43. Play With Your Cat: How to Keep Your Feline Happy and Healthy with Dr. Mikel Delgado

AMC's Dr. Ann Hohenhaus interviews Dr. Mikel Maria Delgado, a certified cat behavior consultant, animal behavior scientist, and author of the new book Play With Your Cat: The Essential Guide to Interactive Play for a Happier, Healthier Feline.

Tune in as they discuss:

• Dr. Delgado's career path in feline behavior
• "Catios," and indoor vs. outdoor cat recommendations
• Common feline behavior issues, including litter box avoidance and inter-cat conflict
• Cats' sense of smell and its importance in their social interactions
• Cats' innate solitary nature and heightened stress response
• Litter box best practices: placement, hygiene, and choice of litter
• The importance of play in cats' wellbeing and the origins of Dr. Delgado's book
• How play mimics hunting, which is considered a "species-specific natural behavior" for cats
• Play in kittens vs. adult cats
• Guidelines for feline play: make it an interactive hunting experience
• Dr. Delgado's 5 Golden Rules of Play

Also on this month's show: 

• Viral trending animal story of the month, featuring a helpless baby bird saved by a warm tortilla
• Animal news, including: a miniature poodle saved by NYPD, AMC, and the ASPCA; new research on dogs' response to human emotions; "cocaine sharks" off the coast of Florida
• Pet Health Listener Q&A

Do you have a pet question for Dr. Hohenhaus? Email askthevet@amcny.org to have your question answered on Ask the Vet's Listener Q&A.

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Transcript

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We want to remind our listeners that this program is for informational and educational purposes only, and not intended to substitute for professional veterinary medical advice, diagnosis and treatment. The Animal Medical Center does not recommend or endorse any products or services advertised by Sirius XM. Welcome to Ask the Vet with Dr. Ann Hohenhaus. This is the place to talk about your pets and get advice for the top veterinarian from the Animal Medical Center in NYC. Hear from the leading authorities on animals and ask your questions. Now here's your host, Dr. Ann Hohenhaus. Hello and welcome to Ask the Vet, a podcast for people who love their pets and want the latest in pet health and animal news. I'm your host, doctor and hello and house. I'm a senior veterinarian here at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center in New York City. Today, I'm very excited to welcome Mikel Maria Delgado, a certified cat behavior specialist, and who's going to join us today to discuss her insightful new book, Play With Your Cat The Essential Guide to Interactive Play for a happier, Healthier Feline. We're going to explore the inspiration behind her book, The Significance of Play in a Cat's Life and practical tips for cat owners. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation because I'm expecting any day now, a couple of little foster widgets that are going to come my way that I can practice. Doctor Delgado's tips on the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center is the only level one veterinary trauma center in New York City, with 114 years of being the very best place for pets. If you're seeking advice on maintaining your pet's health, I'm here to help. Just send me your questions. We have a very easy to remember email. It's askthevet@amcny.org and I'll answer your questions on next month's Ask the Vet program. Now, if you don't have a pen or pencil to write down this email, which is askthevet@amcny.org. I'll give it again later in the show. So when we take a break, grab your pen and pencil so you can write down the email address. And your question for me. And now it's time for our trending animal of the month. It's time for the internet. Most talked about animal. The ad longs in Amarillo, Texas, made an unexpected discovery during a family barbecue. They found a tiny baby bird allowed on the ground. They thought it might be an orphaned barn owl. And so they contacted the Wild West Wildlife Rehabilitation Center for guidance. Now, folks, this is exactly what you should do if you find an orphanage. Anybody could be a baby bird but a baby rabbit. Because there's a lot of babies this time of year, don't immediately pick it up and do something with it. Call the wildlife rehabilitator and find out what you should do with that. For many baby birds, if they've got feathers, they've just fledged or flown out of the nest and their parents are close by and are going to take care of them. Now, I think this baby bird was helpless, and so the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center recommended that the ad long family put the bird in a box. Keep it safe. They didn't have a box to put the bird in. They must not have ordered from Amazon lately because I've always got so many boxes. I don't know what to do with them. So Katie Adlon wrapped the little hatchling in a tortilla that she had warmed on the barbecue grill. And this inventive method kept the baby bird warm and was surprisingly effective. The bird was then named Taquito for Little Taco and was later found to be a Mississippi kite. Now, kites are not birds. I don't know that I've ever seen a kite. Kites are birds which are raptors. And specifically, the Mississippi kite is found in the southern USA and then goes down into South America. The adults are not very big raptors. They're only about a foot or a little more long from beak to tail. Well, after the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center posted about taquito, he went viral and he's on their Facebook page with users joking that the little hatchling was a bird. Ditto. And now I'm thrilled to introduce our guest, Dr. Mikel Maria Delgado, who is a certified cat behavior consultant, an animal behavior scientist and author. She completed her Ph.D. in psychology at UC Berkeley, focusing on animal behavior and cognition. And then she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine for three and a half years, studying the social behavior of cats and the development of orphaned kittens. And this is a timely guest for us right now because I mentioned earlier, kitten season is in full swing here in New York, and there are hundreds of orphaned kittens needing foster care right now. Doctor Delgado is a renowned globally as a cat expert and has been featured in top media outlets including NPR, The Washington Post, The New York Times, BBC, and National Geographic. She also coauthored the book total Cat Mojo with Jackson Galaxy. Today, she's