So thank you, everyone, for listening to me.  I'm Miranda Luck - Talking Cats, and my guest today is the fantastic Vicky Halls.  So welcome, Vicky.  Now, I know I've known you for many years, and I've read a lot of your books and publications and lots of really interesting stuff.  And I understand and appreciate your knowledge of cats.  But for those who don't, would you mind just telling us a little bit about yourself, please?

Vicky 
Yes sure.  Thank you for inviting me; first of all, Miranda to speak to you today.  I'm very excited.  Yes, my background, I would say, I've managed in my career to accrue a bit of a jack of all trades.  I started initially, like, probably a lot of your listeners volunteering at a local Cat Rescue.  And, you know, with a full-time job elsewhere, completely unrelated to the animal sector, and I kind of got the bug.  And at that time, we moved to the West Country.  And I thought, I'll volunteer at our local centre, one thing led to another ended up, they offered me a job, I thought, Well, why not?  This is a huge amount of fun.  But I was kind of starved for information.  I desperately wanted to learn stuff.  And the questions I was asking at the time were questions that really didn't have answers.  In my pursuit of answers to those questions, I like yourself I trained as a veterinary nurse, I worked for a time and practice management and veterinary practice.  And then still asking the same wretched questions, still not really getting the answer.  At a time when cat behaviour knowledge was, you know, in its infancy, and most quarters.  There were a few really key players who were doing some great stuff, like Peter Neville and Sarah Heath.  And that was me, starting the behaviour stuff.  I really got the bug and ended up working as a clinical animal behaviourist for 22 years, which was great, and I really enjoyed it.  During the course of that, I also trained to be a human counsellor; I went back to school, so to speak, for three years, and ended up with as well as my work with cats working in NHS, Doctor surgery.  And also, in private practice as a human counsellor as well, I really got the bug with that because I felt that was a really important part of my clinical cat work that was missing.  That was the missing link.  And as you alluded to earlier, in-between times, I wrote a lot of a lot of books.  And I'm now working with International Cat Care in going back to my roots, I'm back again with Unowned Cats, and I'm loving it.

Miranda
Okay, and a lot of those unowned cats are ending up in rescue.  And so why don't you tell us a bit about the Cat Friendly Homing project that you've been working on?

Vicky
I would love to!  I was aware that there are some pretty cracking people in this sector.  They work really hard, they're devoted, and they're passionate.  But they are under an awful lot of pressure.  The work is not easy.  It is extremely stressful.  So there was that side of things.  And also, it concerned me, and I felt uncomfortable that we seem to accept the fact that some cats stayed in cages for years.  Is this acceptable?  Should we accept it?  And it was the, again, it's this sort of pursuit of, you know, every day's a school day.  And just how are we going to fix it?  What do we need to do if we started from scratch now, to create an infrastructure to care for unowned pet cats, pre-loved cats going from, you know, one home to the next part of their life's journey?  What would it look like if we weren't constrained by images of what we've done in the past?  And that was the birth of Cat Friendly Homing.

Miranda
Some people listening who are unaware of the project will think, well, we all do Cat Friendly Homing, you know.  We're doing our best for the cats, you know, we're putting them, you know, promoting them, we put them on social media, and we're trying to get them out.  But what you're talking about is really about the understanding and the care of the cats whilst they're in the cattery.  Is that right?

Vicky 
Well, that's an element of it, it's actually the whole, and that's where we started.  But it turned into a whole thing, covering the entire journey.

Miranda
Okay.

