Jackson Galaxy is the host of the American television programme “My Cat From Hell”. I’ll be perfectly honest and state right away that I don’t like the name of that television programme. I may be alone on this but the name of the program gives the impression that domestic cat behaviour in the home can be so bad that the cat is considered to be evil. That is an entirely incorrect point of view and a misconception.
I’ll get to the point of this article. On the today.com website there is an article entitled “Could your kitty have a chemical imbalance? ‘Cat From Hell’ star talks pet meds”
In the article, Jackson Galaxy speaks about a kitten whose name is Coco. Jackson says the kitten was “dangerous”. A strong word. Coco is a kitten who appears on his television show. He says:
“She hits a certain age, she snaps, is just something that’s kind of common.”
Jackson carried out some evaluations on Coco and concluded that she, “had a chemical imbalance”.
He decided to introduce some mood-stabilising medication. Coco became much more workable, he states.
Jackson Galaxy support his decision by saying that:
“The thought that we would deny help for the mental health of our animals, when we wouldn’t do the same for ourselves, is a little sadistic in terms of standing on ceremony and saying, “No, we should not drug our pets”.
He believes that the veterinary profession is now at a position where medication can help cats. He believes that psychiatric medication has moved beyond simply tranquillising cats to altering a cat’s mood.
A veterinarian, Dr Sarah Brandon, says that mood enhancing drugs for domestic cats such as Prozac are low cost and easy to give and can greatly improve the quality of life of a cat. She does, however, recognise the fact that some medication can result in negative side-effects. She concedes that the objective is to give the lowest possible dose while controlling the behaviour in question.
Galaxy, himself, does concede that problems of cat behaviour are not always about the cat. Sometimes, he says that the human can be part of the problem. He believes that the causes of cat behaviour problems are split about evenly between cat owners and the cat themselves.
In the case of Coco, he made the observation that Coco’s owner had become terrified of her own cat. This human emotion would feed through to the cat herself exacerbated any perceived behavioural problems in the cat.
Well, that is the story and when I read about it I come to the conclusion that there is an over eagerness to administer psychiatric medication to the domestic cat for perceived behavioural problems. We don’t, incidentally, know what the behavioural problems are. I think that’s important and we should know about them because they impact upon how one deals with them.
My personal method of dealing with so-called “bad cat behaviour” is to first look at the environment in which the cat lives and what the cat’s owner is doing in respect of interactions with her cat. There may also be other people in the home who interact with the cat and they should be observed and interviewed to find out exactly what is going on. Then socialisation should be investigated and also health. All these boxes should be ticked conclusively before consideration is given to administering psychiatric medication. I do not think that this level of completeness has taken place in respect of diagnosing Coco’s behavior problems. I also believe that the causes of cat behavior problems are not split 50/50 between cats and people. I would say it is nearer 90% due to people. Even if the problem is due to socialisation that is, at the end of the day, a human created problem.
Also, I do not think because medication is cheap it should be given to domestic cats without an awful lot of consideration and as a last resort. This is the key observation from this interview with Jackson Galaxy. He does not seem to be treating psychiatric medication as a last resort but something that could be considered at the outset. I disagree with him.
Also, I don’t like what seems to be a rather vague diagnosis of Coco when he states that, ““She hits a certain age, she snaps, is just something that’s kind of common.” – what is that about? That seems a very vague thing to say. It may be a misquote. It seems wrong to me.
Another point is this. If it is decided that a cat is behaving badly despite being well socialised, living in an excellent environment and in good health then a cat behaviourist should ensure that the cat’s owner has correct expectations and a clear understanding concerning cat behaviour. Many people may expect their cat to do certain things and behave in a certain way but the expectations may be wholly unrealistic. If that is the case then the cat’s owner may decide that her cat is behaving badly when in fact he or she is not.
It should be recognised, by the way, that Prozac has been found to be problematic as an antidepressant for people. There was a time when it was considered to be a wonder drug but now it is dawning on people that is far from the truth and one major side-effect is suicidal thoughts. There are other negative side-effects which as far as I’m concerned put its use in doubt.
Agreed completely. It seems that we are transferring our misguided ideas about mind altering drugs onto companion animals. Wrong obviously. For example, we now realise that antidepressants are grossly overprescribed in the UK by GPs. The magic pill syndrome, which damages many people. Far better to take the harder route and work out the problem through discussion and actions (for people) and analysing accurately what was and what is going on in the cat’s environment (for cats).
well i dont really know what to say but i dont think id prescribe my cat those meds. I once had to give cassy when she was really traumatized but she never liked taking them. Was around the time where she was running away and turning wild. I dont think its a total answer to any behavior prob. I guess as a last resort. I been on prozac a long time ago and worked for me for starts but then i got the anxiety probs so had to go on something else. I guess it would be horrible to any pet. Its just hard to know
My Cat From Hell is a sensationalist title like the Neighbour From Hell series, it calls to people to sit and eagerly await watching other people’s troubles. But in my opinion there is no evil in animals, they are a product of their environment so without knowing anything of this case I still insist that something had turned the so called kitten from hell into whatever she became. Forcing unnecessary chemicals into kittens, cats, dogs or any other animal is what is evil. Making “basket cases” of cats by forcing them to have Prozac is evil. How come after thousands of years of cat companions is it now deemed necessary to pump mind altering drugs into them, seems a strange coincidence that so many humans feel the need to dose themselves stupid as well. Is this more slavish copying of so called “celebrity” stupidity.