joining us to talk about her new book, Play With Your Cat The Essential Guide to Interactive Play for a happier, Healthier Feline. This book has a lot of insights and practical tips for engaging your cat in meaningful play. Welcome, Doctor Delgado. Thanks for joining me here on Ask the Vet. Thank you so much for having me. How did you get interested in feline behavior? Yeah, I was definitely not one of those people who had a clear direction when I was a child that I wanted to work with animals. I loved cats, but, I really had to beg to have a cat. And I didn't have a cat until I was a teenager. But, you know, I dropped out of college. I wanted to be in rock bands. I was living in California, and basically I started volunteering in an animal shelter, because one of my cats had died, and I wanted some more cat time. And that really was when I became interested in feline behavior, mostly because, you know, one, I was working in an environment that is known to be very stressful for cats and animal shelter. So they've lost their home, lost their territory, lost their people. They're surrounded by loud, stressed out animals and a lot of people. So I really then saw that there was a need to help these cats, not only help them in the shelter, but also help them stay out of the shelter and help their humans better understand them. So the shelter definitely kind of just opened my eyes to like, wow, cats have a lot of different experiences. They have a lot of different personalities. I've never, you know, even having a cat. The experience you have handling that many cats is just a very different, type of experience than just living with cats. And I also then realized, like, oh, people actually have careers. Besides being a veterinarian, which, you know, as a college dropout, I was kind of not thinking that veterinarian was something I could ever do. But it was like, okay, people work with animals in different contexts. Maybe I want to work in a shelter, which is basically, I volunteered so much that I eventually wormed my way into a job in the cat behavior department at the San Francisco SPCA, which at the time this was, back in the early aughts. you know, it's pretty unique. And having a department dedicated to cat behavior. And that was very fascinating to me. And a lot of what we did was working with the public. We had a hotline where people were calling because they were having behavior problems with cats in their home. And so it was like, oh, there's a need for help in this area. And so that really, I think, sparked my interest and thinking like, maybe I can turn this into, you know, a living somehow or like a career and really, you know, like I said, getting that job at the animal shelter and I was there for about eight years was really pivotal for me in seeing some alternative ways to work with animals, especially around behavior, which I also just happened to find very fascinating. And that led me to decide I wanted to go back to school, finish my bachelor's degree, get a PhD, become a scientist, do research, and all the while doing consulting with cat owners. So it's, you know, can I try to do as many things around cats as possible? So for our listeners, we're on zoom and I can see Doctor Delgado and she could see me. And, my view is I'm clearly in my office. I'm like, scoping out her space, and I don't see any cats in there. So do you not have any cats of your own, or have you locked them out because they're going to walk on your computer and turn the zoom off? Neither of those things. I do have cats. I currently have three cats or sisters. They're all out on my catio. It's a lovely day here in Sacramento and they are sunbathing in our patio, so, no, I do have cats. This is our music room and book group. This is kind of our, auxiliary office space, but it's also where we keep our musical instruments and other things. The cats come in here occasionally. I have one cat who really loves zoom meetings, but like I said, she's on the catio so you can’t see her. Okay, so not everyone knows what a catio is. And and I've been involved in some friends buying a new house, and I was like, forget the pool, the cats need a catio. And they they were like, what? You've lost your mind as usual. So what's a catio? Yeah, a catio is basically a patio for cats. So it's an enclosed outdoor space where your cats can sunbathe, watch birds, watch squirrels, enjoy the fresh air without free roaming. So I do advocate for indoors only for the most part for cats. I think it's safest for them, safest for wildlife. You know, there's lots of positive things about keeping cats indoors. But of course when we keep cats indoors, we are restricting their ability to kind of make choices and do things that are, you know, good for their mental health and where, maybe reducing their space, maybe we're forcing them to interact with other cats that they don't love. So I do think that if people can give their cats safe, controlled outdoor access that might be on a harness or in a pet stroller, or maybe you cat proof your backyard, or like me, you have a catio added to your home. Or maybe you convert a porch into a catio. but it really does add significantly to your cat's quality of life. They really do enjoy, I think even if it's controlled access to the outdoors, there's something kind of intrinsically special about that experience for cats. And I think most cats enjoy it. I know some cats, but really, in fact, one of my cats, she's in the other office right now. She she goes in the catio for a little bit in the morning and a little bit in the evening, but most of the day she stays inside. So there's a lot of individual differences in cats. But I think if you can give your cat that experience where it's safe and they can enjoy the outdoors, you create additional territory in your home that it's quite enjoyable for them. So I live in a New York City apartment, so there's no catio option for me. But how do your cats get to the catio? Do the... is there like a tunnel from a window, or do you have to carry them? I mean, some people do do that. We had our catio built on, so it's attached to our home and we have, sliding glass doors from our bedroom that lead into the catio. And we also have a window with a cat flap. So we lock the cat flap at night. We don't let the cats in the catio overnight because occasionally, other animals will come into our yard and we don't need any drama while we're trying to sleep. But, yeah, our cats can come and go during the day as they please because they have a cat flap. All right. So I love the idea of a patio, probably mostly because I wish