Cat Behavior Expert Explains Training and Conflict (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I'm Naeem Miraza, host of Smart Girl Dumb Questions, and today I'm doing a Zoom interview with solopreneur Joey Lasvardi, who has trained 1,053 cats. Are some cats untrainable like some boyfriends?

[00:00:12] Speaker 2: I wouldn't go that far. I've definitely had cats that are easier to train than men, so let's start there.

[00:00:20] Speaker 1: Who is this in the front?

[00:00:22] Speaker 2: This is Poutine. Speaking of trainable cats, thank you, Poutine.

[00:00:26] Speaker 1: This is Poutine. And how many cats do you have, Joey?

[00:00:29] Speaker 2: I've got two, so I've got Poutine, and I've got Prozac, who is busy looking in and observing and making sure that I'm not saying anything that he wouldn't accept or anything that he doesn't approve.

[00:00:41] Speaker 1: I have to admit, Joey, I'm a little afraid of cats.

[00:00:44] Speaker 2: You know, I hear that a lot, and then people will typically meet the right cat, and they will be like, okay, this is, this is, I get it. I get it now.

[00:00:53] Speaker 1: I just haven't met the one.

[00:00:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, you just haven't met the one. We need to get you on, like, cat Tinder or something.

[00:00:58] Speaker 1: Is there such a thing?

[00:01:00] Speaker 2: I wish. I keep saying that somebody needs to make an app where you, like, have, you can summon, like, a puppy or a cat or, like, a capybara or something. I would pay for that.

[00:01:12] Speaker 1: I'm a little afraid of cats, but I have, I have a cat guest here today in my studio.

[00:01:17] Speaker 2: Well, I'm, introduce me, Naima.

[00:01:20] Speaker 1: Yes, of course, I would beckon my cat, but I don't know how to do that. This is my friend Megan and Megan's cat, Saul. Let's see if Saul will come to me.

[00:01:30] Speaker 2: Hi, Saul.

[00:01:30] Speaker 1: Hello.

[00:01:32] Speaker 2: Hello, Saul. Oh, okay. Okay, Saul, come back. You need tasty snacks for him.

[00:01:38] Speaker 1: Oh, we need snacks. Did we bring snacks, Megan? I need, see, that's, you're already training me.

[00:01:42] Speaker 2: I know, I was gonna say, you're already learning something, and it's that the secret to cats is snacks. Also, secret to me is snacks, too, so.

[00:01:49] Speaker 1: Should I shake the, these are different treats than you have. You have liquid treats. I have this kind of treat, savory treats.

[00:01:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, I shake it a little bit, see if he comes over. Oh, oh, Poutine has reacted.

[00:02:03] Speaker 1: Oh, Poutine thinks I have snacks, oh, shoot, sorry. Your full time job is kind of being a cat lady.

[00:02:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of, yeah, I'm, I don't like the term cat whisperer, because it kind of implies a little bit of like, woo woo, I'm more of a, like, science based, I spend a lot of time reading studies and understanding why cats do what they do based on science. I'm not, like, sitting here trying to, like, channel my cat or anything.

[00:02:31] Speaker 1: You could, though. But you are, you have a certification in cat training. You are an IAABC certified cat behavioral consultant.

[00:02:41] Speaker 2: Correct.

[00:02:42] Speaker 1: Okay. WTF is that?

[00:02:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, so I had to take a really thorough exam that proved that I understood cats and it involved a lot of, like, there were like four case studies in it. And then there was an exam about basic behavior concepts. I had to get references from a veterinarian, another certified cat behavior consultant and then a client. It was, it was pretty intense to get it. And then I come from a background in human behavior, which there is a lot of overlap between humans and cats. Some of the concepts are basically the same thing. And it was really, really helpful for understanding cats and being able to transition into working cats when I, or working with cats when I got started.

[00:03:23] Speaker 1: You learned a lot about human behavior, which is translatable to cat behavior.

[00:03:28] Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a background in psychology, the basic learning concepts that are almost exactly the same between species.

[00:03:35] Speaker 1: What's the number one cat problem you've had to fix?

[00:03:38] Speaker 2: Cat conflict. So cats that are fighting or tense or chasing each other and not getting along. By far, without a question, top problem.

