Play it Again, Sam!
Today's show is a su-purr fun chat with Mikel Delgado, who is a certified cat behavior consultant and author of the upcoming book, Play With Your Cat! She explains why play is important, what kind of interaction constitutes play, and which cats need it (hint- all of them!). She gives us her favorite toys and even talks about how to make your own. Think your cat doesn't play? We explore why you may be wrong. Listen now about how play can improve your life and your cat's!
Listen to Episode #126 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:
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Announcer: This is Pet Life Radio.
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Announcer: Let's talk pets.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Hey there, cat lovers.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Welcome to Nine Lives with Dr.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Kat.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: I'm your host, Dr.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Kathryn Primm, and I'm a small animal veterinarian and crazy cat lover.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: And you know that on this show, we like to explore the fascinating world of cats.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So today, I have with me Mikel Delgado.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: She is a PhD and a certified cat behavior consultant, as well as an author of some books to help our cat's lives be better.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So we're gonna talk with her today about the importance of play to our cats and how we can use play to make our cats be happier and healthier.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So we'll be right back with Mikel after a quick break.
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Announcer: Let's Talk Pets on petliferadio.com.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Welcome back to Nine Lives with Dr.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Kat on Pet Life Radio.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: As I said, we have Mikel Delgado today.
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Mikel Delgado: Hi, Dr.
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Mikel Delgado: Kat.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So I am so happy to have you because obviously cats are close to my heart, and your mission seems to be helping cats be happy and healthy, and I think that we have a lot to talk about.
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Mikel Delgado: Yes, I think we have a shared mission.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Yes, absolutely.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So tell us a little bit about you.
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Mikel Delgado: Sure, yeah.
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Mikel Delgado: As you mentioned, I'm a cat behavior consultant.
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Mikel Delgado: I've been working professionally with cats for over 23 years now, so it's been a while.
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Mikel Delgado: I got started in the sheltering world.
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Mikel Delgado: So I worked at the San Francisco SPCA in their cat behavior program for about eight years, and that was really where I got kind of immersed into the world of cats, cat behavior.
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Mikel Delgado: I'd always loved cats, but I didn't really have like a plan when I was young to be a veterinarian or anything like that.
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Mikel Delgado: It wasn't until later that I kind of ended up at the shelter, got into that world, and recognized how important behavior was because, you know, a lot of cats end up in shelters because of their behavior or failure to bond with their owner, vice versa.
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Mikel Delgado: And I just became very aware of how much cats could impact their owner's life and vice versa, like how much cats depend on humans to provide them with a good quality of life.
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Mikel Delgado: From that, I decided to do private consulting where I'd go into people's homes, I meet with them on the phone or remotely, and help them solve a specific problem that they're coming to me with, whether it's urinating outside the litter box or not getting along with another cat in the home, keeping the owner up at night, et cetera.
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Mikel Delgado: So really, you know, the last two decades of my life have been dedicated to helping cats by helping their humans understand them better and hopefully have everybody live harmoniously and have a great long life together.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So you're a passionate catvicate.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: We have lots of catvacates on here.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: And I think I'm understanding from you that it is as much about training the humans as the cats, or maybe more.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: What do you think?
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Mikel Delgado: I think it's more, actually.
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Mikel Delgado: I mean, you know, if we look at the reasons that cats have behavior problems in the first place, a lot of their behaviors are perfectly functional.
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Mikel Delgado: It's just that the environment is dysfunctional.
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Mikel Delgado: They don't have a clean litter box.
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Mikel Delgado: They don't have enough litter boxes.
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Mikel Delgado: They don't have anything appropriate to scratch.
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Mikel Delgado: They don't have anything to do all day.
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Mikel Delgado: They've got, you know, maybe too many cats and not enough resources.
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Mikel Delgado: So, so much of what I do is really just educating and training the human and helping them have a better understanding and hopefully more empathy for their cat situation, recognizing that we take a lot of choice away from our pets.
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Mikel Delgado: And I'm not saying that we should just let our cats roam freely.
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Mikel Delgado: I don't advocate that in any way.
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Mikel Delgado: I'm definitely a proponent of indoor-only houses for our kitties.
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Mikel Delgado: But we have to at the same time recognize the responsibility that comes with keeping cats indoors and restricting their choices, restricting where they can sleep, restricting what they can do, restricting what activities they can engage in, especially when we're thinking about, you know, what are known as species-specific or species-typical behaviors?
