- Hey, what's up? Holo, everyone and welcome back to another episode of Simply Podlogical, a Simply Nailogical podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Menchie and Zyler, our cats. - Yeah. - I know everyone's going through a rough time right now, but Menchie and Zyler are right there with you. There are better days ahead. - Yeah, so now you have to follow them on Instagram. It's @menchiethecat and @zylerthecat. They asked us to ... that was their request for the sponsorship, so ... - Have you noticed all the commercials lately from like mostly car companies that are trying to like somehow use the current social-isolation, pandemic situation to be like, "We're there with you, everybody! Go buy a truck so you could cut people off in the parking lot and buy toilet paper." - I had no idea you could buy socially aware vehicles.
- Yeah.
- It's incredible, like this technology. - But every commercial is exactly the same, right? It's the same music. It's the same. Anyway, I don't know how we got on that, but today we're talking about cats: highly requested podcast topic. We see the comments all the time: people love cats. We love cats. Cristine loves cats.
- I am a cat. I mean, what?
- If you've been watching the Simply Nailogical YouTube channel, you will know that cats feature prominently in the videos, our cats Menchie and Zyler, and if you've been paying attention, we've done some charity work for cat shelters and rescues and our local cat cafe over the years as well. So clearly we care about cats, I think it's fair to say. People know this, so you guys have a lot of questions about cats.
- And before we get into an entire podcast on cats, just a quick update about the Simply Nailogical health care worker tab. So we announced that at the end of last week's podcast. If you didn't see that interview with the Canadian - Deputy Chief
- Deputy Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Njoo, please go check that out. Even if you're not Canadian, I recommend listening to it, because I found a lot of people in the comments said like they were from the states or from another country and they found it actually informative to listen to what he had to say. So recommend you go check that out if you haven't already. So, what Ben and I did is we announced that we were setting up healthcare worker tabs at three different restaurants that healthcare workers could go to in Ottawa local to us and get a meal on us. So we've done that and almost all the tabs are out. - Yeah, by the time people are listening to this, it's likely that the tabs will be completely gone. -That they're all gone. Yeah. So that was a huge success. Thank you guys for sharing the news, if you were local in Ottawa. And that definitely helped out and we were able to, at the end of the day, feed how many? Around 700 healthcare workers got a meal on us. - Something like that. And, yeah, we just saw a lot of positive comments
(Cristine: Which is so cool.) Ben: and I was ... we spoke a bit to the people at ... our contacts at those restaurants involved and they said it was just an overwhelmingly positive thing. Cristine: Yeah, and they were so happy to be able to be a part of it and we're grateful to them as well for like agreeing to do this, because obviously we had to clear it with them--make sure like this wasn't gonna cause chaos of any form. So we're just really excited that 700 healthcare workers in Ottawa got to eat a free meal. So it's just like a super fun, nice thing and I just really loved seeing like tweets and people would send me pictures of like, "I got your meal," like so cool Ben: And you're right, like thank you guys for helping share that in the community cause local media didn't pick it up for some reason.
Cristine: No, the local media don't care about YouTubers. It's true! Unless it's something bad, they don't give a shit.
Ben: Isn't that kind of true, right?
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Isn't that kind of sad?
Cristine: I feel like that's a whole other podcast: the media. Ben: Yeah, let's get into that another time, because, yeah, there's been a few times I've been kind of disappointed in our local media for not ... Cristine: Oh, well.
Ben: Not that we do charity stuff to get like a pat on the back or attention, but it literally was just a matter of we wanted people in the community to know.
(Cristine: People in Ottawa to know.) Cristine: Because obviously not everyone in Ottawa follows me, so they don't know that this exists. So I just relied on my followers to share it with their local Ottawa healthcare worker friends Ben: Yeah. And it still went super quick. So ...
Cristine: Yeah, it's all gone. Ben: Right? Yeah, that wasn't an issue. Okay.
Cristine: Anyways.
Both: Cats. Ben: You guys have a lot of questions about cats. We asked on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook--all those places. Cristine: A record number of questions. Ben: Oh, is that true?
Cristine: I think. Yeah, at least on Instagram it was cats.
(Ben: You think? Maybe?) Ben: All right. So let's just jump right into it then. All right, first question, Cristine. How did you come to get your cats? What was the adoption process like? And are you guys planning on getting another (baby) cat soon? Cristine: Well, it was a home birth.
No, I'm just kidding. It was beautiful. Ben: Yeah, so I guess this is an opportunity, first question, just to sort of give a little bit of a history of our two cats, so .... Cristine: My cats are my children. Ben: Okay. That's not an answer.
(Cristine: But, yes, they are ... we adopted them.) Ben: So you got Zyler before I was in the picture. So how did that happen?
Cristine: Zyler was the first man in my house. Ben: (sighs) Yes.
Cristine: Just so, yeah, but Ben knows now. Ben: Okay.
Cristine: So I got Zyler in second year university. Zyler's now, I think, 12 years old--something like that. Whatever. Clearly I'm very old now.
