Demystify Cat Behavior (For Free!) During Adopt-A-Cat-Month

Tonight I’d like to introduce you to my good friend Sharon. This post was originally slated for tomorrow, but it’s her Birthday today and I owe her one. Two actually. 1) Since I pulled an unexpected all-nighter for work, we had to postpone this evening’s dinner plans. 2) Let’s just say my gift didn’t turn out exactly as I’d envisioned. You’ll see what I mean at the end of this post. So without further ado, here’s Sharon!

Hello fellow cat people, I’m Tamar’s friend, Sharon. We met years ago while working together in advertising and became great friends. One of the things we share the love of (in addition to wine) is cats!

After leaving advertising I decided to follow my passion and pursue a second career as a pet trainer. Currently I train dogs, but I’m learning to become a cat trainer as well. After all, cats CAN be trained – contrary to what people may think!

While you may not know me, most of you know one of my three cats, Gracie, the kitty Tamar and I rescued while on vacation in Vieques, Puerto Rico last year. She went from a very hungry three months old to a beautiful long-legged ten month old living like the Puerto Rican princess she is, with me and my two adult kitties in NYC. Look how much she’s grown.

So why am I writing this post? Well, while pursing my cat training studies I learned about a series of webinars being offered by the APDT (Association of Pet Dog Trainers) in recognition of June Adopt-A-Cat Month. It was too good not to share with other cat lovers! Some of the cat webinars are free to everyone, not just members.

The webinar “All About Cats,” provides a general overview about cats including cat body language and vocal communication. Recordings of cat sounds are shared to help distinguish between happy and not-so-happy sounds.

You’ll also hear from experts like Steve Dale author of, “Good Cat! Practical Answers to Behavior Questions.” Steve’s webinar, “Lending a Paw to Help With Common Cat Behavior Problems” offers valuable advice to solve issues like eliminating outside the litter box, destructive scratching and inter-cat aggression.

Registering for the webinars is easy, go to http://www.apdt.com, click on the one that interests you and follow the instructions to register. If you miss the live webinar you can view the recording for up to 60 days after registering.

I hope you check it out! While some of the advice may sound familiar, it’s given within the context of how cats “think,” “speak” and behave. Once we understand what makes our kitty tick, we can work toward changing a behavior that we don’t want. And, importantly, we can communicate our expectations in a language they’ll understand and respond favorably to.

So what do you think? Are you having kitty issues right now that are driving you nuts? If there was one problem you could solve, what would it be? I’d love to hear more about your kitty problems and whether these webinars help to address them!

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Tamar here. I can’t wait to check out these webinars, who knows what it might reveal!

So, back to the lame B-Day gift story. I know Sharon’s a Boston Terrier fan – she even has one on her business card. So when I came across an adorable Terrier pillow I thought to myself “Tamar, you’ve outdone yourself, these are perfect!”

…or not.

Seems I’m severely deficient in the eyeballing/measurement-taking department. Not quite the bedroom pillow I’d envisioned. Maybe Gracie will take to it?

[Kip patiently stands-in to provide the sense of scale clearly lacking in the photos I saw online]

Err, HAPPY BIRTHDAY?

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Sharon McNulty is a native New Yorker, cat mom and dog trainer certified by Animal Behavior College. She provides dog training consultation services to clients in the NYC area through her business, I speak DOG Dog Training and is a member of the APDT. In her spare time she volunteers weekly at the North Shore Animal League shelter in Port Washington, NY to help dogs and cats find their forever homes. Sharon’s passionate about her family, friends, animals, great wine, travel and well…this blog! If you have a dog with training needs and would like to hire Sharon, you can contact her at ispeakdogny@yahoo.com.