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Mikel Delgado: These are behaviors that are very natural to animals, and for cats, that would include things like scratching and hunting.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Well, so I would imagine if someone seeks you out for help with an issue, they are ready to receive that help.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: But this show reaches out to everybody, everybody that loves cats.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So I'm so excited that you're here to sort of educate my listeners at large about what it means to expect our cats to sort of conform to us.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So I want to talk about play though.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Why do you think play is important?
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Mikel Delgado: Well, play is important because cats are hunters.
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Mikel Delgado: And when you look at the reasons that cats play, the reasons that cats hunt, the things that motivate them to do both of these behaviors, we see an incredible amount of overlap to the extent that we can fairly conclude that play behavior is a replica of hunting behavior.
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Mikel Delgado: It's just directed toward toys instead of birds and mice.
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Mikel Delgado: Most of us don't want our cats to kill small animals in our homes, out of the home.
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Mikel Delgado: We don't like to think about that aspect of our cat's behavior.
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Mikel Delgado: We like to think of our cat as maybe a low maintenance, lazy lump on the couch.
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Mikel Delgado: You see lots of stereotypes about cats being lazy and not active.
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Mikel Delgado: And I think we're missing the opportunity to let our cats be cats if we do not tap into that hunting instinct and give them an outlet for it.
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Mikel Delgado: And so that's one of the reasons that I think play is so important.
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Mikel Delgado: The other reason that I think play is so important is, you know, client after client, I see their cats having behavior problems.
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Mikel Delgado: I also see the cat is extremely under stimulated.
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Mikel Delgado: The cat has a boring environment.
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Mikel Delgado: They don't have much to climb.
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Mikel Delgado: They don't have much to do.
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Mikel Delgado: They're not experiencing a lot of mental challenges.
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Mikel Delgado: And one of the things that clients always say when I ask them, you know, tell me about how you play with your cat.
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Mikel Delgado: Oh, he doesn't really play.
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Mikel Delgado: Or they'll say, yeah, there's toys all over the floor, but he ignores them.
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Mikel Delgado: Over and over again, I would hear this from clients.
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Mikel Delgado: He doesn't play.
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Mikel Delgado: She doesn't like to play.
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Mikel Delgado: She's not really into play.
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Mikel Delgado: Oh, she gets bored really quickly.
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Mikel Delgado: And so people just stop trying.
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Mikel Delgado: And with every one of these clients, you know, when I go into someone's home, I will bring toys with me so that in case they don't have any, because a lot of people do not even have what I consider an interactive toy.
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Mikel Delgado: So that would be a wand with stick and a feather, you know, a string and something hanging off the end.
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Mikel Delgado: And in every case, I could show people that, yes, your cat does play.
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Mikel Delgado: You just don't know what play looks like or you don't know how to get your cat to play or maybe your expectations of what your cat needs are different from what they actually do need.
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Mikel Delgado: So I saw this over and over again, and I'm thinking in my mind, you know, through the process of domestication, we've never asked cats to stop hunting.
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Mikel Delgado: That's not a behavior that we've selected them for.
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Mikel Delgado: We've just let it proceed, right?
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Mikel Delgado: It's convenient for many people.
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Mikel Delgado: Some people like the pest control aspect of their cat.
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Mikel Delgado: So there's no reason that every cat should not have the instinct to hunt and play.
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Mikel Delgado: If you look at the literature in other species, from rodents to primates, including humans, we know that play serves benefits both in developing life skills, but also for things like reducing stress and anxiety and developing into a healthy human being.
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Mikel Delgado: We recognize that play is important for children.
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Mikel Delgado: We don't always recognize that it's important for everybody else.
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Mikel Delgado: So I do think it gets ignored.
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Mikel Delgado: And to be fair, I think a lot of people at the end of the day, they get home from work, maybe busting out a wand toy is not high on their list of priorities.
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Mikel Delgado: They'd rather sit on the couch and watch Netflix.
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Mikel Delgado: But I am arguing in my book and advocating for cats constantly with my clients and pretty much anybody that will listen to me that even just a few minutes of play a day are very important to their well-being and can help them be a happier cat and more well-behaved, right?
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Mikel Delgado: So I'm dealing with the people who are having behavior problems.