Vicky
Right from before the cat even gets into a situation that it ends up having to be taken into the homing centre.  And we, we sort of realised that what the sector was all about was a rescue reactive model.  The whole thing about rescue is it's somewhat of an emergency; you know, there's an element of peril involved.  And the rescue then has to respond often with very little time to even think, take the cat in, and then thinking time, then can only take place once the cats actually in your care.  And a lot of the information you could have found out about that individual cat has been lost in the way as a result of it being this sort of emergency.  So this is where we started thinking, well, what would this look like if we actually created a system whereby people could engage with their community and turn into something more proactive.  And also, when the cat is in the homing centre, whether it's with foster care, or whatever, we like to think of that as part of that cat's journey.  It's not a destination; it's not a chance to sit on your laurels and say job well done.  That's only part of it.  So the next thing you have to think about is what does this cat need?  What does this particular individual cat need, and let's make sure we send it on its journey as quickly as we possibly can.  And I think the way to look at this, really Miranda is the fact that this is not a critique of those amazing people in this sector.  What this is, is saying that we're listening to you, we're understanding that the things you find very challenging, very stressful, we want to support you, we want you to gain an incredible reputation which you deserve.  But we want you to be the same as any other professional or paraprofessional that works with cats.  And that is, we learn constantly.  We never stop learning; we evolve; we always try and be the best we can possibly be in our role.  And as a result, we set up sort of training programmes so that we can say, look, there's loads of training out there for you, we've got some here, we want to invite you to evolve and go from good to even better.

Miranda
So, in essence, it might be a case of an existing rescue having a look at what they're doing and realising where they are doing really well.  And you know, that should be rewarded.  And then just thinking actually, maybe there are some things we could do differently.  But how do you approach people to make that sort of suggestion of something for them to do?

Vicky   
Well, that's really interesting you should say that because, in our online 20-week programme, one of the first exercises we do is - pick up to six things that you do really well and jolly well give yourself a pat on the back for it, tell us about them because there will be lots of things you do really well.  And then entirely up to you, but you decide, you tell us those things that you would really like to do even better.  They decide what they want to learn; we're not going to tell them what they need to learn.

Miranda 
No.

Vicky
We just sort of coach them and support them on the journey that they embark upon.  And they can make it as complicated or as straightforward as they want.  We've got all the resources, but we're not going to cram it down everyone's neck.  Not everything is going to suit everybody.  When we embark on this work, and I did it when I started back in the 1980s.  I had cats; therefore, I thought I knew about cats.  And then I spent a lot of time with cats.  But actually, you need the underpinning of that knowledge in order to make sense of what you're seeing.

Miranda
That's so true.  And I've experienced that myself.  And also having come from a background working with animals and veterinary practice.  And before that, as a pet owner and always been around pets, thinking, my years of experience equal knowledge.  But then I worked out for years, I've been doing some things incredibly wrong, or I'd been misinterpreting things.  So it's, as you say, every day is a school day.  Looking at what you know, or think you know, and then think, is this still relevant?  Is it still up to date?  Or is this, you know,  just an assumption I've always made?  I think there's a lot of assumptions about cats.

Vicky 
You're so right; you're so right, Miranda, and I want people to understand that it's a journey we have all gone on; I'm still going on it.  There are things that I did last year I wouldn't do now because I found something else that I thought that I'm going to do that slightly differently.  And as soon as you take away the sense of guilt that some people feel if they find out something, and then they immediately think, Oh, I didn't know that before.  Therefore I did this, and I shouldn't have done that, you know, you can actually say don't think that way, you've got the knowledge now, you know, this is how we evolve, we find out things, and we drop things we've done before, and we do new things, we should we should be proud learning and evolving, I think should be a badge of honour.

Miranda
Yes, yes!  And the other thing the, the enjoyment that you get out of it is massive.  So it's a boost to yourself, it's a boost to your cat, so it's a win-win, but I appreciate, you know there's there's got to be a lot of challenges for people, I'm talking about people in rescue centres, and a lot of it is sort of firefighting once you know the cats have been left on the doorstep so even if they've everyone's tried to do the best that they can, you know it's an ongoing battle with so much work and limited resources.  Is there?  You were talking about when people do the course and are talking about the things that they know that they do well.  Is there a recurring theme that comes up of things that they struggle with?  Certain points that are more complicated than others?

