My Cat From Hell: Jackson Galaxy, Saving the World, One Kitty at a Time
I’ve been watching the show, My Cat From Hell, and it’s been an interesting experience, both personally and as a television viewer. I enjoy watching shows in which people are faced with real challenges and then, through creative problem-solving, the situations are nicely resolved.
That’s exactly what happens on this show. The premise is simple: cat behaviourist Jackson Galaxy, who in a previous life was a journeyman musician, comes to the home of a couple, a family or some room-mates, and helps them sort things out with their problem cat.
In the show, the cat is initially quite anti-social: scratching, biting, fighting with people or with the other pets; sometimes even destroying property.
Usually, the peoples’ nerves are shot and their relationships are in jeopardy. Jackson comes in, figures out why the cat is behaving so badly, and gives the people simple homework to do with the cat, which in every case, results in a happier, better-behaved cat and a newly harmonious household.
On a personal level, I’ve found it helpful to watch the show, because I’ve done some cat rescue work over the years, and occasionally, there have been some conflicts between the cats. The techniques Jackson has demonstrated for getting two cats socialized have worked well for me, and for my beloved kitties.
In a lot of reality TV shows, there’s plenty of entertainment value but not much else. In My Cat From Hell, there’s plenty of entertainment but also the potential for a lot of learning. Whether you have one cat or several, or a cat plus other pets; whether you’re living alone or with a family, if your cat is driving you to distraction, Jackson Galaxy has some valuable information to share with you.
The man clearly loves cats, but he also really gets them. He knows what drives their behaviour, so he can look at a problem and come up with a solution that makes sense. Every time I’ve used one of his techniques, I’ve found it helpful.
There are a lot of different things that create conflicts in a couple or a family. It could be money, politics, religion, problems with communication, different values or sometimes, a troublesome pet. A lot of times, these problems are very difficult to resolve and the unhappiness persists; perhaps the couple has to split up or the family is broken up.
Jackson Galaxy is not only helping to save the lives of countless cats, he’s keeping couples and families together and creating happy relationships out of ones that were highly conflicted. Every time he sorts out another “cat from hell,” I smile to myself and think, “He’s saving the world, one kitty at a time.”