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Mikel Delgado: Just because your cat isn't having behavior problems doesn't mean that they don't have needs for play, mental stimulation, the type of environment that helps them be a cat.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: You know, I think that we underestimate how much the humans need the play.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: I mean, think about how many people spend time watching cat videos.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: It's extremely fun to play with cats.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: And so I think if we can get this word out, people will realize that it's fun and then everybody benefits.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So, yeah, I think this is awesome.
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Mikel Delgado: Cool.
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Mikel Delgado: Yeah, I mean, I agree.
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Mikel Delgado: Like, I actually, you know, I play with my cats every day.
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Mikel Delgado: We have a routine in our household, and that's one of the things that's really helped us keep it on a daily thing is having a routine.
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Mikel Delgado: So I certainly break from the routine, and I try to.
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Mikel Delgado: I work from home, so there's times where I'm taking a little stretch break from my desk, and I'll go grab a toy and play with one of my cats for, you know, just two or three minutes, if that.
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Mikel Delgado: But we do have a set time in our household where we play with our cats.
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Mikel Delgado: Every night, it varies.
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Mikel Delgado: Sometimes they want to play the full 30 minutes that we allot for play, and sometimes they're done after 15 minutes.
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Mikel Delgado: We kind of just go with how they're responding and how many toys we have to introduce.
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Mikel Delgado: But I do think that it's fun.
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Mikel Delgado: It makes me laugh.
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Mikel Delgado: My cats do the goofiest things.
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Mikel Delgado: They're running around, sliding around, doing backflips and goofy faces.
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Mikel Delgado: It really does also add levity to my life to watch them play.
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Mikel Delgado: I get great enjoyment out of that, and I really hope that other people do too.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So like you, I hear frequently in my exam room, oh, well, she's kind of a couch potato, and I am always skeptical about that.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So have you ever seen a cat that truly did not want to play?
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Mikel Delgado: No.
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Mikel Delgado: And in fact, I did have one client, and they're like, oh, she's really hard to get to play.
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Mikel Delgado: And I was like, okay, well, let me try.
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Mikel Delgado: And they were right.
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Mikel Delgado: It took probably 15, 20 minutes before the cat made a move, and we were really like, like trying.
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Mikel Delgado: But then it was like, okay, I think we got the technique.
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Mikel Delgado: I've had clients, I had one client, she was so sweet.
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Mikel Delgado: She was a senior living in a care facility with her cat, and her cat was 17.
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Mikel Delgado: And she contacted me because she was worried that her cat wasn't playing.
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Mikel Delgado: And her cat had some minor health issues for a 17-year-old.
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Mikel Delgado: She was reasonably healthy.
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Mikel Delgado: And what we found was that her cat, and I wrote about this in the book, her cat really liked it when we moved a little wand toy between the couch cushions.
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Mikel Delgado: So she liked to pursue the toy when it kind of disappeared between the cushions.
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Mikel Delgado: And that got the cat really happy and excited and pouncing on the toy.
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Mikel Delgado: Was she doing backflips?
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Mikel Delgado: No, she wasn't playing like a kitten or a juvenile cat.
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Mikel Delgado: She was playing like an older cat, like a senior cat.
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Mikel Delgado: And so when we're thinking about the cat we're playing with, we have to consider their age, their energy level, and what type of play they like.
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Mikel Delgado: And I think in people's minds, they just think the cat should be racing around the house in kind of zoomies mode.
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Mikel Delgado: And really play, if we think about kind of tapping into the hunting behavior, is much more cognitive for cats.
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Mikel Delgado: Cats are ambush predators, so they spend quite a bit of time sneaking up on their prey, watching, watching, watching, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.
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Mikel Delgado: And when we're playing with them, we can take advantage of their ambush style hunting mode and move the toy very slowly, hide it behind things, kind of like a mouse would maybe try to hide under some leaves or behind a tree stump, and mimic those movements and bring out that kind of stalking, cognitive aspect in our cat.
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Mikel Delgado: So it doesn't have to be intense physical activity to have benefit.
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Mikel Delgado: We know that cognitive challenge for captive animals is just as beneficial as physical activity.
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Mikel Delgado: So we're trying to get some of both.
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Mikel Delgado: But when you have an older cat, they may just be kind of rolling around on their back, grabbing the toy with their paws and putting it in their mouth and chewing on it a little bit.