Vicky
Yes.  We recently asked people to complete a survey.  And I know that you've very kindly circulated that survey for us.  And it was a survey of people who work within the sector, whether it's in homing centres or whether even it's Trap Neuter Return for free, roaming unowned cats, different parts of the world, wherever they were.  And some of the questions we asked was what really challenges you, you know, what's the thing that keeps you up at night, what really stresses you.  And there were some recurring themes, which were very much in line with the discussions we've had prior to this survey going out.  And one of the big things is - decision making.  The decisions are incredibly complex.  And I don't think unless you actually work in the sector that you fully appreciate how complicated some of these decisions can be.  Decisions about the future of a cat, you know, where it needs to go?  What treatment is appropriate?  How to assess its quality of life, all these sorts of things, you know, what do we do in this situation, we've got this pregnant female as part of a TNR, that, you know, all these sorts of really complicated questions.  And one of the things within Cat Friendly Homing is we say to people that have a structure for these decisions because some of them are very emotive.  And as soon as you become emotional, you can't think rationally.  It's just almost, it is impossible.

Miranda
And it's very hard with kittens.  And...

Vicky
Oh!  Don't get me started -  exactly with kittens.  So what you need is you need to be able to discuss with your peers and your colleagues, be supported by them all understanding how difficult this is but have a structured framework within which to work, which guides you through a sequence of questions and answers.  So you can engage that logical part of your brain because being emotional is human.  But to be absolutely blunt about this, it's not a great deal of help for the cat.  We need to make these decisions with our head.  We don't need to become non-emotional.  Otherwise, none of us would do this work; we need to acknowledge our emotions but not allow them to dictate how we make these decisions.  And that's a that's a skill that needs to be learned.  And, you know, we're all still learning it.

Miranda 
The Cat Friendly Homing is a huge and covers a huge number of areas.  If someone had to sit down and, you know, take things in small bites or little chunks, what would be your number one that people should perhaps start with?

Vicky
I think for managers and supervisors, I would say, first of all, visit the International Cat Care website and have a look at the unowned cat section.  It's quite clearly labelled.  Have a look at the Cat Friendly Homing section, read it and see what resonates, see what appeals, see what hits home, see what provides a potential answer for a challenge you face, a question have or whatever.  So just to engage with it in the first place.  And I think that to go through the training programme is really, really important.  But the one thing we lack in this sector is because the demand is so high and the workload is so pressurised.  What we never allow ourselves time to do is to sit back and reflect and look at working practices.  Look at what works well; look at what you'd like to improve.  Look what causes you constant groundhog days.  It's just giving yourself that time to take a breath and say, look, I'm just going to opt-out of the day to day stuff.  And I'm going to sit here with a blank sheet of paper or whatever, or a blank computer screen.  And just think about this with fresh eyes in an objective way.  You know, how can I?  How can I start the shift from that constant firefighting model to one that feels more controlled, more strategic, and more proactive?

Miranda 
Okay, and you mentioned, you know, that's a good start for a decision-maker.  For a perhaps a volunteer or somebody's working in the cattery that makes decisions at a local level within a particular cat pen or a ward situation, what about them?  What do you think they could do?

Vicky
I think I would say good on you, but treat this as the first day of your journey into really finding out more about the cat.  And it's a funny old saying, but I keep referring to it because I know I'm very aware of it myself.  We don't know what we don't know.  And, you know, it's very hard to say, well, I don't know this.  And I don't know that because, as you said before, we make assumptions.  And we think this is, you know, this is knowledge, we should never be ashamed that we are not born with this incredible insight into another species, we can only go by our own experience with them.  So I would say embark on a learning process.  Whether you pick up a book and read it with fresh eyes, whether you look at the iCatCare website, or whether you embark on one of our online courses, which are not just for vets and nurses, they're for cat owners, they're for people who work in this sector, you know, all sorts of things, and start a journey into really discovering the species that we all believe when we start out that we know so well and produces so many really exciting things.  And all that does is it just makes the experience richer.

Miranda 
Okay.  The online courses, so for someone who hasn't been in education for a while, or someone who, you know, never really got on well with academic studies or anything like that.  How difficult are they?

