10 Things Your Cats Love the Most!

Hey everybody, Jackson Galaxy, your cat daddy. And today, oh, this is a fun one. We get to talk about what all cats love. The one thing that you can bank on is that every time you say, well, cats will love this. Somebody in the cat peanut gallery is going to be like, you know, I'm really disappointed in you, Jackson. I thought you would know better by now, but cats really hate that. Or at least my cats really hate that. Or if I say cats hate something like cats hate the smell of citrus and someone will be like, my cat will walk up to the smell of citrus and just rub all over it. Yes, cat lives just like human lives or any other sentient beings. Lives are all about individuality. Cats do love certain things a lot, and I would venture to say all cats love certain things. Now, there are also certain things that you would assume that all cats love that they might not. So we're going to go into both of those things today. What all cats love. I know what cats love. I know what cats need. Meow, meow, meow, meow. OK, here we go. Living in the 80s. All cats love hunting, and it's not even about loving. It's about needing to. It is wired into their DNA. So as many times as you guys have been like, Jackson, my cat doesn't like to play, meaning hunt. You know, if your cat were suddenly out there in in nature, they would figure out how to hunt and they would need to. And it would give them their cat mojo. If you don't know what cat mojo is, mojo is that ultimate confidence, that confidence that's born of knowing that I own territory, that I'm safe in my territory and that I can secure food in that territory. That is part of what really makes cats whole. So when we talk about what they love, they love to be in contact with that raw cat and hunting is definitely a part of it. So whether it comes if you call it play, if you call it hunt, play equals prey, folks, play equals prey. So cats love playing slash hunting. Another thing that cats love is environmental enrichment. There's somewhere on the vertical axis that your cats will find that mojo. And they love getting there. So whether we're talking about high, whether we're talking about low, whether we're talking about right here on the arm of a couch, whether we're talking about bookshelves, whether we're talking about that thing that I call the cat superhighway, where you have shelves that go around the room so your cats can get up off the ground and double the volume of the territory itself. Cats love environmental enrichment. Again, think about these guys out in nature. They'll be in the bush. They'll be in the tree. They'll be in all stops in between because cats can. That's the thing. They can get their bodies in places that a lot of other animals can't. And it's programmed in them to use that to their advantage. So catification, folks, cats love catification. All cats love to sleep. Well, sure, everyone loves. I love to sleep. I am like Mr. Nap time. If we think about cats in nature again, they sleep that much because they're constantly trying to, you know, get the strength to go back out and hunt. We've heard that cats sleep between this much and this much of the day. Oh, the cats sleep between 10 and 15 hours a day. No, they sleep from 15 to 18 hours a day. No, they sleep up to 20 hours a day. I don't think they sleep that much. And there have been conflicting studies that say conflicting things, but they do sleep a lot. The thing to remember is that cats don't go into that deep REM sleep all the time. That's when we get to the concept of cat naps, that cats do sleep sort of with one eye open because, you know, am I being hunted? Am I getting ready to hunt? We could say, oh, cats love to sleep. They just sleep different than we do. But they do love it. Following up on that, cats love sun. Cats really love sun. And I refer to cats as like sundials that they will nap in places all day long, wherever there's sun. They're not really all that good at regulating their own body temperature. So having that external source of heat is something that cats really dig. Find every sunny spot in your house and catify it. Put a bed there. Get windowsill beds so that cats can lay in the windows. Every window in your house, assuming that it's got some sun coming into it, should be a place where your cats can nap. And we know the cats love to nap. All cats love to scratch things. Yup. Scratching is something that is integral to a cat's life. They need to scratch. It's not just about, you know, ripping off those dead sheaths of nail that they have. It's not just about exercising that upper part of their chest and stretching down and pulling it down, these things that, you know, make their bodies feel better. It's also about marking. It's also about claiming territory. And all cats love to claim territory. Forgot about that one. Yeah. You know, in between each one of these little number pads here, scent glands. Scent glands everywhere. So not only are they leaving a visual mark, but a scent mark as well. Letting everybody know, cats, dogs and humans know this is Lefty's couch. And Lefty was here just in case he didn't know. They don't have to scratch on the couch as long as we give them proper and sturdy places to scratch for themselves. You know, whether it's horizontal or vertical or triangular or any stop in between, it's a need. It's a want. It's a love. So here's one. Let's just throw in one that's a not. All cats love to be pet. Nope. I would say that it is all species love touch to some degree or another. It's an overreach to say that all cats like being pet. Like this is a touch right here. This is a touch right here. This right here. This is an ear. This is my cat ear right here. This is touch. This is pet and pet from head to tail. That equal chances your cats are really going to like it. They're really going to like it. Then they're going to get sick of it or they're just not going to like it because it overstimulates them. So that is a real individual thing. Like I said, all cats love touch. OK, I'll go there. But not all cats love being pet. All cats love companionship. Yep, that's true. And that goes against what is one of the biggest stereotypes of catness, which is that cats are independent, aloof, solitary. Not true. In nature, the only thing that a cat does by themselves consistently is hunt. They're not sort of communal hunters