(Ben: Dating yourself.) Cristine: It's been a long time since university. But I got him after I'd moved out of residence and I was now living in a home with some roommates. My roommates had to agree that I was gonna get a cat. So ... they all said fine, whatever, because they got to play with him, so it was kind of like a fun thing to do, but it was ultimately like it was my cat. Like I was the one who got him who, cared for him, who paid for his litter. His litter box was literally in my room, because my roommates didn't want the litter box like randomly elsewhere. Like it just wasn't fair, so I had to, you know, it was literally in my room.
Ben: And was it like it was something you were planning for or was it more of like a spur of the moment thing? Cristine: No.
Ben: I'm out of Residence now, I can have a cat. Cristine: Oh, our first visitor. It's Menchie. Menchie, baby. She's mad we're talking about her brother.
Ben: Yeah. She gets enough attention. Cristine: Um, I had a cat growing up and I think this is another question, so I'll hold on that for now. But it stayed with my parents once I went to university just because like you're not going to take a cat out of their home that they're comfortable in even though I like was attached to that cat. I decided like I wanted my own responsibility of my own cat and once I moved out on my own (yes, I had roommates, but whatever) it was like basically Miss Independent now all the sudden and "I'm going to take care of my cat AND do my schoolwork" kind of thing. So it gave me like a fun sense of purpose and like duty to have and raise my cat Zyler. So ... And then he came with me everywhere after that--and we moved a lot, actually, because I went from, I think, three different--three or four different--houses with different roommates for a while while I was still in university. So Zyler's, you know, lived lots of places.
Ben: He's well traveled.
Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah. Ben: I remember, yeah, when we first met Zyler was ... not only did he not like me (we'll get into that a little bit), but he seemed kind of ... like you had moved into a condo pretty recently around the time we met. Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: And I remember that was like an issue for him, because he had been ... you had ... I think you had been renting like a house with a few other people or you had much more space before? Cristine: I used to have stairs. That was a big thing. So Zyler was used to stairs. Ben: So you got your own condo, which is great, but it was a downgrade in space, right?
Cristine: Right.
Ben: So we could tell it kind of was driving him nuts, I think. Cristine: Yeah. He was going a little itchy and crazy that he couldn't like go up on the second floor or just run around the house because it was literally like a condo, so you run from one side to the other pretty quickly. Ben: So we notice he's much happier now in a bigger house. Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: We really just bought a house for the cats.
Cristine: Now he ... he just wanted stairs. My baby wanted stairs; I get my baby stairs. Ben: Okay, so. And what ... do you remember what the adoption process was like?
Cristine: Honestly, I was very young. I think I was 18. No, 19, I would have been. So I don't really remember. Like it was so long ago and I did have like a roommate come with me and help me figure it out. So I don't really remember as clearly as I remember the Merchie process, because I feel like over the years the whole processes and like things from like chipping and all these forms and vaccinations have become a lot clearer and far more better documented on the part of like the adoption process giving it to you and making you informed, than at least it was when I adopted Zyler like 12 years ago.
Ben: Yeah, so to jump to Menchie, we got her ... We got her together. It was sort of like a group fun thing. We're evolving as a couple. Let's get a cat together. I remember some people thinking like,
(Cristine: Let's have a baby.) Ben: oh, are you sure that's a good idea, getting another cat? But I think we had made up our minds, so we walk into a PetSmart, which is just a local pet store chain, but it's not like a pet store there: the cats they have there are from the Humane Society.
Cristine: Which wasn't always the case, because when I got Zyler that wasn't the standard. Ben: Yeah, yeah, we've talked about this off-camera. We ... you don't remember if he was a rescue or not.
Cristine: I honestly don't know. I am not positive. That's that ... Sorry, correct: Because I did say adoption and I don't actually know that for sure for Zyler. I'm not positive that he was truly an adopted like rescue cat. Ben: Yeah, I think they're pretty much illegal in our province now,
Cristine: Right. Ben: or they're at least phased them
Cristine: But lots of things have changed. Like previously, chain pet stores didn't have adoption cats at all.
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: Like when I got Zyler that was not standard. Now it is, or at least from what I've seen, and most like the main chains, they're always like adoption rescue cats. Yeah. Ben: Yeah, and there's really no reason why you shouldn't be adopting a cat. Like it's a good thing that pet stores don't really exist anymore.
Cristine: Exactly. I mean the only ... not a valid reason, but a reason that I see people like seeking to purchase cats, is because they want specific like designer breeds of cats, which is not something that I personally do or want to do. We didn't pick Menchie or Zyler because they're some designer fancy breed, they're literally just like, I don't know: a tabby. Ben: Yeah, we often see questions like, "what kind of cat are Menchie and Zyler?" We're like, I don't know. Cristine: Just orange and ...
Ben: Normal.
Cristine: white and grey.
Ben: Tabby cat. Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah. So Menchie, we walk into a PetSmart and we see two ... she had a brother there. Do you remember?
Cristine: UmmHmmm.
Ben: So there were two cats. I ... actually that's one of my big regrets. I feel sad.
Cristine: You wanted to get both of them? Ben, we could have had twins! Ben: Looking back, I wonder if we should have gotten both.
Cristine: I thought that the brother was already adopted. Ben: That might be the case.
Cristine: I think so. Ben: But so we were asking the staff there to see the cats and you picked up Menchie and she just immediately started licking your face, right? Cristine: Menchie! Ben: So it's like she chose you in a way.
