and of course it was ruining their home and lots of smell and things like that. Uh, and the cats were also getting into conflicts with the other cats because there was marking going on and stuff like that. So what they had to do was they had to do a lot of recording of what is going on. Can we figure out what's triggering these cats going outside the box? And they looked at lots of footage, I looked at lots of footage, we tracked things on a spreadsheet. I highly recommend tracking for these uh litter box cases. And in the end, we figured out that it was really one cat that was having the issue. So it started integrating the other two cats back into the home, and then that one cat was one of those cats that was like um, you know, the uh cat that I mentioned earlier of ours, who was a really high-energy cat, very social cat. So this cat, the owner started taking the cat to work with her, started taking on lots of walks, just started getting a lot of giving the cat a lot of activity. And then they were able to start getting the cat to come back into the rest of the home too, because the cat was getting that those needs met. Uh, so that would be an eliminate um elimination case. Intercat aggression. I've had a lot of cases, and you know what works in one case might not work in another case. Uh, one of the cases that one of my really early cases that I had, uh, the people had actually done a lot of things right. They were gotten to the place where they were doing supervised interactions with the cats. I think we did look at having, you know, some changes in the environment, like more high spaces, more low spaces. Um, and it's been a while since I thought about that case. So I don't remember what else we did, but the thing that stands out to me about that case was uh when they were doing the supervised interactions, they were just hovering, you know, like helicopter parenting. And I noticed it was making the cats really nervous. So I said, okay, so why don't we try having you back off a little bit and we'll be prepared to jump in if they get into a fight. They backed off a little bit and the cats were fine. And then they were able to start letting them do that. Now, as I said, what works in one situation might not work in another. Lots of times, those super interactions, you do have to be really careful. But in that case, it was actually backing off. My most unique case was I had an owner who he um has a business that is uh in a warehouse and he has his cats in the warehouse with him. And the cat, the one cat got triggered by a smell that came in and uh attacked the other cat. And the thing that was challenging about it was that there's lots of hallways, and we had to figure out how do we get these. I mean, the hallway was one of those bigger, big trigger points. They were lots of times they go down a hallway and they would get into a fight, and it was like, how do we fix that issue? Uh, and it's one that uh it also had been a um human directed aggression case, so it was a very complicated case. We did a lot of environmental changes, we did training, we did um uh making sure the cats were eating separately, so many things we did. Last thing we were working on was making changes to the hallway so that, you know, kind of getting the cats used to walking down the hallway and seeing and passing by each other without getting into a conflict, but also maybe having like a scratching option on the wall so that they had ways to get their stress out. Uh and the thing that would relate to the average person on that one is that a lot of us have narrow hallways. So sometimes the the narrow spaces are triggers. And I even had a case where that was a trigger, and what we had to do was just uh it was leading to um uh human directed aggression. So one of the things we had to do was just have the person wait before they went into the hallway. If the cat was, you know, uh through the um yeah, the hallway or the entrance from one room to another can also be narrow, and have the person wait while while the cat went through so that they weren't going through at the same time. That was a little bit of a unique situation, too. My last example would be human-directed aggression. As I said, I'm getting a lot of those now. Uh and my most uh severe one was one where I actually had someone who had to lock herself in a room to stay safe from her cat. And again, that was one where we had to do a lot of training of the cat, a lot of giving the cat different types of enrichment, a lot of high spaces, a lot of low spaces. The other thing we had to do in that situation is we had to look work a lot on her backing off, giving the cat so much attention because it's doing a lot of putting and snuggling and hugging and all of that, while it's really great and it can build a great bond, it can also put a lot of energy into a cat. And if they don't have a way to get that energy out, it can rub them up and then they don't know what to do with it. And so we had to have her back off a lot of that. And we also, when the cat would go seem like it was gonna attack, she had to learn to just stay still because if she was moving around to try to escape or just kind of getting scared and like getting nervous, she was becoming like prey. And so then the cat would actually that would actually increase the chance the cat was going to attack her. So uh some challenging stuff, and that case is actually worked out so well they they have become great friends again, and it's it doesn't uh human directed aggression cases are my toughest because so many of them don't work out, but I've had ones that do, and they're so so emotional when they do.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Yeah. You're listening to the Hissing Feline podcast. I'm your host, Clark Greer. We're gonna take a little bit of a break and then be back to talk to Allison Hunter Frederick. Uh Allison helps cats more about cat behavior. Stay with us.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

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SPEAKER_00 16:10

Hi, I'm Claude Rearer, host of Histing Feeling. Thank you very much for joining us today. With me on this episode is Allison Hutter Frederick. She is the owner of Allison Health Cat and a cat behaviorist in Lincoln, Nebraska. Thank you again for being on the show today, Allison. We have two cats that are 180 degrees opposite when it comes to new people in our house. Our tabby doesn't mind being around anyone but the calico hides whenever she hears the doorbell. Can cat reactions improve? Can you train cats to be used to those types of sounds?