I had a patio. So I'm like, of course the cats would want a catio. So as a behavior consultant, what are the common behavior issues that you encounter when working with cats? Yeah, there's two that are way more common than any other behavioral problems, and they are litter box avoidance. And people who have usually recently introduced a new cat and the new cat and the resident cats or cats are not getting along. So enter cat conflict and litter box avoidance are definitely way up there. Less often we'll see things like waking their owner up in the middle of the night, attention seeking type behaviors, fear, aggression towards people. But but in a way, like inter cat aggression is is definitely number one. And litter box number two. So one of the things I hear from my clients is when they bring cat A to see me and then they take cat home and cat B is there, cat B is pissed off and attacks cat A. Now if they don't come to see me, they're best buds. So what's going on there? Yeah, this is a common issue and it can actually cause really serious problems. So it sounds kind of funny and strange, but I definitely encourage people to take it seriously because, you know, first of all, cats experience the world very differently than we do, right? So we're very visual and we forget that for other species, they're what's called their umwelt or their outlook on the world, their sensory world is quite different. And so for cats, sense of smell is really important, especially to their social relationships. So when a cat leaves the home and comes back smelling completely differently. So they've been handled by different people, they might have had like alcohol or other, agents applied to their body. maybe they've been in a cage. Maybe there's other clinic smells like, you know, I mean, I definitely one of my cats comes home smelling like someone's soap. So, like, they're coming home, they smell different. So even though they look the same, they smell like a different cat. And so the cat who stayed at home is like, why did what did you do with my friend? And who did you bring home? Because this is not the cat who left. This cat smells completely differently because again, they're relying on their sense of smell to recognize who belongs in their family and who does not. And although the cat looks the same, they smell completely different. And so it takes a little time for the cat to kind of get the house smell back. And during that time, there's a potential for conflict. And the other thing that's really important to recognize is that cats are social. They can have social relationships with people and and other species and certainly with other cats. But there's a lot of variability in how social they are. And because they survive as a solitary hunter, they do not need other animals to survive. They don't live in groups naturally, the way some other species do. And so because of that, their relationships are just a little more fragile. And so we really have to nurture those relationships and give cats lots of reasons to like living with other cats, because an incident like you described can really cause a long term rift. And if those cats have a fight, then you're kind of going back to square one. Or maybe you're even, like worse off than if you brought in a neutral cat, because now they've had a negative experience. So, you know, a lot of the work I do is trying to help people understand why cats are the way they are and why to us, sometimes their behaviors seem very weird or silly. But, you know, for cats, it really is all about how they experience the world and what's important to them as creatures who are trying to survive and thrive. So it's a litter box issue that that's that's a big one for veterinarians too, because, oh yeah, and the cat is tinkling outside the litter box. Then the people are like, oh, does he have a urinary tract infection? So I get those cats approaching me in for the same problem but a different direction than you do. And this week, a couple of my cat patients who seem to be very sensitive to workmen in the household and the building is having, you know, like new siding put on it. And the cats have been tinkling everywhere but in the box, why is the litter box such a hot button issue for cats? Yeah, I was lucky when I worked at the, UC Davis. That school, my one of my mentors was Dr. Tony Buffington, who is well known for his work on FIC or sometimes it's called Pandora syndrome or lower urinary tract signs. Basically, FIC is feline idiopathic cystitis. So this is an irritation or inflammation in the bladder walls that does not seem to have a clear medical cause. Hence the term idiopathic. And really, you know, again this gets back to I think cats like why are they the way they are. They're a predator but they're also a prey animal. So they live in this kind of in-between space where they can be threatened easily, even if they are this ferocious predator that will kill birds and mice. So the way that we see these kind of stressors manifest themselves in these physical signs, like not using the litter box consistently, or even having your blood in the urine, is probably because they're basically their, central nervous system is very readily programed to detect threat in the environment and lack of control over their environment. And so some cats seem particularly susceptible to stress. And it could be stress like, yeah, workers coming into your home or construction or the owner's been on vacation. New animal in the home, new baby. All of these things can, really set your cat off. And again, thinking about how it's smaller environment is especially for keeping them indoors their whole life is in those kind of four walls of your however many walls of your home. And we control pretty much every aspect of their life when they eat, if they have outside access, when they play, where they can sleep, where they can feel safe. And so anything we can do to help our cats feel more control, like they have more choices in their environment, fewer threats in their environment is going to help reduce some of those litter box issues. What I can also say is, you know, when I'm helping a client with litter box issue, check number one is did you go to the vet and get a UA or a fecal? Because I do not like touching, litter box cases until there's been a clean bill of health issued. Two is what is going on with that litter box, because so much of the issues around the litter box is that people don't want the litter box to be a feature of their home. They want it to be something that they hide in the basement or in a closet or in a