Vicky
This is not about achieving or having to have some level of academic qualification before you can go on with this.  This is why the Cat Friendly Homing programme is designed to be completed by a team of people.  So you do it with your managers, it could be a volunteer, member of staff or whatever, all different levels of educational background, and also all different ways of learning preferred ways of learning, you know, and the great thing about the programme is it, it sort of sets out the activities.  And it's up to the individuals to do them in a way that best suits them.  And it's all based around the animals in your care.  So you don't have to think theoretically and then try and translate that into practical knowledge; you're actually applying things with the cats you have in your care at the time.  So you cross that bridge straightaway.  Whereas usually, you do a course you get all the theoretical stuff in, and then you have to translate that into practical application.  We sort of cross that bridge very, very quickly.

Miranda
That's brilliant.  And I like the idea that it can be done as a team because, of course, different people have different skills and different knowledge.  So it's, you know, bringing it all together and helping one another as well.  So...

Vicky
Exactly, exactly.  And you know, everybody will have a major contribution to make to that programme at some stage, so it's hopefully very fulfilling for them and quite a confidence boost as well.  Because sometimes people have talents, they don't know they have talents, which is such a shame.

Miranda 
Absolutely. Now, what about vets and nurses?  Do they have a part to play in the whole journey you're talking about?

Vicky 
Well, yes.  I personally think that there should be much more connection between the veterinary team and the homing centres or the rescue centres.  One of the things that Cat Friendly Homing is all about is collaborative working relationships, collaborating with other homing organisations, and having a really good working relationship with your vet and the veterinary team.  It's incredibly important.  And, you know, some people might say, well, that's a bit difficult, I don't have the veterinary knowledge - so we have more of this sort of vet client thing.  But actually, there is a way of communicating with vets and with nurses by just asking the right questions that allows people with very little veterinary knowledge to actually gain the information they need.

Miranda
And that kind of ties back to the point that you said that people mentioned they had difficulties making decisions, because that's using another fresh set of views and ideas and with the veterinary training, obviously, about medical issues, to help sort of round that circle and help you make good decisions.

Vicky 
Again, it's another tool in your tool kit.

Miranda 36.25
And there are Cat Friendly veterinary practices out there now as well.  Right?  So I guess it makes sense to try and hook up with one of them and ...

Vicky 
Absolutely, there's a huge potential for a lot of symbiosis between the two, really.  You know, really forward-thinking Cat Friendly Homing centres linking up with Cat Friendly Clinics who start from the same basic ethos, respect the species, understand the individual, you know, really see them as they're very unique species that need a particular kind of care.

Miranda  
Yup!  Brilliant.  So you, you must have seen instances of Cat Friendly Homing taking place from someone who wasn't doing anything at all to someone who's now achieved quite a lot.  Can you tell us about a scenario that comes to mind?

Vicky
I mean, we've been fortunate when we were developing the programme.  We needed to go out and actually do it face to face first before we could actually translate that into an online programme.  So we worked intensively with two very different organisations, one in Kent in England, in the UK, and one in Bermuda.  So you couldn't really think of too many different scenarios.  And you know, the one in Kent were really good, really forward-thinking.  And we went in there and trained, and we were learning as well.  And we made lots of mistakes along the way, but we learned from them about how we approached the training and what have you learned so much from them, and they have become quite a force to be reckoned with.  If I said to you that almost like Cat Friendly Homing is in their DNA now.  They don't think about Cat Friendly Homing as a thing.  It's what they are.  And other organisations look to them for guidance on matters, and other places go to them with their complex cases because they have this reputation of being proactive, of being very good and very clear about their decision making with difficult cases.  And they are going, I mean, they're going stratospheric.  They are really such a good example, and their length of stay - average length of stay is reduced significantly.  The number of cats they're helping has increased, and they are also working very well with the type of cat called Inbetweener.

Miranda.
Right.