Cristine: She chose me.
Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: We didn't get her right away, because we thought we shouldn't make this like an impulse decision. Cristine: Right, so we left.
Ben: Let's go home and sleep ...
Cristine: Thought about it. And then I was like we have to go back and get that cat. That's Menchie. We knew her name before we we got her.
Ben: Yeah, actually.
Cristine: We knew that we would name her Menchie. Ben: And I remember we went and like waited outside of the PetSmart before it opened to make sure no one swooped in there before us.
Cristine: Oh, yeah, we were crazy. We're like, "No one will take our Menchie!" Ben: Yeah, we did have the name picked out before; kind of weird. She's named after a frozen yogurt chain ...
Cristine: in Ottawa or ...
Ben: that we just ... I think it's ... Cristine: Ontario. I'm not sure.
Ben: Is it just Canada? I'm not sure. Cristine: Menchie's frozen yogurt--not because I necessarily love their frozen yogurt, Ben: No, it's actually pretty bad.
Cristine: I wasn't going to go that far. Ben: But we just thought that was a cute name for a cat.
Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: And Zyler--because I know people want to know his name, too--
Ben: Oh, yeah. Cristine: I just was just trying to be cool and edgy and I took like a random boy's name, Tyler, and just like put a "Z" on it instead. Ben: That's very edgy.
Cristine: Yeah. 19-year-old Cristine named her cat Zyler.
Ben: All right, so last part of this question: Are you guys planning on getting another baby cat? This was by far the most common question we saw: are we planning on getting another cat? If feel like that's ...
Cristine: I don't know, let me check. Ben: It's a very ... they have such a good dynamic, too. We'll get into their routines and how they get along and all that, but I really worry, because I've had friends who have like got a new cat, introduced it to the group, and all of a sudden all of them don't get along anymore. Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: It's a scary thing and it's a delicate balance, the power structure between pets in your home sometimes, and also I'm allergic to cats. It's already a lot for me dealing with cat hair. Cristine: No, you're not. La-la-la, can't hear you.
Ben: Like another cat shedding hair all over the place. I don't know about that. The robot vacuums and air purifiers help, but I just ... I don't know if we're in a good place right now. Like both our cats are pretty needy and we give them a lot of attention. I don't know if adding another cat to the mix makes a ton of sense for us right now. Cristine: Yeah, like, of course I would love another cat. I don't know, it's just like it's just fun and I just want all the cats all over me, you know But I also don't want to disturb Menchie and Zyler's happiness, because they seem like really well-balanced right now. So I'm just nervous about what it would mean. That's all.
Ben: MmmHmmm.
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: All right, next question: Why did you decide to get a cat while still in university and did Zyler distract you from your studies at all? Cristine: I mean, he was a welcome distraction that gave me a better sense of responsibility than just like going out and drinking, which I still did.
Ben: Sure, yeah. Cristine: But just the fact that I had to go home to my cat and like make sure I had to wake up to feed him. Ben: You didn't take Zyler to the club with you?
Cristine: No, he wasn't of age. I tried to get him a fake ID but like they said no. No. I mean, of course you're going to have some things that distract you during University. Ben: Sure.
Cristine: It's just like what kinds of things that you want and feel is appropriate for you. So for me having a cat, which I'd already had kind of growing up, was the perfect thing, it just ... And I liked that responsibility. I loved always having my cat there. Like it didn't matter if my roommates were being assholes, I got my cat! You know, like crazy cat lady person who likes cats more than humans.
Ben: Crazy cat lady at 21. Ben: I would also argue that the responsibility of a cat, as opposed to a dog, when you are in university and still becoming an adult, is probably more manageable. Cristine: Yeah. Of course I only got a cat, because I knew that I could manage having a cat, because I already had one. Right? I didn't just like off a whim, "Oh, I'm just going to get a cat," and I think that might be in some cases irresponsible if you don't know like if you can afford supplies for your cat, does it have a good space to live like. So I made sure I had all those things in place and then I was able to take care of him.
Ben: Okay. And then from Alli Rose, "What are your cats' daily routine?" Cristine: Well, maybe we could ask them to like vlog their daily life. "A day in my life," by Menchie. Ben: I bought a dog harness for the GoPro once, thinking we could strap it to the cats and we could have made a video about like, "What are they doing today?" But it wasn't working. They didn't like wearing it. Cristine: It just kept falling like around their trunk to their stomachs.
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: And then it would just be like dragging against the floor Ben: Yeah, that didn't work out. I still think that would have been funny but ... do you want to explain? So Cristine wakes up before me. And Menchie's usually ...
(Cristine: Every day.)
Ben: waiting for you in the bathroom. Cristine: Are we really detailing like our cats daily routine? Do people ...
(Ben: Let's just give a brief ...)
Cristine: actually want to know this? Ben: 90% of it is sleeping. But you wake up. The cats are waiting for you. They want to eat, basically.
Cristine: I wake up. The cats are waiting for me. Yeah, Menchie's always by the toilet, because she knows I'm going to sit there, so she's waiting by my feet there already.
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: Zyler's usually on the bed and he just gets up when I get up.