cabinet. And that's not always, working well for the cats. So, so much of what I do is really, again, helping people see things from their cat's perspective and why the litter box needs to meet their cat's needs. Otherwise they are inviting a problem that is going to, you know, potentially cost a cat their home or their life. And so I take litter box issues very seriously. I personally, you know, practice what I preach as far as like I have four litter boxes for three cats. my litter boxes are huge. I clean them twice a day. Two of my litter boxes are in my living room. So I'm looking at those things all the time. And trust me, I keep them very clean. So that I do not have to feel like, oh, there's litter boxes everywhere. But my cats have lots of choices and and access to their litter boxes.especially in a multi cat household where you can have subtle, like maybe someone's blocking a litter box or maybe making a cat not feel safe. So yeah, let's say cats susceptibility to stress is a big factor. And then humans resistance to having a great litter box and keeping it clean is the other kind of. Yeah, I mean, I've heard of that monster. People want good bathrooms. Why would your cat not want a nice bathroom too? You know. Exactly. It's my take on it. I try really hard to when I have foster kittens is to change up the litter. So the kittens are very adaptable when I'm done with them, because they come to work with me every day and they have a pen in my office, and usually the pen has two litter boxes with two different kinds of litter. And then I have a pen at home. And that usually has two different kinds of litter too. And my brother in law's very helpful in keeping me supplied with different litter because he keeps buying different litter for Molly the cat and Molly the cat only likes one kind of litter. And so then when he provides Molly the cat with the litter, the new litter she then tinkles outside the box and I get the bag of litter because Molly the cat only likes one kind of litter. Don't change it on her or she'll retaliate. Alright, so let's. I could talk about cat and litter box issues probably all day, but we're here to talk about play with your cat. So what was the inspiration for the book? Yeah, I, you know, I, I love the topic of play. And when I was studying animal behavior in grad school, you know, I read a couple papers about play. And there's a lot of scientific literature about play and animals besides humans. And the thing that's very interesting about play is that every species that has been studied has demonstrated, demonstrated some sort of play behavior. So there's kind of this universal function to it. And, you know, the thinking is that it provides animals with opportunities to practice adult skills like social interactions, fighting, hunting, searching for food. So to me, part of it was like kind of this like universal like functionality of play. But of course, working with cats and working with cat owners, what I would see again and again in the shelter and when working with clients is people not either knowing how to play with cats very well or in homes not playing with them at all, and not recognizing how play contributes to their cat's well-being. So I kind of knew I wanted to write a book. I had a book agent and she would, you know, pester me every couple of months. Like, what book do you want to write? And I'd help Jackson Galaxy write, total Cat Mojo, which was kind of a, you know, broad guide to behavior and fixing behavior problems. And I knew I didn't want to write another, like how to make your cat well-behaved, but, because there's just a lot of, you know, great material out there already, and I didn't feel like, oh, I can really add a lot to that space. But I had just published a scientific paper, a review of play behavior in cats with my, friend Julie Hecht, who is a researcher in New York City. And I was like, this seems like there's some good material here, but maybe I need to translate it to your general cat loving person and not like a scientist who wants to read a super dry, nerdy paper reviewing like every study of cat play behavior that's ever been written. So I was like, okay, here's my book. I'm going to write about play. And again, really, it was wanting to help people understand how they can better meet their cats needs. And I also, I'm a very playful person, like I'm a musician and I love to play board games. And, you know, I like to draw. Like, I like creativity and I love playing with my cats. It's something I've always enjoyed working in the shelter. I saw how play could really help some of the shelter cats adapt. And either, you know, if they were kind of wild and bananas in their cage, kind of help them calm down and not bite people the second you try to interact with them. And for shy cats, I’d see it help them come out of their shell. So it was really, kind of this combination of thing that made me see, like, okay, this is like what I really want to do, and I want to bring this message to people, which is to help them play with their cats, do it well, do it more often, and have a better relationship with their cat. So why? Why is play even important for cats? The average cat sleeps like 23 hours a day, so if you figure it has to go to the litter box and eat a couple times a day, it only has minutes left in the day for playing. So it really, stems from the concepts of good welfare in animals that are living lives with humans, usually in some form of captivity. Right. I know that. I mean, that idea that cats are captive animals is very controversial. And so, you know, I'm not saying that they're, equivalent to maybe a mouse living in a cage in a laboratory. But again, there's that restriction on what they can do. And when we look at what helps animals have good welfare, one of the key tenants is allowing them to express species specific behaviors, behaviors that are natural to them. And for cats, one of the like their most important roles as far as like they're concerned to be on this planet is to hunt, right? That is how they survive. And even though, yeah, you know, our cats live inside and we feed them from a bowl and we give them kibble and they don't have many opportunities to hunt. We have not selected cats to get rid of that hunting instinct. And in fact, of course, we know there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of cats living on the street, self-sustaining themselves to a large extent on hunting. And although those cats may behave very differently than the cats who live in our homes, they're the same species, and they're probably producing a