posted by: ingrid king. last updated on: October 23, 2022 by crystal uys
jackson galaxy is a busy man these days. he just finished recording the audio version of his upcoming book, cat daddy: what the world’s most incorrigible cat taught me about life, love and cleanliness. He is gearing up for a promotional tour of the book, due out May 10, and is currently filming the first of ten new episodes for the third season of his hit animal planet show My Cat From Hell.
I managed to catch up with jackson last week while on the set of my cat from hell. We chatted a bit about his busy life and his book, but what I really wanted to talk to him about was cats. his own cats his. Who are the cats he goes home to every night? Do they have behavior problems or do cat daddy’s furry children have no problems?
jackson shares his life with four cats.
velouria is the grande dame of the family; she is between 18 and 20 years old. Velouria came into Jackson’s life when he was working at a shelter. she had just lost her beloved boy grolsch, who was rescued from a barn in iowa in the middle of a blizzard, to fip. one day, someone left a box with two kittens outside the shelter door. one of the kittens resembled a grolsch.
“no way,” said jackson. “I didn’t want to adopt a kitten. that’s not a good thing to do when you work at a shelter, and there are all these older cats looking for homes.” but velouria reminded him so much of grolsch that he realized that resistance was useless. when he adopted her, he thought she was a kitten, but she was actually between one and three years old. she was, and still is, tiny, weighing just six pounds. Despite her advanced age, she is still full of energy and runs around the house.
Editor’s Note: Velouria passed away in February 2018. Read our tribute here.
chips, also known as chippie or chuppie, is seventeen years old. she was part of a litter of kittens thrown out of a car in a garbage bag. a friend of jackson’s saw what happened and rescued the kittens. chips is a somewhat lonely cat. she is a bit cautious and very reactive. “She’ll kick your ass,” Jackson said, “but she always comes back.” She loves Jackson to a degree that he would almost prefer she didn’t. she has a unique way of showing her love for him: she will wake him up in the middle of the night by biting his lip. when he opens his mouth, she puts her whole head inside it.
zeke is the only male cat in the group. At six years old and weighing close to twenty pounds, he is not only physically imposing, he is the bully of the family and must be kept separate from the other cats. he grew up with dogs, and acts and plays more like a dog than a cat. “He’s been my role model for how to work with bullies,” Jackson says.
At three years old, Caroline is the youngest of the group. she was part of a litter of kittens fostered by a friend, who sent jackson photos of caroline via facebook. he didn’t really want another cat, so he said no. eventually all the other kittens in the litter were adopted. Her friend sent one last photo. “Just come and take a look,” she said. she did so. he picked up caroline, she began to purr in her arms and it was over.
“I just adore her,” says Jackson. she is a shy cat and her first reaction to anything is to withdraw. “She is proof positive that if you give a cat room to grow and breathe, she will thrive,” Jackson says. he used her famous challenge line concept on her. The challenge line is the line between allowing cats to hide where they feel safe and challenging them to step out of their comfort zone to give them a richer life. Caroline hit rock bottom after Jackson’s recent move into a new home. she was scared, and withdrew again. He intensified her challenge line work with her, and eventually, she stabilized again.
Jackson’s house is every cat’s dream home. “Catified” by kate benjamin of moderncat, the home’s main feature is a “cat superhighway” of multi-level cat shelves with “entrance and exit ramps” to allow cats to access their favorite perches without clogging traffic. it was three months before all the cats discovered and used the shelves. Jackson always tells cat guardians to give them time when making changes to a cat’s environment and not expect instant feline acceptance. once again, his own cats provided the living laboratory and proof that his methods work.
There’s one more member of the Jackson family that may surprise cat daddy fans a bit.
jackson is “bi-perpetual”: his furry family is complete with rudy, a jack russell/beagle mix. I joked with Jackson about choosing a Jack Russell of all things (the breed is not known to be cat friendly). “Oh no,” Jackson said. “she chose me.”
rudy was found wandering in the middle of a busy street on christmas eve two years ago. Covered in motor oil, untouched, ingrown toenails, and in overall horrible shape, this little dog seemed to have reached the end of the line. “I didn’t even want to do due diligence on her and try to find out if she belonged to anybody,” Jackson says. “I just thought she’d let her keep running from whatever she was running from.” he agreed to raise her and had no intention of keeping her. instead of naming her, he called her “dog.” became the classic failed foster. “After a month of torturing the cats and the cats torturing her, everyone calmed down,” Jackson said.
rudy has a very strange relationship with chips. they act like sheepdogs to each other. Rudy keeps the chips in check, often ruffling her hair and holding her down. chip will hiss and run, but then he’ll come back and headbutt rudy. according to jackson, “they can go on like this for hours.”
I asked Jackson to tell me one favorite thing about each of his five furry kids. these were his answers:
on velouria: “its resilience. she has shown me how to teach others that a cat can change from being a victim to being an amazing, trusting cat.”
on chips: “I love all the things about her that annoy me!”
on zeke: “the cat-dog combo that he is.”
on caroline: “i love that she trusts me 100% even though it goes against every fiber of her being.”
About Rudy: “Rudy is a reminder that dog mojo is an important thing in your life. it is a balance between the love of cats and the love of dogs. “
jackson went on to say, “when i’m away from home, i miss my dog so much it hurts. I miss my cats too, but cats represent home. dogs represent home away from home.”
jackson galaxy, cat behavior specialist and star of animal planet’s my cat from hell, has been reading, writing and working with cats for 15 years. For more information, visit the Jackson website. Jackson’s first book, Cat Daddy: What the World’s Most Incorrigible Cat Taught Me About Life, Love, and Honesty, is available to pre-order. For every copy of Cat Daddy reserved by May 10, 2012, tarcher-penguin will donate $1.00 to help homeless cats cared for by Neighborhood Cats, Best Friends Animal Society, and the Feral Cat Alliance. To make your pre-order count, simply email your receipt (or a photo/scan of your receipt) to [email protected].
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