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: And then I go downstairs and they both run after me downstairs. And then they go "Mrow mrow" and they want their food. So I make their food. And then I feed Menchie first, because she takes longer to eat than Zyler, and if you feed--Oh, hello, Zyler. Zyler's on the table now. If Menchie doesn't finish her food and Zyler had already finished his quickly, he will go eat her food.
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: So you have to kind of time it.
Ben: Zyler loves his food.
Cristine: You have to time it perfectly so Menchie has a long time to eat her food while you're still preparing Zyler's and like stalling. So he's just standing by you and waiting and waiting and waiting and then I'll put his dish down right when she's about to finish her food.
Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: I think the rest of the day for them, for Menchie it's ... she's just ... will spend some time deciding where she's going to sleep the rest of the day. She has ... Cristine: It's a very hard decision.
Ben: She has her pumpkin bed, her Christmas tree bed, the guest room queen mattress. You know, she has ...
Cristine: The bed by my office window.She likes the office window bed.
Ben: She likes looking out the windows lately. Cristine: Wondering what life outside of quarantine is like.
Ben: And Zyler, too, isn't like ... they sleep a lot. Cats sleep a lot. That's normal.
Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: Like it's important to kind of be active to your cats and we play with them and stuff as well, but they mostly just want to take it easy, especially ... They're at an age. They're not very young or kittens anymore, right? Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: But I don't know. I still think they're active. Sometimes they run around. So like in the mid-day, they'll be mostly sleeping, Ben: Mm-hmm.
Cristine: but then when it's getting closer to at least our dinnertime, like now, they kind of get up and they're wondering what are you doing? Where are you going? I'm going to rub my face on your shit, you know? Ben: Yeah, they want to be around us. And Zyler can be very needy for attention. I'd say more than Menchie. Menchie's a little more independent.
Cristine: Mmm-hmm. Ben: Like for example Zyler, when we're going to bed, he needs to be in bed with you. Cristine: He ... oh, yeah. Who doesn't? Ben: I can relate, but ... Menchie, kind of does her own thing, you know. She'll ... it's almost like she needs to do a tour of the entire house before she can settle down for the night.
Cristine: She's security. Ben: Yeah, she basically does a sweep,.
Cristine: We hired Menchie to do the security for our house. Ben: She goes to like every room in the house, makes sure everything's okay, and then sometimes she joins us for bed. Sometimes she doesn't. She just kind of does her own thing. Whereas Zyler, he'll get agitated. Like if you're staying up too late and he's like, "You're breaking our routine!" Cristine: He's like, "It's time to go to bed. It's time to go to bed."
(Ben: It's time for us to go to bed.) Cristine: Yeah, He's kind of like me in that way. Ben: Both the cats have adopted some elements of your personality Cristine: Yeah. They're both insane. Yeah. Hiya, buddy. Ben: Next question, "What are the best qualities about Menchie and Zyler? Also how did each cat get their name?" so So we already covered the name thing. So what are the qualities of Menchie and Zyler? Cristine: Well, I think Zyler is, you know, a very debonair, fancy individual. He's just ... Cristine: He's ...
Ben: Yeah? How do you figure? Cristine: He has independence and prowess. He knows what he wants and is not afraid to to say what he wants. Ben: Zyler is ...
Cristine: He's a confident kitty. Ben: He's a weird mix of like needy and temperamental. Like he'll decide he really needs your love and attention, but then he can quickly turn into like grumpy-old-man cat. Cristine: Mm-hmm. Yeah a little. Ben: Whereas Menchie's much more of a ...
Cristine: A sweetie.
Ben: sweetheart. Cristine: Yeah, like she wouldn't eat a fly. Even if it tasted like salmon, she would not eat it.
Ben: But she can be a bit aloof and, you know, maybe you're just not going to see her for a few hours and you don't know where she is: It's because she's hiding under some bedsheets or ... She has more of a scaredy-cat impression.
Cristine: So I think, to answer the question, the best qualities about Zyler. I'd say Zyler's really intelligent; like he's smart. He knows not to get excited about treats if he knows you're not actually in the right cupboard. Like he ... like he's smart. He doesn't waste his energy ...
Ben: He's smart like he knows how to open doors smart.
Cristine: He knows how to open doors, he knows if you're tricking him ...
Ben: Which has been a problem in the past. Cristine: Yeah. He knows if you're like tricking him or you're in the wrong cupboard, whereas Menchie's kind of dumb and she's like meowing thinking you're getting treats when clearly it's like not that exact cubbard. Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: But he doesn't exhaust his energy unless he has to and he knows it's going to get him ahead in life. Ben: No, he'll wait for Menchie to beg for treats.
Cristine: Right.
Ben: Let her do all the work and then he'll slide in there.
(Cristine: And then he'll get them, yeah.) Cristine: So Zyler's really intelligent.
Ben: He is a very smart guy. Cristine: Menchie's like just a big sweetheart. I think that's her best quality. She's just such a little sweetie. She'll just roll around for you, just let you rub her tummy. She's just like a big suck. Ben: She doesn't really trust strangers and maybe we could have done a better job. If anyone out there is raising a kitten, I think it is important or a smart idea to have them meet some of your friends and stuff when they're young, Cristine: Yeah, socialize them.