Vicky 
Which is what International Cat Care called those rather unsuccessful pet cats.  Cats who've lived as pets in the past but somehow ended up in the wrong place because they're really not pets.  They're not happy living with people.  And they've managed to give these cats some extraordinary, what we refer to as alternative lifestyles, where they're living the life the cat wants to lead, rather than fitting into a construct that's largely made by humans.  And that's working extraordinarily well.  Other people are following their lead and adopting sort of similar programmes.  And Bermuda, that was a whole different ballgame.  They were really an absolute crisis; it didn't even know how many cats they had.  They got in such a pickle.  Lots of unsocialised cats in pens and not knowing what to do.  And we were there for a week, a very intensive week, I have to say.  By the time we got back on the plane, and we landed back, back home in the UK, they'd already made some incredible changes.  And, you know, cats that have been in care for 12 years.

Miranda
Wow!

Vicky
They were suddenly in a situation where they said, No, there's no reason why you should be here.  And, you know, outcomes were found for them that completely suited their needs.  Quite extraordinary.

Miranda
That's brilliant.  And also, the Cat Friendly Homing would have, well, you guys being there, of course, but it will have given them the confidence that we're okay to make these decisions; we can make these calls.  And we can do this.

Vicky
You know, Miranda, you're absolutely right.  It's that word confidence.  Because nobody wants to make a decision that harms an animal or isn't right for the animal.  So sometimes, there's a tendency to actually avoid making a decision at all, just in case you make the wrong one.  But when you have structured ways of doing things, you have people supporting you and saying, look, we support you; we cannot be perfect.  That's another thing we have to understand this is an imperfect world; we will not always get the perfect situation if we can all be pragmatic and be the very best we can be.  Then the cats and the world, in general, can't expect any more from us.

Miranda 22.55
Yeah. Just to go back a step because you mentioned the inbetweeners.  So for people who haven't come across the sort of categorisation of the cat types, would you mind just quickly-ish!  I know it's huge, but just run through the sort of categories that you tend to use?

Vicky
Yes.  People have used similar words all over the world for very different things.  So we thought, well, the first thing we need to do is make it clear to everyone else what we mean when we use certain words.  So what we've done is sort of plonked a set of cats onto a spectrum of lifestyle and said, look, the domestic cat is the cat as a cat.  However, some of them are very, very different.  They're different in the lifestyle they're adapted to.  And they're different in their attitude towards people.  So if you imagine a spectrum that one end has, avoids people, that would be the feral cat.  Now for us, the feral cat is a cat that we rarely see.  It doesn't live in inhabited areas.  It lives in a very low population density.  So they live solitary existences, just hunting for their own survival.  Now that for us as a feral and those cats that are free-roaming, and not owned, and don't want anything to do with people because they're not socialised with the people; that live amongst us on the streets that some people call feral, semi-feral, stray or whatever.  We call them Street Cats.  Now, that may not translate too well in the UK because we tend we don't tend to use the word street cat in the UK, but for most countries, it resonates, and anybody who's gone to European countries, Spain or Italy or Portugal, will see these cats on the street.  That, for us, is a Street Cat.  So they don't want to be with people.  They've adapted to living in the outdoors, free-roaming.  And then let's just jump to the other end of the spectrum and those cats that want to be with people, and that's your pet.  That's your Pet Cat.  They are bred from other pet cats usually.  And during that really important time as a tiny kitten, when they first open their eyes, they are exposed in a very positive way to people and the kind of homes they live in.  So they're really suited to live with us having a great time.  In between the Street Cat and the, (you can see where the name Inbetweeners came from) in between the Street Cat and the Pet Cat is a cat we termed: we sort of coined the phrase of Inbetweener.  Because we were seeing an awful lot of cats in homing centres that had lived as pets but were described as - always hid under the bed, or used to bite me and attack me if I went near it, or never came in, never saw it, can't touch it, well, that sort of thing.  And we started to realise, you know, some cats just slipped through the net and end up in the wrong place.  They're not pets; they don't want to be pets; let's serve them better.  So we called them Inbetweeners as an aide to people working in homing centre.  So when they find a cat with a background of being a Pet Cat that is terrified of people basically and will remain so, they need that alternative lifestyle.  So again, it gives them the confidence to say, well, I've got a label for this cat, I can name this cat.  So if I give it this name, then I've got this route for it to go down.  This is an alternative.  I'm not going to put this cat in another pet home; it doesn't deserve it, you know.  So that's really what an Inbetweener is.  He sits somewhere in between a free-roaming cat and is perfectly happy outside, free-roaming and doing its own thing.  But it's not a Pet Cat either.  And it's not a Street Cat.  So it needs that special, special kind of relationship, which is, well, I say, a special kind of relationship.  It's basically not a relationship as we understand it.