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Mikel Delgado: And that's play.
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Mikel Delgado: They might be watching and waiting, and then when they do pounce, maybe it's just pawing at the toy.
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Mikel Delgado: So really, I think people need to understand, sometimes they think their cat's not engaged because the cat isn't running around moving, but their cat is actually watching the toy very carefully and waiting for the perfect moment to pounce, and they're not recognizing that it's play.
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Mikel Delgado: So what I hope is that people will kind of see there's a wide range of play behavior in cats, and it's going to depend on the individual cat to an extent.
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Mikel Delgado: And I hope that in my book, I give people enough techniques and also ways to recognize play behavior that they see that, oh, okay, I thought my cat didn't like play, but actually he does, or actually I just need to move the toy like this, or actually I just need some new toys.
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Mikel Delgado: And then hopefully more people will enjoy the play, they'll see their cat enjoys the play, and everybody's happy.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Yes, I love that.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So I want to take a quick break, and then I want to come back and talk a little bit more about maybe some types of toys and some tips that my listeners could try at home right now.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So we'll be right back.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Welcome back to 9Lives with Dr.
00:15:35.213 --> 00:15:36.913
Dr. Kathryn Primm: Kat on PetLife Radio.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Mikel Delgado and I are discussing the importance of play for our cats.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: And so she has a book, we're gonna get her to tell us more about the book, but we were talking about how to recognize when your cat is playing.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: And I wanna delve into a little bit more about toys.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: There are so many kinds of toys, and I want to talk to my listeners about how to recognize which ones your cat likes.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Can you go into that a little bit?
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Mikel Delgado: Yeah, sure, when I'm thinking about toys, I mean, one thing is just thinking about what type of prey cats naturally hunt, right?
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Mikel Delgado: And their preferred prey tend to be things like birds, small birds, small rodents, some mice, and lizards, common choice of cat's bugs.
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Mikel Delgado: If you've ever lived with a cat and a fly has gotten into your house, I don't know about the rest of your listeners, but my cats are all on full alert, just from a tiny fly.
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Mikel Delgado: So, we can mimic prey with the right types of toys.
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Mikel Delgado: And honestly, I think a lot of toys are really marketed more towards humans than cats.
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Mikel Delgado: So, they're very, like, maybe overly fancy, or maybe they're cheap, and that's what they think.
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Mikel Delgado: People don't want to spend a lot of money on toy, which is, you know, can be fine.
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Mikel Delgado: But I like to kind of have a variety of toys and experiment and see what my cat likes because, well, one, cats do get bored of the same toy over and over again.
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Mikel Delgado: That's been documented in research by Dr.
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Mikel Delgado: John Bradshaw, and so we know that you can't just have one toy and expect that your cat will likely enjoy playing with only that toy for their entire life.
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Mikel Delgado: Certainly, there are cats that are very devoted to one type of prey or one type of toy, but most cats are going to need some variety.
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Mikel Delgado: And even within a play session, you might go through, I mean, sometimes we go through five or six toys in a 20, 30-minute play session because cats do get bored and they need something different.
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Mikel Delgado: So, you know, we'll start with think like prey.
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Mikel Delgado: And then, you know, I certainly have some favorites, but it really depends on the cat.
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Mikel Delgado: I really love the bird.
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Mikel Delgado: It's a wand toy.
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Mikel Delgado: It's got a stick with a long string and some really stiff feathers on the end that spin around and kind of make a whirring sound, like birds flapping their wings.
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Mikel Delgado: So that's a great one.
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Mikel Delgado: But, you know, I really think that sometimes it's more how you move the toy than the toy itself.
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Mikel Delgado: So when I'm, you know, recommending specific toys to people, I say get a few different wands, see what your cat likes, try to get toys that are relatively well made so you don't have to replace them immediately, and also get ones that have exchangeable lures.
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Mikel Delgado: So the lure is the part on the end of the toy.
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Mikel Delgado: So there's usually like a little hook, and you can have feathers on the end or maybe a little mouse on the end or maybe a little bug on the end.
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Mikel Delgado: So to me, that's the like, once you have a good wand with a good string or wire, then it's really all about what's on the end.
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Mikel Delgado: You can use things laying around your house and attach them to a wand toy.