Ben: so they get the... yeah, exactly
Cristine: with humans.
Ben: so they get used to other people and not being afraid of them. I do wonder if she maybe had a rough kittenhood, because she seemed very afraid of people, Cristine: And we didn't have the opportunity, because it was just us living In the condo. At the time like we didn't have a bunch of people over, whereas Zyler grew up with like living with five guys and like random people every weekend. Ben: Yeah, so that's why Zyler's super social. If a random person is over, he's coming up to greet them. He's almost too brave. Cristine: He's very interested; like he'll paw at their jeans or something. He'll be like, "Hello!" Like, "Pet me! I don't know who you are, but ..." But Menchie is very cautious.
Ben: And I should say, I think we're lucky in both cases that they are at least somewhat social, Menchie at least with us.
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Because I have friends who have cats who are like ...
(Cristine: Always hide under the bed.) Ben: Yeah, that cat's just under the couch all day and I never see them. And it's kind of like ... that's sad and hopefully ... I guess some cats are just like that. I don't know if you could completely socialize, but ... All right. Ben: Next question: "What is the weirdest thing Menchie & Zyler do? My cats do some pretty weird stuff sometimes." Cristine: I don't know, is Zyler ... he's going to bite you if you say anything bad about him right now. Ben: Zyler's meow, I think is the weirdest thing. Cristine: Zyler does this like warble, wolf-like meow that's very deep in the ... in his throat.
Ben: Want to do an impression? Cristine: It's going to kill all the audio listeners.
Ben: Just put the mic away.
Cristine: Okay, he goes like Arrrrrrrrrr rawr rawr rawr rawr rooowr. (Louder) Arrrrrrrrrr rawr rawr rawr roooow. Like it sounds like a warbling wolf and we'll hear it from the basement and then I'll just yell, "Zyler, like I'm right here." And then he'll go "rowr" and then he'll run upstairs. Ben: Yeah. So cats don't meow to each other, by the way. They ... cats meow because they know humans ...
Cristine: According to research. Ben: Yeah. Like I'm not a cat expert, but we're aware of this. And I think he must have realized at some point like that the more annoying or strange his meow is, the more we were gonna reply to it. Cristine: That's ... well, that's what I do. The more annoying I am to you the more response I get. Ben: Oh, yeah. Because I think I really started noticing ... we had to put him on a diet at one point, because I took him to the vet and he weighed close to like 20 pounds or something like that. And the vet was like, oh, he should probably be closer to 15. Five pounds weight loss doesn't sound like a lot, but if you only weigh 20 pounds, that's 25%. It's like a 200-pound person needing to weigh 150 pounds. Cristine: It took several months ... well, probably like a year. Ben: It took a long time, but we had to put him on a diet and I swear for that entire however many months that was, he is like, "If you're going to make me go on a diet, I'm going to torture you every night." So every night at like 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 a.m., he would just start howling.
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: And it like ... we put up with that for so long and there's like nothing to do. Like you can't really discipline a cat, like punish them. Like you want to ... With your pet you want to positively reinforce good behavior rather than punish bad behavior, right? So we were really strict ...
Cristine: But cats won't listen. Ben: No.
Cristine: So like ... you'll give him a treat when he's not meowing and then I'll still meow.
Ben: Yeah. So we just put up with him. Like I didn't get a good sleep for like a nine months or something because of you. Cristine: That's okay. That's what having children is like, you know.
Ben: Oh. But he's a healthy weight now. Cristine: So what weird stuff does Menchie do? Well, Menchie sits on your shoulders Ben: But that's pretty ...
(Cristine: What do you mean, that's normal?)
Ben: like there's a lot of shoulder cats. Cristine: That's what parrots do. That's normal for parrots. Ben: Yeah, she has her weird squawks, too. What's the weird thing that she does? She likes jumping in the fridge.
Cristine: Oh, yeah. Ben: It's kind of a scary thing,
Cristine: which started at the condo, because the fridge was on the floor level, so it was easy for her as a kitten to just like jump up in the fridge and be like, "Oooh, it's cold in here." Didn't you leave her in the fridge once?
Ben: Oh, you're going to blame me for this?
Cristine: Oh, my god, that totally happened. Ben: Okay, so we've never lost the cats. They are indoor cats, too; we think that's the responsible thing to do as cat owners. But, yeah, one time I guess we "lost" Menchie for five or ten minutes because she was still quite young at the time, and we could hear her meowing, but we couldn't find her.
Cristine: And this was in the condo, so like she has to be close. Ben: Oh, yeah, the condo was like a bedroom, a den, a living area, and a bathroom, right? Like there wasn't that many places to look. And I remember we were scrambling around, right? Cristine: We were freaking out. I was so, I'm like, I don't understand: is she like behind a wall?
Ben: Yeah, it didn't make any sense. Ben: And finally, we open the fridge and she comes barreling out. She's ... she was like cold. Cristine: We left our cat in the 'fridge. Oh, my god. Ben: It's her fault. Like she would literally, you'd open it a crack just to grab something and she would just dart into the fridge.
(Cristine: She'd snake herself in there, yeah.) Ben: And I'd ... Is that normal? If you guys have cats, is that something they do?