lot of the cats who are in our homes. So again, the hunting instinct is very much in your cat. And you probably know that if a fly has ever come into your house or moth. Right, that's when your cat just whoa, that's like they wake up out of a stupor and everything is like, I must catch that fly. So that is your cat's hunting instinct. And again, thinking back to animal welfare, we are giving cats the ability to express species specific natural behaviors. And play, it turns out, is basically hunting for our cats. It's just directed at toys instead of at birds, mice and bugs. And we know that because we can see that the behaviors are very similar and the behaviors are motivated by a lot of the same factors. So cats are more likely to hunt when they're hungry. They're more likely to play when they're hungry. They like certain things when they're hunting as far as the size of the prey. And they tend to prefer some of those same things about toys. So toys that resemble prey are more likely to inspire hunting behavior. So those are just two examples of some of the ways that play and hunting basically overlap and are in the same space. So play is important because hunting is important and our cats are naturally hunters, and we're giving them an opportunity to express that behavior through play. So my best new cat toy is a little orange stuffed cat about the size of an 8-9-10 week old kitten. And I had a singleton foster kitten that I was raising and it was desperate to play with someone. So I ended up putting that kitten. I tied a string around the stuffed cat's neck, and then I dangled it and drag it around, and the kitten was so desperate to play that it chased after the kitten. So I, I'm now, when I have a singleton kitten, I get out the orange stuffed cat with the string around its neck, and then I run around with it, or I leave it on the ground and kinda shake it a little. Yeah, so the kitten has like a friend. It's not like a real friend, but it's good enough for a lot of kittens to have someone rather than no one. Yeah. So that brings me to my next question, which is how are kittens different than adults when it comes to playing? Yeah, the I mean, the nice thing is that there's actually been quite a bit of research in how play develops in cats. And so most of what we know about play behavior in cats is about kittens. And one thing that's really important is social play. So there's different types of play and social play emerges first. Usually when kittens are in the nest with their litter mates starting to move around. So we're talking two and a half, three weeks of age. That's when they're going to start playing with their litter mates. Later, they're going to develop interest in what we would call motor or locomotor play, which is where they're climbing things just for the fun of it and kind of exploring their environment, and they're going to become more interested in predatory and object play, which is where they're interacting with small objects in their environment, treating them like prey. And then eventually, if mom is around, they're going to start interacting with maybe stunned or weakened prey to learn about hunting. So kittens kind of have this nice trajectory where it goes from social and social play continues until like four months of age. And then, as we see right around the time they would be weaning is when they become more interested in objects and prey. So they're starting to go from social interactions to hunting behavior for adult cats. We really don't know that much from a scientific perspective, because there hasn't been a lot of work exclusively on adult cat play, but we assume that, you know, object play. So meaning play with toys or, you know, batting a little wine, cork around your house or whatever is pseudo predatory behavior. So they're directing predatory behavior towards objects. Some adult cats will play with other cats, but that's very dependent on, you know, one, whether they live with other cats and two, whether they get along with those other cats. So, we tend to see mostly more object type play in cats that are indoors only. So seeing what are the rules if you want to play nice with your cat, what would the rules be that the pet cat owner should follow? Yeah, I think the first thing I would do is try to, define play as I defined it in my book. So it really is for me about the interactive piece. And sometimes people will say like, oh, well, my cat doesn't really play. He's got like fuzzy mice all over the floor and he just ignores them. And when I'm talking about play, I am talking about a hunting experience for your cat where you animate the toys. Right? So typically that's a wand with some kind of string or wire and some kind of lure or prey like item at the end. And that could vary as far as like, does it look like a mouse or is it feathers or is it something completely different? So that's when I'm talking about play. I'm usually referring to interactive play where the human is somehow, the, the puppet master of the toy and is, hopefully giving their cat a hunting experience. So when I talk about, like, my, my personal rules for play, which, you know, sometimes they change a little bit, but I just put five rules for play in my book. So I guess I have to kind of stick to those. But, you know, the first rule is like, don't scare your cat. And I bring that up because we know from research related to hunting is like cats are intimidated by large prey. And if your cat is already kind of nervous, they may be even more so. So when you're playing, you want your cat to feel like a big, tough predator and not run away from the toy in fear. So usually that means using like smaller, like maybe more of a mouse like toy instead of a rat like toy. And, you know, not maybe using like, we have a scared cat, maybe bells are too much like anything that's going to be really loud. But also like, making sure you're not moving the toy in a way that's scary to your cat. So a lot of what I'm hoping people will do is kind of become a scientist, in that they will study their cat and watch their responses to how they're moving the toy and see when like, oh, maybe that's too close, or maybe that's, you know, too fast versus like, oh, my cat really likes it when I move the toy away from him slowly or when I hide it underneath, piece of tissue paper. So, so watching for signs of fear. So, you know, your cat trying to retreat or hide or their eyes may be getting big or their ears going back. Those would all be signs that maybe you're not doing things quite the way your kitty would like. My other, you know, rules