Addicted to Jackson Galaxy: A Review of the book “Cat Daddy”

I knew from the moment I pulled him from the side of the highway that my Smeagol would be special. We don't know what's wrong exactly, but he is highly intelligent, seemingly healthy, and tries desperately to communicate with us. I hope to have many years with him, but even in our short journey together so far, he has taught me love; love that is without condition. He can chew on my feet, attack my head, rip up everything in sight (curtains, tp, throw rugs, magazines); somehow I think it's just funny and love him all the more for it. If I can love this much, how much more is God capable of loving me, no matter my mistakes, temper tantrums and bad moods? I'd like to have some techniques to use to help my Smeagol, but I'm not willing to hit or spray him. I just want him to understand that his is loved without reason, without condition, without limits.

And can't wait to read the book.  He's doing such a wonderful thing for the world...what a wonderful person!  

And, I hope the book has some advice on how to get my former-ferals to stop piddling on our beds and in the laundry. I guess I should be flattered that they want to join their scent with ours so much... ;)

Thank you for such a great review! :)

What a great review.  I got my copy Thursday and finished reading it Friday night.  Loved it ... you are so right ... must have tissue handy - I cried reading the dedication page and cried is an understatement when it came to the end.  Passed my copy onto a good friend who I think can benefit from reading about overcoming the many obstacles & perseverance.

Our cat is a cat that I sometimes really wish we could have featured on MCFH. I have learned a lot from watching Jackson, its really unbelievable that a show would teach me more than the research on the interwebs, but I am so glad I decided to watch them!!

With that said, I think the most important lesson that I have learned from my cat is to not ignore what your body is trying to tell you. He was acting out even more than usual, peeing on our clothes, and randomly (so we thought) crying out. I realized, after checking symptoms with my good pal Google, the poor guy probably had a bladder infection. Sure enough, we had caught it early enough that a change in diet and antibiotics fixed him up. He will have to be on special food the rest of his life (luckily, he loves it) but because we listened to him, we thankfully were able to avoid surgery, or death

Unconditional love & patience is what cats have taught me.  Patience in trapping them & the unconditional love they give you when you can turn a feral into a friend.

I have learned many things from my cats but the biggest thing I ever learned was from a stray cat at work was trust.  When I started here a year ago, one of the strays I call MoMo wouldn't get within 3 yards of me.  I began feeding all the strays and talking to them.  I come up to work on the weekends just to make sure they have food.  Finally Mo began rubbing on my legs, then letting me pet her.  MoMo became in the family way and every morning she would chat with me and rub on me.  I came in one Monday and MoMo was a skinny mini again so I started asking here where her babies were.  Tuesday morning when I came to work I was talking to her and she disappeared while I was putting their food out.  In just a few minutes she brought me her baby.  Laid the little tyke at my feet and pushed him toward me and looked up at me a meowed.  I sat down and patted her and the little one.  Once I was done, she took the little guy back to her hide away.  I felt so priveliged to have gained her trust so much that she let me pat her 2 day old kitten.  Love that MoMo.

My cat Flash has been a real blessing from God. He has been there thru my many heartaches over the men I had in my life. I' m thankful out of one of those heartaches I rescue Flash from Ohio. He does cat shows with me and he enjoys it. I finally found his true calling in life. That is he is doing pet therapy. We visit nursing homes and the people love to see him. He is so calm and just loves all the attention. God has brought him into my life to be able to serve others. He helps me get over my shyness around people and helps break the ice. He is one awesome cat and I thank God every day for him.

The most important thing I learned from my cat is that how I act and feel affects my kitties so I need to find a peaceful place to be in order for them to share that with me.

Is the important lesson I've learned from a sweet little stray who wandered into our yard about a month ago.  We've seen her occasionally for the last year.  She always looked well cared for and you could never get close to her.  We hadn't seen her for awhile until one day she showed up in our yard all wobbly and thin trying to get a drink from the garden hose.  Needless to say, food was put out for her.  The next morning after putting out food for her, I sat down in a chair and she proceeded to jump into my lap rubbing the side of her mouth on my nose.  My heart melted for her and since then she's had to make several vet trips for a bad abcess and a complete round of shots.   How could I not do that for her?  Someone's throwaway has become very precious to us, and even if our wallets are emptier, our hearts are fuller because of her.  I'm not sure if she'll ever be able to be a member of our indoor cat family, but we'll do whatever it takes to care for her and keep her safe as long as she chooses to grace us with her presence.

Here's part of my blog tribute to the most special cat who ever lived, Casey:

I currently have 6 cats (and at one point 16 with all the fosters n' kittens), each and every one totally different than the other but they have all managed to teach me that it's ok to relax and chill (as only a cat can do :)

I'm relatively new to discovering cats (have always had dogs in my life), and have come to realize that they're just as complex as dogs, and they have their own set of life philosophies and behaviors that make the species so unique and fabulous! I'd love to get a copy of this book for a lady (co-worker) who loves her cats to bits but doesn't have the funds to purchase this book...she'd be over the moon! God bless you, Jackson, for waking us up to the potential cats, and other animals, have always had but never been able to "voice"!

I learned that when life is so stressful filled with a whirlwind of family, work deadlines, friends, and everyday demands to weigh down your soul....go find a quiet room or outside to sit and relax in a sunbeam. Nothing calms the soul than to take some inner peace moments for yourself. The best thing is when your cat comes to enjoy the inner peace with you.