for the most part. But are they communal eaters? Yep, they sure are. And do they groom each other? Yep, they sure do. And here's one that's even I love this fact right here that that females will actually raise other females kittens, especially if that female dies. And to that end, female cats are born with more nipples than they need so that they can accommodate more kittens than they would normally have. Pretty cool, right? Right. I saw that look on your face. Fascinating. Fascinating. Cats love routine. Cats are are routine driven cats. If you think about how tied they are to to daylight hours when there's more than 12 hours of daylight, that's called kitten season. Cats are out there trying to to propagate. And then we have the fact that cats are crepuscular. They're hunters at sunup and sundown. That is programmed in. So they know from almost a DNA place that their natural prey is out at those times because that natural prey also has routine. Then the cats play into that and their eyes are adjusted to that low level of light. Their ears and their nose are adjusted to that particular time of the day and night just so they can hunt properly. So that is routine that is driven by thousands of years to get us right here. But when it comes to your household, yes, they like their routine. They know they're going to be fed at a certain time if you don't free feed, which, of course, I would beg you not to. But this way, every time you go to feed, the cats will come and you know, hey, there's Lefty over there. Hey, Lefty, here's some food that we all have our group routine. When we talk about how cats wake us up at two o'clock in the morning, that's because they got that routine. You got this routine and we just got to make a match. But there is no anarchy. Cats really dig routine. Lots of folks say that that all cats love running water. Nope, not true. Because when we get down to it, not all cats love water, period. Cats are desert animals. They're derived from desert animals, which means that they have an ability to function at a place of dehydration where most animals couldn't. And that's also why they've adapted over the millennia to to get their hydration from the food they eat and not necessarily from drinking water. So drinking water consistently to quench thirst is not something that is completely natural to cats. So the idea that they would all love running water is is not. No, that's not on the cat menu. Some cats love it. And a lot of cats that I know as well as that, you know, would prefer something that's running and circulating than just drinking out of a dish because and let's face it, we can say not all cats love running water to drink. But I would say most cats are fascinated by running water because also light plays inside that water, refracting beams all over the place as as that water falls. So it acts almost like a prism. And cats just love watching things dance off of light. I mean, think about it in terms of bugs. And, you know, there's something just playing around up here. I'm going to follow it. There's a moth at the ceiling, you know, and the same thing goes with the way light plays off of a prism or off of water. So they may not love to drink running water, but do they all love running water? Again, I would say if you had a faucet that was just sort of dripping for a while and your cat was up there, they'd at least spend some time with it. You know, it might put a paw, they might try to drink it. So I'm going to revise that statement. And I would say if it was available to them, at the very least, they'd like to stare at it or play with it, but not necessarily drink running water. All cats love cat TV. Yeah. Yeah, I'll go with that one right there. If you don't know what cat TV is, cat TV, more than likely, I would say the cat TV is your cat's looking out the window and what they're going to see when they look out the window, whether that's birds or bugs or other cats or human beings or traffic. You know, some studies have shown that as much as we thought that cats slept in a day, if you actually added up, they're looking out the window just as much as they're sleeping if you're not at home. What I call this is passive engagement. It's not necessarily hunting, but in their mind, they're doing it. They're still engaging the raw cat by just watching. Because if you think about how hunting is done, the part which is actually pouncing and trying to get the kill is like this much of the actual process. The main part of the process is getting into a place where they're feeling nice and unseen and waiting for the perfect moment. So they're constantly watching. They're constantly looking for the right angle, the right victim, the right whatever, whatever is going to give them the best chance at catching their prey. And, you know, they can be at it for hours before even going for their first kill. And that's what hunting is all about for cats. So much of it is just assessing and observing. And then the smallest part of it is stalking and pouncing and eating. And what else do cats love? We've covered playing slash hunting and watching birds and cat TV and climbing up high and burrowing down low and all kinds of environmental enrichment and routine. They love routine. They love to play. Oh, your cats love you. They love you. They love your family. They love the humans in their lives. Cats do love their families, whether they are animal families or human families. The love that we feel, that unconditional bond that we feel from animal to human and back again is something that I am sure that every one of you guys watching will go. Amen. Because we've all felt it and we've all keenly felt the loss of it when we lose somebody. There's only one way that love works and love only works when it's a two way street. So if you love them, I can tell you that they love you. Just observe your cats and and try different things with your cats. You will find the things they love. Are they all going to be listed here? No, no, because your cat is an individual. Your relationship is individual. But what a beautiful thing we get to do is to hang out with our cats and add cats to our families and add different beings to our families and then spend hopefully a lifetime finding out what they love. All right. And I love you guys a lot. Until next time. All light and all love and all mojo to you. Stop the camera.