Cristine: But it's like, it's not like she was licking stuff in there. She literally just wanted to like have a seat in the fridge.
(Ben: Just wanted to chill.)
Cristine: Just wanted to cool off. Ben: Yeah, scroll back in her Instagram to early days and there's probably some fridge pictures of Menchie.
Cristine: And now to this day, our fridge it's ... our fridge now is higher, though, like you have to jump up to get in the fridge. (*Laughs*) You have to jump up.
Like us ... We have to jump up. Ben: Do you have to jump up? Cristine: But so we'll open the fridge and she'll just jump from the floor into the fridge. And I always have to pick her up and be like, "No, Menchie, go back to your chair."
Ben: What is that?
Cristine: She's a weirdo. Ben: "How did you guys get Menchie to sit on Ben all the time?"
Cristine: So we don't do anything; we don't put Menchie on Ben's shoulders. It's just, it became a routine. We started sitting down for dinner and she would jump up on just *your* shoulders. And I think it's because your shoulders are wider. Ben: More service area?
Cristine: More comfortable to sit on and she likes the smell of your earwax. Ben: She does like licking my ear, but I think it's out of affection.
Cristine: No, I think it's because you have nasty, funky-tasting earwax and Menchie likes it. Ben: So when we got her as a kitten, I would pick her up quite a bit and she just sort of naturally wanted to crawl around our shoulders and stuff, and when she was a kitten she could fit on both of our shoulders. And I remember you telling me like, "Don't pick her up all the time when she's meowing at you, because she'll just always want to be picked up." Cristine: MmHmm.
Ben: So maybe it is kind of a reflection of the way we raised her.
(Cristine: So *you* did this. Parenting) Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: I don't mind.
Cristine: But it's funny, a few times when Ben hasn't been at the dinner table and like I was just eating, she'll come up on my back or like on the the back of the chair behind me, because Ben's not there. Ben: Yeah. Or remember one time we had your sister over a few months back, and she was sitting where I normally sit.
Cristine: And she jumped up on my sister. Ben: And Menchie just out of like her automatic routine, yeah, jumped up on Jen's shoulders and Jen was like "Oh, my god, what do I...?" And Menchie seemed confused, like "This doesn't seem quite right." Cristine: She's thinking, "Where's the Ben shoulders?" Ben: From Rosie Forsberg: "Did you grow up with cats?" So, yeah, you already alluded to the fact that you grew up with ...
Cristine: So I had ... Yeah. So I had one cat, Mango, that I got when I was 14 or ...
Ben: Mango? Cristine: Mango, yeah. 14 or 15. Mango is still alive, actually. He's with my mother right now. But he's still alive. Ben: Wow, how old is he? Cristine: I was 14 or 15. Do the math, quick.
Ben: How old are you now? 31?
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: So you're fif-- ... so he's at least 16 years old?
Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah? Wow.
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: That's getting up there. Cristine: So Mango's an orange cat, very similar to Zyler actually. Similar kind of in personality, maybe it's just an orange cat thing. Like independent, confident, sometimes an asshole-- although Zyler is far more sociable and like with humans, because he had way more humans than Mango did. But I like "raised," or whatever, like me and my sister sort of, and my parents less so, because they didn't really want a cat. It was me who wanted a cat.
Ben: Oh, okay. Got Mango when Mango was a little baby, like an eight-week- or ten-week-old kitten, in high school just as some way to I guess teach us some responsibility and like change the litter. The litter was in mine and my sister's bathroom at the time. Ben: Okay.
Cristine: Yeah. But, yeah, so that's ... just the one cat, Mango, is what I had. So I learned how to take care of a cat. I didn't realize I loved cats yet.
(Ben: So when you went to university) Ben: it didn't make sense; you don't want to uproot ... Cristine: Exactly. I wasn't going to uproot Mango out of his comfortable home, you know, and bring him all the way to Ottawa, because I grew up in the Toronto area. I just like didn't think it was fair and I knew ... Oh, actually a bigger reason was that
(Ben [aside]: You want to grab them?) I was moving into University Residence. Oh, shit. It looks like Zyler has found the treats that we thought we were hiding. We were being so sly without shaking them yet. So Zyler has interrupted this podcast. Zyler, you're as annoying as an ad. Ben: They weren't really hidden. See, this is the smart Zyler, though. Right? Menchie hasn't noticed. Cristine: What do I do? Should I give him one? Ben: Sure. Woah.
Cristine: There you go
Ben: Woah, Jesus. Cristine: See, he's a wolf. Okay, I'm going to put a couple on the table. Ben: Uh-oh.
Cristine: Uh-oh, Menchie heard. Cristine: Uh-oh, what have we done? Ben: I didn't grow up with pets actually, so Menchie was my first cat. [aside: Do you want to feed them?] Cristine: Well, Zyler was your first adopted cat. Ben: Yeah, but I didn't really have the experience of, you know, raising him the way you did, so I don't feel like ... yeah, I consider Zyler my cat and they're both our cats now. Cristine: Oh, my god. Guys. Guys!