include safety first. So when we are using interactive toys, like I said, stick string something on the end. Small object. I'm sure as a veterinarian, you're imagining all kinds of terrible scenarios, called intestinal obstruction. And so, yeah, what can... So we have to recognize that, cats may try to eat certain things in the home and the way their tongue is constructed, they have barbs that point backwards. And so if they start swallowing like a string, their tongue is basically just assisting that string and going down their little gullet and helping them swallow it, which is very bad and often leads to an expensive, life threatening surgery like this can be a really, really bad situation. So, you always want to use interactive toys with supervision. And what I mean is you are holding one end of that toy, and when you are not holding that toy, it is put away somewhere. Your cat cannot access that toy, whether it's a closet or a bin or a toy chest. The, it should be something that your cat cannot get into on their own. So don't leave string or wire toys out for your cat and also be aware of any small objects. If they do try to eat them like it's always good when you get a new toy to just kind of watch your cat and make sure they're not going to, like, ingest the little ears on the mouse or, you know, pull off the nose and swallow it. Yeah, I've just had too many horror stories of kitties who have swallowed something. And, you know, and sometimes people play with things that are dangerous, like hair ties, people. Cats love hair ties. I assume it's because they smell kind of like hair and, they're small and springy and easy to carry, but they are not super safe. And like so many people like, oh, he loves to play with hair ties. I'm like, oh, like, please don't do that unless the hair tie is like tied to something that you're hanging onto. Q-tips is another one. you know, I just I'm very, you know, I'm a high anxiety person. I tend to be very low risk. So I'm like, kind of maybe on the extreme side of play safety, but just be aware that your cat is not necessarily going to be thinking like, oh, I really shouldn't swallow this string. So take those things away when you're not using them, okay? Rule three is don't irritate your cat. So when you're playing with your cat, it should be like you are doing things that a mouse or bird would do. And I bring this up because when I worked in the shelter and certainly when I visit clients, I will, you know, give people a toy to play with the cat in the shelter. And people would often start poking the cat with the toy or putting the feathers, like right in the cat space, and the cat would react like maybe they kind of snap at the toy, but it wasn't out of predatory like excitement. It was like irritation. And so touching your cat with the toy may get a reaction out of them, but no bird or mouse is going to go up and like, ruffle their feathers in a cat space or poke a cat. They're going to be running away from your cat. So you want to move the toy away from your cat just like a bird or mouse would do. Ok, rule number four is let them win. So make sure your cat gets the opportunity to catch the toy and feel it in their paws and put it in their mouth and kind of, you know, taste it and have a pseudo hunting experience. And I always love ending a play session with a treat or some kibbles or whatever. But definitely let your cat have some wins. Occasionally when they're hunting, they don't win every time when they're hunting. So they have a, you know, fairly low success rate. I think it's like 33 - 50% of their attempts at killing, result in a kill. But just keep in mind, like, yeah, you're catching up the opportunity to have a successful play session. And rule number five is one I feel pretty strongly about, which is not roughhousing with your cat. So not using your hands or other body parts as a toy. And even if you think it's cute or your cat is a kitten right now, if you teach your cat to play with your hands, to bite your hands, to kick your hand, scratch you, that is not going to be a pleasant situation when your kitten gets older. if you have children, or maybe you have a partner in the home that does not want to roughhouse with your cat and does not want to be bitten or scratched by your cat. So you have to really think about what you're teaching your cat. And so again, sometimes people like, oh, he likes it when I wrestle with him. Well, if you're not offering him any alternatives, then yeah, it's better than no play as far as your cat is concerned in the moment. But the long term ramifications on their behavior, which can include increasing like defensive aggression where they get really confused about whether or not if someone tries to pet them, they should like it, or they should roll around and start wrestling with that arm. You're teaching your cat some behaviors that could be very dangerous for you, and certainly will be dangerous to your cat if they do end up in an animal shelter. We saw a lot of cats in the shelter that had been rough housed, and those cats could be difficult to place because they would bite or scratch pretty quickly. And most people want their cat to be cuddly. And we don't necessarily want a cat who's going to immediately start biting and scratching them. We have so many options to provide our cats at the appropriate play that I think there's no reason to play with them. With your hands. And that's why I ended up with the cat stuffed cat on a string that I could dangle around and drag around for the kitten to play with, because otherwise the kitten wanted to bite and not my hand. So those five points are a fabulous way to wrap up. Today. I want to thank Dr. Delgado so much for joining me on Ask the Vet today, and if you want to hear everything she has to say about playing with your cat, you can pick up a copy of Play With Your Cat online from Amazon or at your local bookstore. Thank you so much for being on with us today. Thank you for having me. I know that keeping your pet healthy is very important to you, and with that, I hope you reach out to me. If you have a question about your pet's health, I'll respond to your question on next month's Ask the Vet podcast, just email me at askthevet@amcny.org. We have a short break coming up, but please stay tuned because there are lots of interesting animal stories when we return, we're back with Dr. Ann Hohenhaus on Ask the Vet. Welcome back to Ask the Vet here on Sirius XM. And now it's time for the animal News. It's time for animal headlines, the biggest animal news from across the world. In a touching story of