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Mikel Delgado: I often, if we're doing any sewing or anything in our house, I'll take a little strip of fabric and tack it on the end of a toy.
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Mikel Delgado: I've put green beans on the end of a toy.
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Mikel Delgado: I've put strips of paper on the end of a toy.
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Mikel Delgado: These are all things around your house that you can transform into a cat toy very easily, a temporary cat toy or if your cat really likes it, a long-term cat toy.
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Mikel Delgado: But I just encourage people to think creatively, always making sure that safety is being followed.
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Mikel Delgado: We don't want any obstructions in the intestines or anything, so you want to make sure they're not things that your cat can choke on or get stuck in them or eat that are too small for them to be safely playing with.
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Mikel Delgado: But really, for the toy, the most important part is it's interactive.
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Mikel Delgado: There's a human who is moving a stick with a string and a thing on the end, and there's a cat.
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Mikel Delgado: That is to me what I'm talking about when I talk about play.
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Mikel Delgado: It's not leaving a bunch of pom poms around the house or ping pong balls.
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Mikel Delgado: That's great to do.
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Mikel Delgado: You should definitely give your cat things to play with on their own, but it is really about the interactive toy.
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Mikel Delgado: Other than that, get something that's comfortable for you.
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Mikel Delgado: I like a long handle.
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Mikel Delgado: I like a padded handle, but not all of my toys are like that, so I like to have a variety.
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Mikel Delgado: So I think as far as getting the toys...
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Mikel Delgado: The other thing I will say, most pet stores have a terrible selection of cat toys.
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Mikel Delgado: So I like to look on Etsy.
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Mikel Delgado: There's some really nice stuff going on on Etsy and certainly on some of the online marketplaces.
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Mikel Delgado: You can access things that your pet store may not carry.
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Mikel Delgado: I don't know why pet stores don't have better cat toys, but I just find that I'm sorely disappointed whenever I go to a pet store to try to find a new toy for my cats.
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Mikel Delgado: So I just go to Etsy where there's lots of creative and cool stuff going on.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Yeah, I love Etsy.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: And then you get to...
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Usually you get to talk to the person that made that toy.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: I mean, it just feels a little more artistic.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: I don't know.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: I like it.
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Mikel Delgado: Yeah, it's like you know you're buying it from a cat lover, right?
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Mikel Delgado: Not some big corporation that's just hoping that you'll buy a bunch of stuff from them, but really someone who has a passion for cats and devoted themselves to making products.
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Mikel Delgado: So yeah, I agree.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: It's kind of like the shop local thing, except you're probably not local on Etsy.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: But the same basic premise.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So okay, so I've got another weird question.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Does Play need to change or be modified in a single cat home versus a multiple cat home?
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Mikel Delgado: Excellent question.
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Mikel Delgado: Yes, I would say in most cases, yes, because with a multi cat home, there is going to be some competition over the toys or there could even be some intimidation.
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Mikel Delgado: And one thing that I would hear from a lot of my clients who have multiple cats is, oh, Fluffy loves to play, but Felix just likes to watch Fluffy play.
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Mikel Delgado: And I was like, I think that maybe Felix is a little intimidated by Fluffy or Fluffy.
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Mikel Delgado: He's hogging the toys or maybe being too exuberant in their play, and your other cat would rather just stay out of the fray.
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Mikel Delgado: So I do recommend separating cats or having one person per cat, having cats in separate areas while you're playing with them so that everybody does have the opportunity to play.
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Mikel Delgado: And keeping in mind, too, that sometimes your cats have a natural rhythm that may not fit into when the other cats want to play.
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Mikel Delgado: So maybe you have to play more with one cat in the morning because that's kind of when they're naturally active, whereas another cat is more frisky in the evening.
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Mikel Delgado: So there is some kind of personalization needed and separation, just monitoring, making sure they're not colliding into each other and causing fights or anything like that.
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Mikel Delgado: So we want the multi-cat household to be harmonious.
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Mikel Delgado: And of course, they might have different preferences when it comes to toys.
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Mikel Delgado: So you could have a toy in each hand, and if you're coordinated, you could play with two cats at the same time, but often it's easier to play with them separately.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So I think it's important, though, for my listeners to realize this is not a chore.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: This is going to be something that's really fun.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: But there may be days when you have to, you know, you kind of have to prioritize it or yell, because that's life, right?