Guys, calm down. Ben: But I think, yeah, having a cat or having a pet as a kid in general, I think is a good way of teaching a kid responsibility. I'm kind of annoyed that my parents never gave me that opportunity. I remember my sister begging our parents to get us a dog. And I kind of get it, because often it just becomes the parents' responsibility if the kids don't actually properly take care of that animal. But at the same time, I feel like everyone who had a pet growing up, that is a very enriching experience, I think.
Cristine: Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. I'm happy to have had the opportunity to raise a cat, you know, and then it prepared me for knowing that I wanted a cat when I was older and I like knew what the deal was. So.
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: That's okay; you have cats now sweetie.
Ben: That's right. Next question: "Before Menchie and Zyler, did either of you guys own a dog? And do you ever see yourself having a dog sometime in the future?" Cristine: So, no, neither of us have had dogs. The only animals we've had have been cats and then I had a rabbit, actually. A rabbit named Tibbar, which is rabbit spelled backwards. Ben: Brilliant.
Cristine: Brilliant. I was like 12 when I named him. Ben: And, yeah, no, I ...
(Cristine: But no dog.)
Ben: Maybe ... dogs are so much more work than cats, I think. So, yeah, a lot of responsibility. Maybe one day when we're like retired and stuff. Cristine: I also feel like you don't have to be a cat person or a dog person. A lot of people are just like, "Oh, so you hate dogs, because you love cats so much." Like I don't hate dogs, I just have a preference for cats, just because ... I don't know. I just like their cuddliness. I like their size. I like their temperament. And Ben's right, honestly though, like you need to know and be confident in the amount of work that it is to take care of a dog, which is generally more than the average cat. Taking the dog for walks: it has certain like energy needs, you know, it has to meet. Feeding times might be a little more strict than cats; some cats like you can just give them kind of unlimited food and they'll just allocate it themselves. But dogs are generally more work and it just wasn't something that suited me at the times in my life when I got a pet anyway, so it just wasn't an option for me at the time. Ben: I think the biggest difference from talking to dog owners, too, is that you really have to earn the love of a cat. Like I think a lot of dog owners make fun of cat people for like, " Oh, that cat doesn't love you, they just want to
Cristine: use you for treats."
Ben: Whereas when I look at dog people, it kind of seems like you just ... the dog has built into it and its evolution and its training, is it just loves you. It wakes up loving you. Like at a certain point is that ... Is it less rewarding in a way just because you have this animal that like worships you all the time? Whereas a cat, I feel ... if a cat is showing you affection when it doesn't want anything from you, that to me seems like a much more rewarding thing. Cristine: So you want a challenge.
Ben: It's more of a challenge. You've earned their affection and respect, whereas dogs just wake up in the morning and they can't wait for you to tell them to go get a ball, you know. Cristine: Even if you're an asshole. Ben: Well, I don't ... let's not get into that. All right. Next question: "Do cats get excited about their owners like dogs do?" Oh, well, there you go. I mean, yes. Zyler clearly, you know, gets excited about hanging out with you and us and Menchie will sometimes want to cuddle with us. And, yeah, they show us affection.
Cristine: It's not all the time. Like it's not like their tails are wagging and they're going crazy every time we come home from somewhere kind of thing. They're a little more like subdued in their ...
Ben: They'll often come run. Zyler will come running to the door when we get home.
Cristine: Yeah. Sometimes, yeah you're right. Exactly. And Menchie sometimes will have her sweet moments and she'll just sit on my lap while I'm trying to work on the computer, she'll be like, "Mom, mom." Ben: Very sweet.
Cristine: I think my cats get very excited about us. I mean, look at them, you know. They're right here on the table.
Ben: It has nothing to with the treats. Cristine: Nothing to do with the treats that I'm ... in ... on my lap under the table. Ben: Another question: "I love animals and hearing about people's pets. What are their favorite treats? Do they do any tricks? And do they sleep in the bed with you?" Cristine: Do they do any tricks? Generally cats aren't good at tricks, because they're not really like that disciplined. However, Zyler is like a circus cat and you can throw him a treat from far away and he'll catch it in his mouth in one shot. Kind of like how humans catch popcorn? Ben: Yes.
Cristine: Well, not me, I can't do that, but, you know, other people. He's really good at that. Ben: It's not the most impressive thing in the world, but I guess for a cat
Cristine: I think it's impressive. Menchie can't do that at all. She's ... it just like hits her in the face.
Ben: Menchie realized though that we found it cute when she rolls over onto her back Cristine: Good point.
Ben: and she uses that to her advantage and we're more likely to give her treats if she's ... Cristine: She's like ... She rolls over and she's like, "You think I'm cute? Give me a treat. I'm going to keep looking so cute until you give me a treat."
Ben: What a lady. And, yeah, Zyler needs to sleep with Cristine. Cristine: Mm-hmm. So he'll like mount me and he'll sleep on my thigh. Like he'll just prop himself up with his paws.
Ben: It's like a butt-cat, right? Like he ...
Cristine: I like it because I like the warmth. It's like a heating pack, so it's really nice.
Ben: Whereas Menchie, she doesn't always come to bed, but when she does she ... she'll like scootch in right between our two pillows, which is pretty adorable. Cristine: Yeah, or she'll sleep beside me in her little cat bed. Which is right beside us.