SPEAKER_03 16:48

Yes, I think reactions can improve, but their personality is still gonna matter. So the goal is gonna be helping them get more comfortable with the situation. But you're not necessarily gonna make every shy or scared or feral cat highly social. So as far as like a person rings the doorbell, if I was gonna help a person with that, I you know, I would problem solve and ask some questions. Uh, some of them might be like, has the cat always been this way? What would happen if the person didn't ring the doorbell? What happens if the visitor stays for a while? Does the cat ever come in? Does she react to every visitor this way? You know, maybe there's some visitors that she's not as scared of and so or he. And you could start getting the cat more used to those visitors visitors and then start working on other visitors. Or does she uh hide from the family too? And if so, what c you know does she ever hide from the family? And if so, what causes her to hide? So I start problem solving to figure out how we can address this. I you know, in general, there's uh some things that I've done before to help people with this, but it's always going to be specific to the situation. So I had a case where uh what we did is we even had to have someone leave something of theirs for the cat to get used to the smell of the visitor. Um, and that helped with them getting used to visitors. I and as far as a doorbell, like maybe having a high volume treat when the visitor enters before the doorbell, you know, without ever ringing the doorbell. But that depends on do they, you know, just the sound of a door opening, is that gonna be an issue? Uh and uh so you know that gets back to then asking questions and trying to figure out how would we resolve this. But if it is the doorbell thing, then you know, high volume treat when they enter before, you know, they don't ring the doorbell. But then also maybe practicing having someone inside giving a treat and someone outside give uh ringing the doorbell. So their cat gets, you know, starts thinking of the doorbell is a positive thing of getting a treat. Uh but I I've had a lot of situations where a cat will run when the visitor comes in. So then in our case I said, well, maybe leave a treat somewhere part way in between you and the cat, and then the cat gets to see the treat, but you're gonna go somewhere else, but they get to know that if a visitor comes, there's treats, and that helps them have a positive thing. And I've talked to a lot of uh that you know, treat, treat, treat. That's the you know, most cats uh treats are what's most rewarding, but sometimes it's play. So maybe it's a toy you do instead. Or sometimes it's patting. I have I've had clients where treats and toys, cat's not interested. So then we go to, well, give your cat attention. Uh so it it's it's you know, whatever works is the high motivator comparing that with a situation. Um and then also, you know, when visitors do come, you know, having them stay at a distance, let the cat observe. Uh our semi-feral cat, she would observe in the back of the room under a nook. So she was able to see them, but she didn't have to come out. And over time she got a little more curious and she would start coming out a little bit. But she had, you know, so having hiding places uh and also vertical spaces, so they get to observe. Sometimes that helps. Maybe it's in the main living area, or maybe it's in uh something nearby where they can observe.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

You're especially passionate about non-recognition aggression that's common as a challenge that you run across in cats. How does the what is happening with the cat and uh what are some things that maybe could be done?

