I wonder if there are times when Jackson Galaxy thinks about buying himself a dog.
After more than six seasons of being snarled at, bitten and scratched by neurotic cat owners and their fur children, the idea of retiring to some cabin in the back woods with just his gee-tar and an ole hound dawg must hold a great deal of appeal.
In this episode of My Cat From Hell, the super cool Mr Galaxy (“musician by night, cat behaviourist by day”) heads off to deal with an incessant whiner who also happens to own a cat that meows. A lot. The cat’s name is Dexter, like the serial killer who kills serial killers. Dexter has put his owner Jeremy in the hospital fourteen times in the last year. Dexter by name, Dexter by nature.
Jackson diagnoses the problem as anxiety – not Jeremy’s, Dexter’s. Mind you, Jeremy is a just a tad nervy himself, especially when Dexter immerses himself in the toilet water and spends too much time in the litter box. Jackson thinks that Dexter suffers from separation anxiety, which makes you wonder what sort of horrendous life the poor animal led before he was adopted by Jeremy and his girlfriend Erica, because the pair of them seem like the dullest couple on the planet. Too much time spent with them and I might find myself dunking my head in toilet bowl and scratching around in a box of my own excrement.
So Jackson suggests that they move the multi-level cat tower closer to the window and leaves them a box of feathery toys. He also leaves them “a perspective box” so that Jeremy can write notes to the cat about all the wonderful thoughts he has about Dexter.
A few days later Jackson is back to see how they went with their homework. The toys apparently haven’t worked, but Jackson has to remind Jeremy and Erica that the feathery ones were meant for the CAT. Jeremy has written all sorts of positive notes like, “Today I didn’t kill you, Dexter.” For his part, Dexter has upped the ante by now doing laps in the toilet water and flinging poop at Jeremy. So Jackson leaves them a fancy alarm clock. Instead of meowing, Jeremy can now be driven crazy by bird noises. Jackson falls short of suggesting that a final drastic step would be euthanasia. No one wants to go to this step, but Erica is clearly thinking that she and Dexter would probably be much happier.
Another two weeks pass. Finally, Jackson returns for his last assessment. He makes Jeremy and Erica go for a drive so that he can use his fancy camera to spy on Dexter. All is good now that the toys are left out for the cat. Dexter is happy and contented. Guests can come around and leave the toilet lid up with gay abandon.
Now if only Jackson could give them both a personality injection so they could find some guests to invite.
Great job, Jackson Galaxy, but seriously…think about that dog.
My Cat From Hell airs on Saturday nights on Animal Planet (Foxtel)
friday night with kath 