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Mikel Delgado: Yes.
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Mikel Delgado: Yeah.
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Mikel Delgado: And I think, you know, certainly I know we're all busy.
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Mikel Delgado: And the last thing that anybody wants is more like obligations.
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Mikel Delgado: However, I do, you know, I really hope that people enjoy the process and that it's rewarding for them.
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Mikel Delgado: I do think there's a benefit to doing things on a routine, because you can make a commitment to doing it.
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Mikel Delgado: But I also feel like anytime you play with your cat is better than not playing with them.
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Mikel Delgado: So I don't want people to think if like one night they're too tired, they should just give up, right?
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Mikel Delgado: You just get back on the horse and play again the next day.
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Mikel Delgado: So, you know, that said, we do have obligations to our companion animals.
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Mikel Delgado: We adopted them.
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Mikel Delgado: They didn't...
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Mikel Delgado: Usually they didn't just show up in our house and decide they want to live with us.
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Mikel Delgado: I know that does happen occasionally.
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Mikel Delgado: But we kind of got into an agreement, like, yes, I am your caretaker.
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Mikel Delgado: I am going to provide you with food and medical care and water and shelter.
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Mikel Delgado: And to me, the aspect of the environment and the mental stimulation and the enjoyable things for them to do is really just as important as providing them with a healthy diet and a vet check once a year at least.
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Mikel Delgado: And to me, that's the part that gets neglected the most frequently is just the...
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Mikel Delgado: It's treated as extraneous.
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Mikel Delgado: It's treated as, like, beyond the basics.
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Mikel Delgado: And to me, the healthy environment, the environment that allows cats to express natural behaviors, again, like scratching, hunting, climbing, hiding, are just as important as the food and water.
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Mikel Delgado: And hopefully people feel, like, pleasure and, you know, they're proud of the fact that they take great care of their cats and make them happy.
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Mikel Delgado: You know, but I get it.
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Mikel Delgado: I know that people are overworked, feel overwhelmed at times and tired.
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Mikel Delgado: And maybe that's the day that you sit on the couch and throw some mice across the room or you set up a food puzzle for your cat or you put on a robo toy, put on a video, you know, a cat video on your TV with birds and squirrels for them to watch.
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Mikel Delgado: There's definitely other ways to entertain our cats and keep them happy and mentally stimulated.
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Mikel Delgado: But at the end of the day, really, you know, three minutes a day of play is hopefully not too much to ask for your cat.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: I agree, and I think you'll be glad that you did for your own mental health.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Okay, so one more question.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Can you have too much play?
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Mikel Delgado: That's an interesting question.
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Mikel Delgado: I do occasionally have clients that say, oh, he gets so wound up from the play that I feel like we shouldn't play with him at all.
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Mikel Delgado: And to me, I see the energy that cats have as not something you should squash, like you should give them an outlet for it.
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Mikel Delgado: And there are some cats that are really intense.
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Mikel Delgado: They need a ton of activity.
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Mikel Delgado: They need a ton of mental stimulation.
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Mikel Delgado: These are cats that usually do well with being on a harness and going outside and having a running wheel and doing training in addition to the play.
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Mikel Delgado: So sometimes we have to think about, certainly if we're ending play before the cat's tired or the cat seems wound up, it's like we can slow down the play at the end, give them a snack or meal after the play to help them go into that natural cycle of hunting, killing, eating, and grooming and sleeping.
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Mikel Delgado: And if your cat has hip problems or heart condition, you should always check with your veterinarian about how intensely you can play with your cat.
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Mikel Delgado: But I do think that we can't just...
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Mikel Delgado: I don't think that it makes cats misbehave to play with them.
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Mikel Delgado: If anything, it can get them maybe in a mode where it's like, oh, I need more, I need more stimulation.
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Mikel Delgado: But I don't think it's a cause of problems.
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Mikel Delgado: I think it's just a symptom of a bigger issue, which is usually like a cat who just needs more than your average cat.
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Mikel Delgado: And I've definitely had some clients that have kind of a cat plus.
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Mikel Delgado: Sometimes they're a hybrid, but sometimes they're just a very young, smart, active cat that will get into trouble if they don't have enough to keep them busy.
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Mikel Delgado: So I can't think of a time where I've recommended less play for people.
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Mikel Delgado: I've just often recommended changing when they play or how they wrap up the play session or what they do in addition to play.