Ruthie – are you there? Am hitting the sack (saque) myself in two minutes, but was struck by your remarks re the anti-depressant you took after your mother died. You have a virginal constitution. That is your downfall. Some explorer-intruder, years ago, gave one aspirin to a native who lived on the Orinco, and the poor guy slumped to the ground and lay there for a week.
Once I had a stressful work situation, and was prescribed Prozac. OMG…Crikey. I felt like a toadstool stuck to a stump. One pill, and never again! Sleeping pills are equally pernicious, and of course you develop an increasing tolerance for them. Some sociologists have speculated that the movie stars weren’t necessarily suicidal — they just had to keep taking more and more to get an hour of sleep. And though sleeping pills knock you out, for some unknown reason they prevent REM sleep.
As for the poor animals, I had a friend once who dosed her Doberman with tranquilizers day and night — without any recommendation from the vet. She couldn’t stand to hear him bark, and of course he stopped barking: he passed his days and nights lying limp on the floor.
Good for you and Babz for helping your kids through their crises without all these infernal drugs. And one vet actually told you to ‘give away your boy?’ I’ve heard it all now… ‘Nothing surprises me any more’ [James Thurber]
xxxxx
ps Will try to get up to the library Tues. to check the e-mail, but venture out of the downpour keeps up.
I agree with everything you have written Michael! While I admire Jackson Galaxy very much because I have watched videos and read about cats he has helped, I don’t agree that any cats are from hell. It’s always the ‘owners’ who are from hell! I say owner because they are certainly not caretakers, they don’t take care as those entitled to be called caretakers do.
Anti depressants can cause many nasty side effects, cats can’t tell us if they feel weird or have a headache.
I was prescribed Seroxat for reactive depression after our late mother died, after just one tablet I felt very strange, off the planet, sick and dizzy too and I was ill for 4 days.
A cat behavioural therapist recommended anti depressants for Walter when Barbara’s husband died and Popsy came to live with us, because he was depressed and anxious and spraying, she said for at least the first week on the drug he would just be lying around and lethargic. We refused that! He could have had a worse reaction. Her alternative advice was to rehome him. As if we would do that! We don’t ‘rehome’ people with mental problems do we. So why cats? Babz and I were low ourselves at our many bereavements at that time which was why we’d asked for help. Our vet at the time had advised us to make Walter live outside! But Babz and I together worked through Walt’s problem with patience and kindness and understanding.
Sorry but since then I do not trust cat therapists! Nor many vets!
It’s sad enough – it’s horrendously sad – to kill a cat with pentobarbital – never mind the pastel-tinted euphemism ‘putting to sleep.’ It’s a terrible thing to do because the cat has no say: its life is not its own. Your years-long companion is yours to kill, if you so choose. And if it’s sweet-natured, it will purr in your arms with affectionate trust as the needle goes in: it will purr until the poison begins to flow through its veins and its loving expression sags into ‘What is this? Oh! What’s HAPPENING to me?’ tragic shock and betrayal.
Timothy Leary was an eloquent advocate of LSD in his San Francisco heyday. Thing is, when the ‘trip’ isn’t ‘bad’ what does it do but provide a prismatic display, a vision of paradise for sensualists unable to reach a natural high through productive or creative endeavor? What did it ever do to improve the lives of the users once they’d emerged from their hours-long trance? They were still hippies with no marketable skills, they were still down-and-outers living on food stamps,riddled with STD and toes itchy with ringworm infestation from wandering aimlessly barefoot through their Mecca: S.F.’s Haight-Ashhury.
If anyone has the stomach to get through the book – an impossible challenge – ‘Looking for Mr. Goodbar’ (underlinings and italics are seemingly impossible in this format) describes a pot party, and the description is what might be expected. Marijuana was recently legalized in Washington State, as it has been in some twenty other states throughout this country. Garrison Keillor, the decades-long host of ‘Prairie Home Companion,’ a popular radio program in the U.S., said it all when he said ‘Marijuana makes you stupid.’
What’s more, it’s par for the course in the U.S. for persons in later life to jellybean-pop 18 pills and more daily. Can any of us remember our grandparents or great-grandparents needing all these pills to make it through the day? Even without the daily poppings, many of them enjoyed good health into advanced old age.
It’s equally true some drugs are miraculous: vaccines and pain-suppressants are in the fore. A dental cavity can give you a foretaste of hell until a dentist injects your jaw with Novocain (though it’s no longer called that). Moments later, he can plunge a steel probe down to the root and you don’t feel a thing, no more than you feel a thing when he grasps the tooth with his forceps and twists and pries for eight or ten minutes, your head bobbing and blood gushing.
Oxycontin (not sure of the spelling), the drug of choice these days for addicts, is another pharmaceutical miracle. With the right dosage, a person with terminal cancer is all but perfectly comfortable right up to the end.
Psychotropic drugs are a different matter. They’ve stupefied users or rendered them berserk: they’ve destroyed their teeth, their health and their lives, and increased the rate of crime and traffic fatalities. And to force these drugs on children and animals is criminal except in circumstances light-years beyond any other known means of amelioration. They work fairly well in stabilizing paranoid-schizophrenics. But to diagnose as ‘ill’ and use this quick fix on noisy or otherwise lively kids is off the chart. As for kittens that ‘snap’…the description doesn’t deserve to be dignified with a comment. Light-minded people can be diabolical in their abuse.
As for the residue from these thousands of prescription and recreational drugs –aquatic life is on the way out. The rivers and lakes teem with hermaphrodite fish and five-legged frogs.