Hiss & Tell: Cat Behavior and Beyond

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A cat peeing outside the box isn’t a grudge - it’s often pain. We bring back Dr. Gina Rendon, Medical Director of Williamsburg Vets, to decode FLUTD and idiopathic feline cystitis and show how stress biology, environment, and hydration collide to shape behavior. If you’ve wrestled with “inappropriate urination,” this conversation reframes the problem with compassion and clear next steps.

We break down how stress hormones can strip the bladder’s protective layer, why male cats face higher obstruction risk, and the subtle signs most people miss - over-grooming, tiny clumps, frequent box trips, or blood in the urine. We also explain exactly when urinary signs become an emergency, what evidence-based diagnostics look like, and why “just give antibiotics” is outdated and risky in an era of antimicrobial resistance.

From there, we get practical. Hydration-first management, wet food over dry, and multiple water stations can transform outcomes by reducing urine concentration. Environmental enrichment matters just as much: tall perches, safe pathways, duplicated resources, and daily play that taps a cat’s predatory motor pattern. For bright, anxious cats, clicker training adds mental work and predictable rewards. We also explore short-term anxiolytics for predictable stressors like travel or holidays and how multi-cat micro-tensions can quietly undermine litter box habits.

You’ll leave with a checklist you can act on today and trusted resources like the Ohio State Indoor Cat Initiative and iCatCare to go deeper. If this helped, subscribe, share with a fellow cat guardian, and leave a quick review so more people can find the show. Your support keeps these evidence-based conversations coming.

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Ever wondered why your cat saves their biggest “hello” for you at the door—and why some people get louder greetings than others? We sit down with Dr. Kaan Kerman to unpack a new study showing that cats vocalize more during greetings when their caregiver is male. The result surprised the team and opens a fresh window into human – cat communication, where meows, trills, and chirps act less like food requests and more like social glue.

We walk through how citizen science made this research possible — real homes, real cats — and why greeting deserves its own category in feline behavior. You’ll hear how vocalizations did not correlate with other affiliative signals like tail-up or rubbing, suggesting parallel channels rather than a single measure of affection. We also confront the hard part: classifying cat sounds is messy, and context matters. That’s why the study coded vocalizations broadly while urging deeper audio analysis across repeated greetings.

Our conversation digs into potential reasons for the male-caregiver effect, from differences in how people typically talk to cats to how cats learn what works with specific humans. Culture may play a role, so we sketch research ideas for cross-cultural comparisons and for measuring caregiver behavior—voice, posture, timing — during controlled greeting scenarios. Along the way, we touch on kneading, comfort vs function, and the pitfalls of anthropomorphism, keeping focus on what the data supports.

If you want to strengthen your bond, start at the threshold. Notice who your cat greets first, how they sound, and what changes when you mirror their pace, soften your voice, and make your responses consistent. Subscribe for more science-driven insights, share this with a fellow cat person, and leave a review to help others find the show. What’s your cat’s signature hello—and who gets it the loudest?

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Senior cats rarely complain, but their brains may be asking for help. We sit down with ethologist Dr. Federica Pirrone from the University of Milan to unpack new research that ties subtle stress behaviors and low-grade inflammation to measurable changes in feline cognition. Using simple, at-home tests — a spatial memory task and an “unsolvable” problem that tracks gaze alternation — her team found that many older cats display greater social flexibility, a kind of earned wisdom. Yet when age intersects with heightened inflammatory markers like interleukin-1β, that flexibility drops, and cats are less likely to look to their caregiver for information or help.

We explore what inflammaging actually is and how a persistent, low-level inflammatory state can reach the brain, slowing neural signaling, blunting motivation, and making complex social cues harder to process. You’ll hear practical, science-backed ways to support cognition: predictable routines without boredom, short play sessions, gentle food puzzles, three-dimensional spaces with perches and hiding spots, and consistent nutrition that maintains a healthy body condition. We also share why twice-yearly vet visits for seniors are non-negotiable and how to track “that’s different” moments before they snowball.

There’s a hopeful thread through it all: early support can slow decline and extend health span. We talk through a real case where small environmental changes and added food bowls restored confidence and weight in a 14-year-old cat who had started to give up on simple tasks. We also dig into why cats are underrepresented in cognition research, how a supervised, video-based citizen science approach kept cats calm at home, and what longitudinal studies could unlock next.

If this conversation helps you spot one subtle shift sooner, share it with a fellow cat guardian, subscribe for more evidence-based insights, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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Ever wonder what your cat’s DNA can tell us about fetching, affection, and health? We teamed up with Dr. Elinor Karlsson, chief scientist at Darwin’s Ark and professor at UMass Chan and the Broad Institute, to unpack how a simple fur-combing kit and smart surveys can unlock big answers about everyday feline life. No lab coats at home required - just your observations, your cat’s fur, and a few minutes of thoughtful reporting.

We dig into why cats are such a powerful, understudied genetic model compared with dogs. Because most cats aren’t shaped by recent, narrow breed histories, their diversity offers cleaner signals for behavior genetics and disease research. That opens the door to questions we’ve struggled to answer: Are fetching and other elements of the predatory sequence strongly heritable? How does early socialization change adult confidence and play? Which common diseases in cats have measurable genetic risk, and which are driven by environment? 

We also confront internet myths with data. The “orange cats are dumb” trope? Not supported by early looks, and ongoing work aims to test these claims at scale. Affection comparisons with dogs? Careful measures suggest cats are just as attached as many guardians know firsthand. Best of all, Darwin’s Ark is open data, so researchers everywhere can build on these findings - and your contributions fuel that progress. If you’re ready to help, there’s a limited-time $50 sequencing offer (use code Hiss&Tell25) using a gentle fur comb, making participation easier and less stressful for cats.

Join us as we connect guardian insights with modern genomics to advance feline science. Subscribe, share this episode with a cat-loving friend, and leave a review so more people discover the project - and consider enrolling your cat at darwinsark.org with the code shared on the show. Your cat’s fur might change what we know about cats forever.

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A rescue cat walks into a historian’s life and suddenly the archive looks different. That’s the spark behind this wide-ranging conversation with cat historian Jodie Stewart, who explores how felines traveled with colonists, curled up in family photos, comforted soldiers, and later became flashpoints in conservation and culture wars. If you’ve ever wondered why cats provoke such strong feelings — or why they’re often missing from national stories — this is a tour through the ships, letters, laws, and myths that shaped Australia’s relationship with its most polarizing companion animal.

We dig into the big questions: competing theories of how cats reached Australia and the DNA that points to European origins; the Victorian-era “cult of the cat” and how British tastes crossed oceans; and the moment Federation recast native fauna as national symbols while introduced animals fell down a perceived hierarchy. Jodie unpacks the 1990s Great Cat Debate — cat curfews, containment, registration, household caps — and the warlike language that still colors public policy. Along the way, we meet Trim, the seafaring cat immortalized by Matthew Flinders, and discover archival glimpses of veterans holding their cats as they recover, proof that emotion belongs in the historical record.

This episode invites you to see cats as historical agents — observers and participants whose presence reveals how identity, ecology, and policy intertwine. We talk evidence vs. rhetoric, why lethal control keeps failing, and how better language and community-centered strategies could improve both conservation outcomes and public trust. Whether you’re a cat lover, cat skeptical, or simply curious about Australian history, you’ll leave with a richer sense of how private affections shape public narratives and why love itself has a history.

If this resonates, tap follow, share the episode with a friend, and leave a quick rating or review to help others find the show. Your thoughts matter—tell us how cats show up in your family’s story.