My cat taught me that if I listen to her and do what she asks like a good servant girl, life will be smooth, but if not it will be Hell:) I guess she has taught me humility and patience and how very much I love her<3

I just adopted my first cat ever three months ago and my life will never be the same.  The biggest thing Fiona has taught me is that I can actually do this!  I am forty years old and have never had a pet besides a parakeet when I was nine.  I love cats but my biggest fear was that I was not going to be able to do anything right.  I finally jumped in after my family encouraged me for Christmas with a cat tree, litter box, and help with adoption fees.  I looked at many shelters and when I met Fiona it was almost instant connection.  I held her a little, petted her on a cat tree, and when she rolled over for a belly rub my heart melted!  After I got her home I quickly learned that she would teach me everything I needed to know and she is also very forgiving.  After giving her eye drops for a lingering inflamation (which was more stressful for me than her) She licked my hand as if to say that even though it was not pleasant for her she still forgave me.  Since then I have been amazed at how real a relationship there is between us.  I was prepared for affection and mutual need but there is a real communication that I did not know was going to happen.  She is smart and funny and playful and has never lashed out at me.  I discovered Jackson on "My cat from hell" soon after I brought her home and I have learned a lot especially the regular play and food times.  I find myself agreeing with everything he points out about cats and how to treat them and I am trying so hard to do things right from the start.  I look forward to reading his book and will definately get a copy even if I don't win one here. Thanks for listening. 

Trust. That's what I learned from my first two brother kitties. They were handraised, indoor kitties with the most mellow personalities. I come from a decent family, but these cats taught me things I never understood growing up. They accepted me as I am, and they trusted me to never hurt them. I guess it's the unconditional love they provide. But they opened a door to a new world, and I will always have cats, no matter their personalities, in honor of those two beautiful boys that changed my life.

In January this year, Hazel was jumping my back fence and pooping in my garden. I chased her off numerous times. She ran scared, but returned. After asking around the neighbors, I found that Hazel was a stray and had no home. So petite, I had thought she was an adolescent, she was an adult with the tell tale notched ears that I found out later, meant she had been spayed at a low cost clinic. I didn't even LIKE cats. Knew nothing about them. One day while working in the yard, Hazel came walking the fence again. Suddenly, we had a Jackson/Benny eye to eye moment. It was that dramatic. I realized she had no one and nothing. Hazel was thin, hungry, and needed someone...I fought it mentally and finally, surrendered. She needed ME. 

It took much patience to even let me touch her, but it's been now almost 6 months and as I write this, Hazel is sleeping happily on the Lazy Boy, much chubbier, healthy looking, and no longer homeless. No longer unloved. She needed me, and I was so surprised to learn from her that I needed Hazel!

Fifteen years ago I had two cats that I had named Benny and Anni for two of the members of ABBA.  When they were about two years old, I was struck with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia, which I still have to this day.  By the end of that year (it began in January), I had lost a good, well-paid job, the beautiful apartment I had been living in, and all but the most important of my personal belongings, and this was only due to the efforts of a friend with a large panel truck and an empty garage.  Worst of all, I lost Benny and Anni; I was headed for an SRO and there was no quesiton of bringing them with me even though just having them on my lap eased my pain and made me feel better (I am convinced that there are few things more therapeutic than a purring cat).  I cried for days.

Fast forward two years:  I was in the process of applying for Social Security Disablity and living on Welfare and Food Stamps when I met the man who would become my husband in just eight short months from our first meeting.

John had a cat named Rajah; a grey shorthair that looked like a miniature panther (and no dounbt thought of himself that way lol).  We took to each other immediately, and when Rajah developed kidney failure, John and I did everything we could to keep him with us, giving him subcutaneous fluids (which he did not like) and feeding him a special diet (which he hated so we gave him his regular food every other day as a compromise to keep him from starving).  Alas, eventually we had to do what was necessary; Rajah just was not enjoying life any more and the day we took him to the vet he was already leaving.  But we cried anyway.

Six months later I convinced John that we were cat persons and that an empty apartment was not enough.  So we went to the local shelter, and found a pair of brothers (though you would not know it; one was a perfect tuxedo and the other a gray tiger) that were pair bonded and whom the shelter would not adopt out separately.  So we came home with two cats.  I immediately named the tuxedo boy Damon because it sounded classy, and his brother we called Jake (I don't remember exactly how we arrived at that one; possibly because he seemed so offhand about everything).

Five years later, Jake died suddenly one night of an embolism (think stroke).  The emergency vet we rushed him to assured us that putting him to sleep was the most loving thing we could do as there were few treatments, he would always be in pain, and would never be cured.  Didn't make it hurt any less, but at least we did not feel guilty.

We drove home in a daze of grief.  But in a couple of days, we discovered that there was someone else in the house who was just about paralyzed with grief:  Damon.  This was a cat who had never known a world without another cat in it.  He wandered around the house, calling for Jake, looking for him under every piece of furniture.  Then he stopped eating and started hiding, and I flew into a panic and we did the only thing we could think of:  we went off to the shelter to find a new friend for our boy.

And there he was.  A little tuxedo kitten sitting quietly in his cage with a "take me home today" look on his face.  I reached in and picked him up; he was purring so loudly it was making him vibrate and as I petted him he began licking my fingers.  That was it; he was my cat.  I handed him to my husband and a few seconds later he, too, lost his heart.

Now, Damon.

We brought the kitten home (he was a bit of a scamp and I decided the name "Andy" suited him).  Damon did a little bit of "who is this strange cat you have brought into MY house?" but within two days they were sleeping cuddled up together, grooming each other, eating together, and chasing each other around the house (Damon was showing a new energy we had not seen lately).

That kitten saved the life of our beloved Damon and to this day they remain BFFs.  

Therapy Cats:  All of the cats named in this story have been therapy cats for me.  I eventually got my disablity, and I have my good days and my bad days, and the cats know it (their ESP astounds me).  My life will forever be richer for having them in it.