Miranda
Guardianship sort of thing?  You're feeding it, making sure it's well, providing shelter?

Vicky
Perfect description, you're monitoring from a distance, you're caring for it from a distance, you're feeding it and providing it with shelter.  But you have no expectations of that relationship.  No expectations that one day, the cat will come and say, actually, all along, I've loved you; I've just been holding back.

Miranda
Ah ha.  Because sometimes you see cats promoted almost along those lines that it will 'come round', you know, it will, it will start to be your friend or it will...

Vicky
So that's is a very good point.  There's an awful lot of debate about this, and Claire Besant, the Chief Exec of International Cat Care and myself have written some decision making documents just on this very subject.  You know, are we doing right by a hissing, spitting, terrified cat to do stuff to it in order to 'turn it round'.  And we've really looked at the psychological implications for the cat of being in a situation where something is so terrifying, but that something cannot be escaped.  You know, we sort of think about, well, what choice has the cat got, but to succumb and almost meet its fate, you know, because that is, in essence, potentially what's going on, within the cat sort of, physiologically, you know, I'm just waiting to die because you appear so dangerous to me.  So I just think we have to be very careful irrespective of if we end up with a cat that doesn't bite us anymore, we have to understand what potentially has been done to that cat psychologically.  Now, if we've just got a slightly nervous cat that just doesn't like the environment but loves people, then that cat will come round because it's got the basic fundaments of its temperament to be able to do that, and it's just been a bit scared by being in a cage.  But for those cats who genuinely fear people, are we doing right by it to try and push it into that mould of being a cat as we perceive it should be?  Or do we listen to it and allow it to live the life it needs to live.

Miranda
And would choose.  And I guess that's why people expecting to have a cat that is suggested that, you know, in six, eight weeks, will be sitting on the couch next to you - that not happening, that's almost you know, setting them up to an expectation that probably isn't going to happen.

Vicky
I think we have to be very careful.  And this is where the knowledge and understanding of how temperament and sociability with people develops and what building blocks are required in the first place in order to have that happen.  And also, there are many other factors.  There are environmental factors, there are relational factors with the new owner, and there may be requirements of a specific kind of interactive style that just isn't there.  And unless we can really accurately predict what that is, I think we have to be very careful if we, you know, I can understand why people do it because they want to home cats, they want to home the shy wants to keep their fingers crossed, I think we need to be careful because what that does is it gives an owner who has an expectation of a relationship, you sort of set them up to fail.  And that means that they may have a negative attitude towards the organisation.  And even worse, still potentially a negative attitude to the concept of owning a cat, saying, Well, I didn't work for me, so I don't think I'll bother again.  Cats are that unique as well.  So we shouldn't assume that all cats go with all people.  It's not a failure on the part of the cat or the person.


Miranda
Okay, so, um, what if when you see cats, I mean, you're not doing the behaviour work anymore, but you must come into contact with issues and behavioural issues in catteries and veterinary practices.  What's What's your main concern for cats and cat owners in the UK?

Vicky
Oh, gosh, that's a really, that's a really big?  That's a tricky one.  I think there are several things are concerned about; I think we should, we should.  I should be clear that generally, across the world, I think cats in the UK, in comparison to many other countries, have a fairly good time.  So let's just establish that.  But there is huge potential because of the nature of the species for cats to struggle in certain circumstances.  I think we make the assumption that a cat will understand our needs and will have some kind of desire to meet those needs.  But that, sadly, is not the case.  And I know certainly in my career as a clinical behaviourist, I saw a number of circumstances where people did have very strong emotional needs.  And they were trying to get those needs met by their cats with it, at times, quite catastrophic results.  I think I would just say be aware of how we behave towards our cats.  And maybe every now and again, just back off and allow them to make the first move.  Allow the cat to be more in control.  Love them when they come to you but don't feel it's necessarily well-received to keep picking them up and squeezing them when we need to do that.  And the same applies if you want to keep them safe by keeping them indoors; if we keep them indoors, we have added responsibility to make sure they can be cats, you know, and to be a cat, you need the right kind of environment.  So you need to simulate that in an indoor environment to keep your cat healthy, mentally as well as physically.