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Mikel Delgado: Keeping in mind that cognitive challenges like food puzzles or problem solving opportunities like training are going to be fatiguing or tiring in different ways, right?
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Mikel Delgado: Just like when we're at work and maybe we're not moving around a lot, but we're thinking about a problem all day, you still feel physically tired at the end of that day.
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Mikel Delgado: So we should be providing both the cognitive and the physical activity for our cats.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Excellent.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Okay, so tell us about your book specifically.
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Mikel Delgado: Yeah, so I wrote this book because I just found myself having, again, same conversation over and over again with clients and trying to get people motivated to play.
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Mikel Delgado: I had recently written a scientific review of the play literature related to cats.
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Mikel Delgado: So myself and colleague and friend Julie Hecht wrote a paper that we published in Applied Animal Behavior Science in 2019.
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Mikel Delgado: Shortly after that, I had given a talk on play behavior, and my friend Lily Chin, who's an amazing artist, had taken a bunch of notes during my talk and did these really cute sketches, and she sent it to me, and I was like, oh, can we do a handout?
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Mikel Delgado: And so we did this handout.
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Mikel Delgado: It was very popular.
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Mikel Delgado: It's been translated into, I think, 13 languages now, and it's available for free on my website, whatyourcatwants.com.
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Mikel Delgado: So all this kind of play stuff that's been stewing in my brain for several years, it all kind of came to a head, and I was like, ooh, I think that this could be a cool book.
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Mikel Delgado: And I was also, you know, all the literature was kind of fresh in my mind.
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Mikel Delgado: I already had a book agent, and I just hadn't, like, come up with a the perfect book idea for me.
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Mikel Delgado: And she was very patient in waiting for me to come up with an idea.
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Mikel Delgado: And when I reached out to her, she's like, I love this idea.
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Mikel Delgado: And then we go through the whole, you know, you pitch your book, you have to write a big proposal, you have to write a couple chapters, and send it to all of the book companies.
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Mikel Delgado: And that was it.
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Mikel Delgado: So I signed the book deal.
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Mikel Delgado: It was a while ago.
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Mikel Delgado: It feels like forever.
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Mikel Delgado: Like, you know, the book, I think I started writing it in 2021.
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Mikel Delgado: And then I submitted the final version of the draft about a year and a half ago.
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Mikel Delgado: And now it's finally about to come out.
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Mikel Delgado: So the process of writing a book is pretty intense.
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Mikel Delgado: It just takes a long time to go through the editing and getting the illustrations, and then it's going to get laid out.
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Mikel Delgado: And you know, you're in a line to get printed.
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Mikel Delgado: And certainly after the pandemic, there were a lot of backlogs and supply chain issues that were slowing down the process.
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Mikel Delgado: But yeah, it's been really...
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Mikel Delgado: It was really fun to again kind of take a deep dive into the scientific literature, but also tap into my experiences with clients and my own cats and just kind of what I've observed working with cats and their owners over the past two decades.
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Mikel Delgado: And to me, like, play is joyous.
00:29:16.856 --> 00:29:18.276
Mikel Delgado: I wanted this book to be fun.
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Mikel Delgado: I want it to be scientific, but fun to read and accessible, and really a celebration of cats and hopefully really helping people just feel comfortable experimenting with their cats and having fun with their cats and maybe seeing their cat in a new light where they can really appreciate that hunting behavior is a part of their cat's behavior, even if they've never hunted anything in their life.
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Mikel Delgado: And again, just the excitement and joy that your cats experience when they're playing, to me is, I hope people take that away from the book.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: It's kind of contagious to watch a cat be happy.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So yes, okay, the book is called Play With Your Cat.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: And to review what she said about the handout, correct me if I'm wrong, whatyourcatwants.com, right?
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Mikel Delgado: Yes.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Excellent.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Well, so this has really been great.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: I probably could have kept talking about this, but we probably need to wrap it up.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: Thank you so much for joining us today.
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Mikel Delgado: Thank you for having me.
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Mikel Delgado: It was great to talk to you.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: And of course, thank you to my amazing producer, Mark Winter, and my loyal listeners, which you just make it worthwhile.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: I just feel so good about educating everyone on how to have happy and healthy cats.
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Dr. Kathryn Primm: So everybody go out and have a perfect day.
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