Discover the Many Benefits of Playing with Your Cat with Dr. Mikel Delgado
One of the world's most respected cat behavior experts, Dr. Mikel Delgado, shares how to make purposeful play a win-win for you and your cat. The co-founder of Feline Minds, Dr. Delgado offers tips on selecting the right toy for your cat, how your cat's age, sex and body type can affect play and much more. She is the author of a new book called, Play with Your Cat: The Essential Guide to Interactive Play for a Happier, Healthier Feline. Get your paws on it today!
Listen to Episode #535 Now:
BIO:
I dropped out of college in 1992 to move to the California Bay Area. I spent much of the 1990s working in a health food cooperative, playing bass guitar in punk bands, and volunteering in collectively run punk spaces (Maximum RocknRoll and Epicenter Records).
In 2000, I started volunteering — and soon after working as a full time employee — in the Cat Behavior Department of the San Francisco SPCA. I left the animal shelter and the music scene in 2008 to return to school. At the same time, I co-founded Feline Minds, a cat consulting business based in Northern California. We offer training and consulting services for cat guardians, animal shelters, rescue groups, and corporations.
I completed my Ph.D. in Psychology, with an emphasis on animal behavior and cognition, at UC Berkeley in 2017. To support my graduate work, I received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, The UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Fellowship, and the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant.
I worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis for 3.5 years, where I researched the social behavior of domestic cats and the development of orphaned neonatal kittens. My research has been published in Psychological Bulletin, the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, Royal Society Open Science, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare, the Journal of Comparative Psychology, Anthrozoos, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
I am co-author with Jackson Galaxy of “Total Cat Mojo” and the author of the forthcoming book “Play with Your Cat!” (2024 – Tarcher/Perigee).
I am a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist (Animal Behavior Society), a Certified Cat Behavior Consultant (International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants), and an Affiliate Member of the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior. I offer cat behavior consulting through my business Feline Minds, and I’m the resident cat behavior expert for Rover.
I live in Sacramento, CA with my boyfriend and our three rescue cats: Coriander, Ruby, and Professor Scribbles.
Transcript:
"Oh Behave " Theme Song Written & Produced by Mark Winter
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