resilience and recovery, Rocket a one year old mini poodle, suffered severe injuries after being thrown off a ledge and now has a heartwarming ending to his story. On May 16th, NYPD officers responded to 911 calls at a New York City park when someone found Rocket badly injured after being thrown off a ledge by his owner. The emotional rescue was captured on police body cams and showed officers urgently seeking medical help for the wounded poodle. Rocket was taken to the ASPCA where it was determined that he had a traumatic brain injury, a fractured femur or thigh bone, and an unstable heart rate and blood pressure. Due to the severity of his injuries, he was transported to the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center, where he received treatment from our critical care and neurology specialists. Once he was stable enough for surgery, Rocket was transferred back to the ASPCA, where he underwent surgery for his fractured femur. And after weeks of physical therapy, Rocca has made a full recovery. He's now ready to start a happy chapter in his life and has an adopter eagerly waiting to take him home. Such a good story. Such good policeman. Our second story today shows how emotions can affect our pets in ways we might not have imagined. New research from the University of Bristol in England reveals that dogs can smell human stress, and that that influences the dog's emotional state, leading to them to make more pessimists choices. It's interesting. I don't often think of dogs as being pessimist. The study involved 18 dog owner pairs and aimed to test how dogs react to human stress and relaxation odors. Researchers trained the dog to identify a football with a treat in it and one that was empty. Now, after the dogs learned how to immediately identify the treat ball, then a new ball was introduced and they wanted to see how quickly the dogs would approach the new ball. During these trials, the dogs were exposed to sweat and breath samples from humans that were stressed after doing tricky math or a relaxed state after listening to calming music and the results showed the dogs exposed to stress were slower to approach the new ball, suggesting a more pessimistic outlook about this new ball, which they weren't sure was going to have a treat in it. And I think this research just really highlights how attuned dogs can be to our emotions. It also shows that stress can indeed travel through the air and affect our canine companions. So the next time you're feeling stressed, remember your dog might pick up on those vibes as well. Our third story today is a bit startling. Recent reports from Florida marine biologist suggest that sharks might be ingesting drugs dumped into the ocean, leading to a phenomenon now being referred to as cocaine sharks. So this is, like really scary to me because I'm not sure I'm a shark fan. I like Shark Week on TV, but that's about as close as I want to get to sharks. So thinking that sharks might take their already like kind of bad behavior and then have it amplified by cocaine sounds just like a disaster to me. But what this really highlights is the bigger issue of the need to dispose of medications properly, because we need to protect our environment. So for many years, my mother would flush unused medications down the toilet. But that's really bad because then the flush drugs contaminate the water source, affect marine life, and potentially cause long term health issues for humans as well. So drug disposal is is controlled by the Drug Enforcement Agency or DEA. And earlier this year they launched a campaign called Every Day is Takeback day. And there are now 17,000 pharmacies nationwide approved to take back expired and unwanted drugs. So if you go into your local drug store, you might see some sort of repository where you could put the drugs that you don't need because the doctor said to stop taking them, or drugs that you had that have since expired, and you can get rid of them in your local drug store. And all you have to do is, is go online and search. Where can I dispose of unwanted drugs? And it'll tell you what drug store is taking drugs. Now, if you live somewhere where there aren't any drug stores that are taking back drugs, then the way to dispose of them is not to flush. And you want to mix those medications with something unappealing, like coffee grounds. After you've used them, or cat litter, which, after our earlier talk, you should be scooping out cat litter all the time. So if you have a cat, you're going to have plenty of cat litter to get rid of unwanted drugs. Then tie all of that the drugs and the icky stuff in a plastic bag and put it in the trash, where kids and pets can't get a hold of it. And also, be sure that if you're going to throw away the prescription bottles, that you take your personal information off those bottles and run that through the shredder for specific disposal instructions, you can check with the Food and Drug Administration guidelines, or ask your pharmacist. And now it's time for questions from our listeners. Our first question today is from Josephine. Josephine asks, are there any insect repellents that are pet friendly? I want to spray something on my clothing, shoes, and exposed legs and arms, but my dog has a tendency to sniff and lick my skin. So, Josephine, when I started to read your question, I thought you were going to ask what you could spray on your dog. And the answer is, I don't think you should spray things on your dog. But if you're worried about repelling mostly mosquitoes from your dog, there are monthly flea tick medications that also have an insect repellent function. So if you're worried about your dog being bitten by mosquitoes, there are medications that your veterinarian can prescribe to help repel mosquitoes. Keep in mind that medicines for dogs, especially anti parasite, flea and tick medications, are not interchangeable between dogs and cats. And so these medications that repel insects are dog specific not for cats. I just heard a terrible story about,a cat that seems to have gotten really sick when the family used a natural bug spray in their house. So this bug spray contained essential oils and essential oils can be especially toxic to cats and birds. And then less so to dogs. And the scary thing about this was it was clear on the label that it contained essential oils. But the label also said pet safe. So I think before you do any treatments around the house, you probably need to check with your veterinarian to make sure that that product you're going to use in the home is pet safe, because this one was clearly not. And