[00:03:46] Speaker 1: So you're like a couple's cat, cat couple therapist.

[00:03:49] Speaker 2: Kind of. Like, I like to think of myself as being like a marriage and family therapist, but like feline version.

[00:03:56] Speaker 1: What usually underlies the problem between cats, because, you know, the relationship therapist, Essie Perrell, told me there were basically three types of fights. Power and control, respect and recognition, and I think care and commitment.

[00:04:12] Speaker 2: With cats, it's gonna often be fear or stress. There's some personality mismatch that you'll see where like, if you have a kitten and an older cat, they may not get along because I like to describe it as being, you have a like seven year old that you've just given a bunch of candy, a seven year old with ADHD that you've just given a bunch of candy and they're trying to harass your like grandmother. That is probably not going to go well. The grandmother may not enjoy having that very, very energetic little nuclear power plant of energy sitting around them.

[00:04:48] Speaker 1: Have you trained cats in person and also virtually?

[00:04:51] Speaker 2: Yep. I used to do in person and offer that, but it is so much more effective for me to do it virtually because I get to see the cats how they are naturally where they don't always act normally when I show up because they're like someone else's here and it doesn't let me see what the cat is actually like in their environment with their humans as they would act normally, which is the most important thing. I also used to get a like a weird amount of people who would be like, Oh my God, I'm hiring you because my cat is biting me. I need to see them bite you. And I'm like, thank you for caring about my safety. I appreciate that.

[00:05:27] Speaker 1: So Zoom protects you from cat bites and also allows you to do better cat behavioral consultations.

[00:05:33] Speaker 2: Yep.

[00:05:34] Speaker 1: You've trained cats all over the world, I think then, right? Because you can do that.

[00:05:38] Speaker 2: Yeah. I've had cats on at least four continents that I can think of offhand.

[00:05:44] Speaker 1: What's the craziest country from which you trained a cat?

[00:05:48] Speaker 2: I actually had one that was bi-national where they split their time between countries. So first meeting was in one country, second meeting was in a different country.

[00:05:55] Speaker 1: That is a fancy cat. You had a bi-country cat, a bi-coastal cat?

[00:05:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, dang, this cat is a jet setter. I didn't realize I was dealing with a cat-lebrity here.

[00:06:05] Speaker 1: You're really dealing with a cat-lebrity. How do you make your work work in 2026? Do you feel like you'll ever go back to an office? What does your life look like and how does work work for you?

[00:06:16] Speaker 2: Yeah. So the nice thing about what I do is there's so much variety in what I can do that if something's not working for me, I can just switch it up.

[00:06:27] Speaker 1: And are you getting rich off of this cat behavioral consultation life, this remote cat behavioral consultation life? Is that making you wealthy?

[00:06:36] Speaker 2: I am. I mean, I am making money. It is something that people don't think that what I do is real still and they'll be like very skeptical. I can tell when they're like, you train cats? And I'm like, yeah, people pay me for this. Like I make money off of this.

[00:06:53] Speaker 1: So you're IABC certified. Yeah.

[00:06:56] Speaker 2: It took a lot of work to get to this point.

[00:06:58] Speaker 1: Well, congratulations. You've obviously done something remarkable. I am going to keep looking for my soul cat and as soon as I find I'm going to call you Joey.

[00:07:06] Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I'm convinced. There's a cat out there for you, Naima. I'm very convinced that you will find one.

[00:07:12] Speaker 1: Perfect. By the way, at the end of every Zoom, I like to find out how tall people are versus how tall I think they are. So I'm going to say what I think your height is. I think that you are five foot 10. Am I right?

[00:07:25] Speaker 2: You're very close. 5'11".

[00:07:26] Speaker 1: 5'11". Okay. Do you want to guess for me?

[00:07:29] Speaker 2: 5'7".

[00:07:30] Speaker 1: Oh, 5'5". But I give 5'6". You're good. We're good. We're good.

[00:07:34] Speaker 2: We were both within one or two.

[00:07:35] Speaker 1: It was so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for your time.

[00:07:38] Speaker 2: Thank you so much.

[00:07:39] Speaker 1: This has been fun.