SPEAKER_03 20:52

So non-recognition aggression happens when one cat leaves the home, often to see the better the groomer, uh, although occasionally it's just going out for walks or going visiting somebody else, uh, and then upon the return, the other cat acts as if that cat's now a stranger. And so you're basically faced with two cats that don't know each other. Well, one cat that doesn't know each other or doesn't know the other cat. Um smell is believed to be the major factor, but there's not there hasn't been enough research to be certain. Uh but we go on the idea that it's smell. Uh owners are often shocked when it happens because you could have cats that have lived together for years and years and years, and they've been fine, and they've been friends, they might have even been bonded, and then they have this and it breaks, you know, they're they're they're they're enemies at the uh for a while. The first step is usually to separate for safety and to give the cats time to calm down. Uh sometimes it's just giving that cat that who's A few days to groom themselves and get the scents back on them. And that's going on the idea that smell is that major factor. But there have been situations where even that hasn't worked. And so sometimes you have to actually do a reintroduction, complete reintroduction, and act as if these cats don't know each other. In my research, it seems like the longer the cat is away, the stronger that reaction can be. As far as so that's, you know, I talked a little I talked a bit about what do you do if it's happened. Now to prevent it, you know what, we don't have enough research, but some things that have worked, so potentially could work, is taking the two cats to the vet together because then they're having the same smells on them. Or the other thing could be is rubbing the um a towel on the cat before they go to the vet. And then when they because then they get that normal smell on them that the cat the that the other cat's familiar with. And then when that cat comes back, rubbing them again with that, so you're re-establishing that smell. But that has that's only if smell is what is actually causing it. And uh we're not entirely sure that that is the case. Uh and the reason why this is so, you know, I've had different clients who have faced this, and it can sometimes uh, you know, take a long, long time to get those cats back together, and it's so heartbreaking, and I want to help that, the owners with that, but it's also very dear to me because uh one of my cats has always been prone to uh if the other cats come back, she doesn't recognize them. And we didn't, you know, we've spent years learning how do we get her not to do that. Uh, but then we uh had a situation where my one cat uh had a biopsy, she was gone for a while, and then when we tried to reunite them, yeah, it was just it they were not having it. And uh we have spent years doing everything, including having about behaviors, and it's really tough. So I want to try to help other people not go through what we went through and not have cats get broken up that were friends.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Now you've also worked with feral cats, and uh my wife and I had a cat many years ago. Uh she lived to be almost 21, and uh she was actually feral or at least part feral. Is it possible to train ferals to a point where they can be at least somewhat domesticated?

SPEAKER_03 24:35

I would say yes and no, uh, and also thank you for taking in a feral. There is a range. The truly feral adult cats who have had no positive human contact are gonna be extremely difficult to socialize, and it's probably in the best interest of everybody for them to stay where they are, they're gonna be most comfortable there, and it would just take so much work, if you ever could, to get them to socialize. But there are a lot of cats that are semi-feral or they're under-socialized, and they can make real progress. Uh feral kittens are more likely to become more socialized than adults. Uh, and we actually helped socialize some feral kittens, and it was challenging, but they've all gone on to be in, you know, get adopted and to uh be great. Some cats are gonna be more suited to being in a barn or an outdoor working cat program, uh, and I've run into that with work in the shelter and stuff like that. But uh, if you get people who have the time, the patience, and they have an understanding of how to socialize, they can make a lot of progress with cats. And I would encourage that. Uh, our family fostered a semi-feral mom who she later became an indoor cat who loves belly rips, and the person who's her caretaker continued to use the methods that we had used to socialize other cats. And so she's had a couple other cats that were semi-feral, who that she's been able to bring in and they've become indoor cats. Uh, and then we also have our own semi-feral. Uh, she actually grew up as a kitten outside, so she is feral, but she had um she was in a colony and she had caretakers her whole life. So that's why I kind of say semi-feral because she has had a familiarity with people, but only outside. Uh, and when we first brought her indoors, she was terrified of the indoors, she had no understanding what the indoors was like. But fast forward, she's now a cat who she loves our lap, she loves belly rubs. Don't try to pick her up or corner her, but uh and she's a little more skittish when it comes to training, but still, she is an absolutely uh loving cat. Uh, and then we have um our most recent adoption. She was a uh unsocialized cat, meaning she did have human contact, but there, you know, she was actually in a foster home, but it probably she, you know, she had come probably from a feral an outdoor situation and then didn't get socialized enough when she was indoors. And so she got returned twice to the shelter of being too scared. And so we took her in as a long-term foster and then eventually adopted her, and she solicits attention, she will happy jewel when she's getting petted. So I am a firm believer that uh in giving ferals a chance.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Yes. Allison, thank you very much for being on the podcast today. The information that you've provided listeners is really helpful if cats uh have behavioral issues and a little bit about training. It I think it's been uh really helpful for people to look at their uh cats and determine is this something that is going to be is it a temporary problem or is it a long-term problem? I need to see behaviors. I really appreciate you sharing your expertise on the show today.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

You're welcome. I love being able to help educate.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Allison Hunter Frederick has been my guest today on the Hissing Feline podcast. Allison is owner of Allison Helps Cats. She is a cat behaviorist in Lincoln, Nebraska. Again, I appreciate you being on the show today. Please subscribe to this podcast and remember to share the program with other cat lovers. I also want to thank my producer in life, Georgia. Be sure to stop by again next week for another episode of the Histing Feeling. Until then, keep going.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Content on the Histing Feline podcast is for information and entertainment purposes only. And it's not intended to provide medical, veterinary, or legal advice. Please consult your veterinarian and local estate sources before dealing with fairly guests. Opinions expressed are those of the host guests, and not necessarily those of the RatioCat Media LLC. References to products or services do not imply in endorsement. All content is used with permission or under fair use.