then I checked about DEET. DEET is an acronym for some chemical that's really good at keeping mosquitoes and other bugs away, but it says when I checked the ASPCA pet poison control information, it said DEET can make pets sick. And DEET is what's in the the mosquito spray I have for me. So I think no DEET should be around your pet. And I think it's best to discourage your dog from licking your skin or clothes after you spray with anything that contains DEET. So I want to suggest to Josephine, then, that she consider those repellent bracelets that you can wear. And there are also clothes that have been impregnated with insect repellents and those, I think, would be safer for a dog than spraying yourself when your dog is around. So that's kind of a long answer that I'm not sure that a lot of these insect sprays are actually very safe for our animal companions. Our next question is from Charlie's mom. Charlie's mom asks, my five year old British Shorthair cat has the cover of blood on his feces that I find when cleaning his litter box, the vet doesn't know why. The internal medicine specialist doesn't know either. We have tried changing his food, but it hasn't made a difference. What do you think it could be? He has a very active cat and weighs 18 pounds. So Charlie sent a really cute picture. Charlie is a classic British Shorthair. He's blue, and he's got big golden eyes the size of dish pans. It's a little hard to tell from the photo, but I think that knowing Charlie weighs 18 pounds and looking at the photo, I think Charlie is probably really plump. And being overweight causes a lot of health problems. So I wonder if Charlie needs to lose a couple of pounds. Number one and number two. I wonder if he needs a little bit of fiber added to his food. One thing to consider would be a little pumpkin. Canned pumpkin. Doesn't really taste like much. And that's just pumpkin. No pumpkin pie filling that not not Charlie's not, definitely not going to eat that. Or some cats like sweet things. And sweet potato would be another way to add some fiber, to Charlie's diet to see if that helps with the stool being bloody. Charlie from his picture looks like he's an indoor cat, but checking him for intestinal parasites and maybe deworming him might be a good idea to discuss with your veterinarian. So I hope Charlie is soon on the mend. He's just adorable. And thanks to his mom for sending us the picture. Our next question is from Cindy and Joe. Their question is, our nine year old rescue dog Rosie has started licking her paws. She had her six month vet checkup a week ago and everything was fine. How can I get her to stop licking? So I don't really know where Rosie is from, but this time of year in New York City, we've got a lot of dogs with summertime allergies, and those allergies often manifest as licking and chewing the paws and the areas of the body most affected by allergies are those areas that come in contact with grass, pollen and leaves like Rosie's feet. Rosie's face because she's sniffing on the ground and her undercarriage. So one thing that helps some pets with mild allergies is wiping the feet, face and underside to remove the allergens after the pet has been outside for a walk. But if wiping after a walk doesn't seem to help. Veterinarians have really good prescription medications that we can use to treat allergies in dogs. So be sure to check with your veterinarian if a wipe down after an outdoor walk isn't helpful. We're going to take a short break here, and when we come back, we'll have news from AMC's Usdan Institute. We're back with Dr. Ann Hohenhaus on Ask the Vet. Welcome back to Ask the Vet on Sirius XM. As we gear up for the back to school season, it's essential to consider the safety and well-being of our pets. And here's some ways to help your pet adjust to the back to school changes. First, get on a regular routine for walks, playtime, and feeding so your pet has an expectation of what their day's going to look like. And do this before the kids go back to school. If their current schedule is way out of whack with the school routine, then shift your pet's routine a little bit every day for a couple of weeks before school starts to make the transition easier. When you leave for school and when the kids come home at the end of the day, be calm. Don't make a big fuss that you're leaving or a big fuss that you're coming home. That'll help get your keep your pets from getting anxious when everyone leaves for the day, and will also help create positive associations around your departure, because you're going to give your pet a little treat or a play session just before heading out the door. Be sure to set up a cozy place where your pet can relax while the kids are at school. Maybe leave the crate door open with a nice new fleecy blanket in it. Music is another good thing. Play some soothing music to help drown out the noise, or keep your pet company during the day. And don't forget that interactive toys and puzzle feeders can help to prevent boredom. If the pets home alone all day. Be sure that the kids put their lunch boxes and backpacks away when they come home, because they can contain things that might be toxic to pets like chocolate, grapes, items made with xylitol, raisins, macadamia nuts, and moldy leftover sandwiches. Be sure that all this gets tossed out and the garbage lids sealed so that the dog doesn't help themselves. Don't forget that the Usdan Institute for Animal Health Education has lots of free, and relevant pet health articles, upcoming pet health events, videos, and other resources for pet parents. You can check out all that information by going to our website, which is amcny.org/usdaninstitute. I really want to thank Dr. Mikel Delgado for joining me today. You can pick up a copy of her book, Play With Your Cat online from Amazon or at your local bookstore, and check out her website. Now, Michael is not spelled how you think it would be. It's mikeldelgado.com And don't forget, if you want to know more about your pet's health, you can just email me at askthevet@amcny.org and I'll answer your question next month. Remember that the Ask the Vet podcast can be accessed on the SIRIUS app on all major podcast platforms and AMC's website. Thanks to AMC's long standing partnership with Sirius XM. Don't forget AMC social media channels, Facebook, the Animal Medical Center, and Twitter and Instagram is @amcny. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast so that we can give you all the new episodes as soon as they drop. Thanks everyone for tuning in and I'll see everyone next month here on Ask the Vet.