Miranda
Okay, and people can find out all sorts of information from the International cat Care website and as it is broken down into various categories for the veterinary and veterinary side of things.  And for the pet owner, as you said.  And yeah, there's masses of information there, and it's in really nice chunks, so you can pick bits and read it at your own at your own speed.

Vicky
Yes.

Miranda
I can't recommend it highly enough.

Vicky
Thank you.

Miranda
It's brilliant.  And thank you for all the work that you've been doing on this.  You must have seen some funny things or odd things; anything you care to share with us?

Vicky
(Laughter) The thing about this business is as a clinical animal behaviourist, and that's where the source of the richness of humanity comes out, really, is that people's lives behind closed doors are all very individual.  And normal, in inverted commas, is broad!  What's normal for one person isn't so much for another.  And I learned very early on in my career never to express surprise, never to look shocked by anything.  And I learnt that actually, very early on; I think I can tell you this story.  I won't name names!  I'm going to see a lady in London who was very concerned about her cat, and she was really getting quite emotional as she was talking about it.  And she suddenly announced to me; she said, "look, I'm sorry, I'm really getting very stressed.  I'm going to have to take a bath, and you know, you know, let's carry on this conversation, the bathroom".  (laughter) I thought, "All right, Vicki, don't go; oh my gosh, I can't do that!".  Anyway, so I ended up sitting on the toilet.  Concentrating on my notepad writing, as she talked to me about her cats and gave me a cat's history, thinking - probably if somebody said to me, where will you be five years ago, in five years' time, I would not have imagined sitting on a stranger's toilet while they had a bath.  So I suppose that really is, that describes the kind of things that you encounter.  And one small thing, I'm afraid it involves urine, but I'm going to tell you about it.  As a cat behaviourist, you spent a lot of time thinking about pee and poo, you know, and you don't call it urine and faeces - it's pee and poo.  And quite often, you're on all fours trying to sniff out where the cat has pee'd.  And I remember doing this again in quite a swanky London home going around ... I could smell it there.  Oh, gosh, I can smell it there.  And then I came along to this really dark patch on the landing.  Oh, gosh, there's a big load there.  And she's said, "Don't mind that".  She said, "That was my mother".(exclamation/laughter).  Of course, then I couldn't go.  Oh my goodness.  I'm so sorry.  I just said, "Oh, fine.  Okay", and then moved on to sniffing out the next patch.  So you have to develop this ability, not (laughter).  I'm sorry, was that okay to say that?

Miranda
It's fine!

Vicky
So there we are.  That sums up my life.  Really,

Miranda
It just reminds me, I've got a story a little bit like that.  We had a peeing incident here, and we moved, moved house.  And I was trying to work out which cat it was.  So I put up a trail camera.  I put the film on the next day to see what was recorded, and there was no cat but what I did record with my husband.  Coming across the camera on all fours like you were saying, sniffing doing the same thing.  Just go like a pan across the shot.  (laughter)

Vicky
The moral of this story is never do anything inside your home unless you're prepared to be filmed doing it!  (laughter)

Miranda
I think the moral of the story is we all end up crawling on all fours, sniffing out pee, but there we go!  (laughter)
Well, thank you so much, Vicki, for speaking.  Fascinating chat.  And I'm sure there's loads of information there.  And I'm going to put it where people can find more information if they so wish, and I hope they do because there's so much to learn.  And there's so much about cats we still don't know.  So it's an ongoing process.  But thank you so much for taking the time to talk.  It's really appreciated.

Vicky
It's been a pleasure.