Ben: She had a little bed, right? It's like a crib. You know, the baby sleeps in the crib.
Ben: Okay. Cristine: Oh and their favorite treats are Feline Greenies. I'm not gonna shake the bag again, because they're both like a little insane.
Ben: Go for it. They can have some more. Cristine: More? Dad! Dad said more treats. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Ben: We'll spoil them today. Cristine: Oh. Everyone. Come to the hunting ground.
Ben: Okay. I'll keep answering questions while you do that.
Cristine: The hunting ground is here. Ben: Another question: "How long did it take Zyler to accept Ben? My orange boy is not a fan of my boyfriend at all and it's been a real struggle." I'm not sure how useful this answer will be for you, Laura. It took a long time for him to get used to me. Yeah, as ... when I started sleeping over I would often wake up in the middle of the night to him like biting my feet or him like pretty much attacking me. Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: It took a long time to get over that.
Cristine: He'd bite your feet like for real. Ben: What I would say is I think he was kind of testing me in a way, because I wasn't really comfortable. That's like my first time living with a cat. I wasn't super comfortable with cats and I think he could sense that. So sometimes he would run out of the condo and we'd have to get him, right? Remember like sometimes we'd open the front door and he'd run out into the hall? If I went to go get him, he would like lie down and I'd like reach to go pick him up and he'd like be threat-- ... like he'd be in a threatening pose, as if he was going to attack me. But I realized he only really did that because he sensed that I was kind of uncomfortable with just grabbing him. If I had just confidently picked him up, he would have been okay with that. So it's kind of a delicate balance there, but I think it's only when I started being more confident in my handling of him, Cristine: Yes.
Ben: that he started like, I guess, having to respect me in a way. So ... Cristine: That's interesting. There's probably some elements of like how to train your dog in what you just said; like you have to show them that you are like in control of the situation. We're obviously not experts in training.
Ben: Whereas like he was smart and he picked up on the fact that I wasn't confident in how I was dealing with him. Cristine: But once you were confident and you would say strictly like "No!" or you'd pick him up and you'd move him so he's not biting your feet he eventually ... Ben: Yeah, I got like scratched and even bitten a few times I think doing this, but ...
Cristine: I'm sorry. Ben: But, no, at the end of the day, it made a world of difference once I started just being confident and like ...
Cristine: And then he stopped biting your feet. He hasn't tried to hurt you.
Ben: No, it's been ... it's been many years.
Cristine: Unless I sic him on you. Ben: Yeah, it's tough. I'm sure there's resources online, though, you can find for more advice on that.
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Another one: "Do you believe that our pets really understand what we are saying to them? And do you think they can be reincarnated?" Cristine: I don't know. Menchie, are you so beautiful? Yes, you are. You going to win a beauty pageant and start your own YouTube channel? Yeah. See, I think she understands.
Ben: She knows ... she understands .... (*Laughs*) Ben: She ... they know their name. I think there's been enough studies now to show that cats like know when we're saying ... Cristine: They know their name, but they choose to not always respond,
Ben: Exactly.
Cristine: I think is the science. Ben: Which, yeah, is kind of funny, but ... no, but ... or like even when we say "treats," I think they have a very basic understanding of some words, maybe. It might just be your intonation as well, just that you're saying something with your voice and it's going high and sounds exciting: it gets their attention as well.
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Yeah, so I don't know about ... I know that Menchie ... So we recently bought a massage gun, Theragun, because when Cristine's doing her workout, sometimes she's sore after and you basically massage your legs with this gun, right? And it can be really painful.
Cristine: Oh, yeah. Ben: And so like I'm massaging Cristine's hamstrings and she's basically like screaming in pain, but it's like a good .. a good kind of pain. Cristine: Yeah, yeah. Like you just have to be vocal, because you're like breathing as you're getting into the muscles, so I'm like "Ahhhh!" Ben: Yeah, so we've noticed a few times Menchie ... if Menchie thinks Cristine's in distress, Cristine: She'll come.
Ben: she'll come and start licking your ...
Cristine: Liking my face.
Ben: your face. Like your tears, right?
Cristine: Like making sure I'm okay. She's so sweet and I'm like, "Menchie, I'm okay." And then she'll be like licking, licking my face like, "What's going on? What's going on? Why are you yelling?" Ben: I think that's because that's the only real tool cats have to like nurture or comfort is to groom other animals. Cristine: So now I know that if I were in this house being murdered, she'd come and lick my face. Ben: That would be a lot of help. Cristine: Zyler doesn't do that. He just sits there observing.
Ben: No, he doesn't care. Cristine: He's just like, "Oh, the human experiences pain,. Interesting." Ben: Yeah. Another question. "How did Zyler react when you first adopted Menchie? I'm thinking of adopting a kitten but I have an 8-year-old cat. How did you introduce them to each other to make it work?" Cristine: This is a good question because this is definitely something you need to consider before getting a second animal, right? Is like, what is the temperament of your first animal, because you are going to introduce and ... a new pet into *its* territory, basically. Right? Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: It's not all about the new baby ... Ben: And we could talk about our experience a little, but like we're not experts on this; I'm sure you can find a lot of resources online for different methods of approaching this. For us, the most important thing was just very slowly introducing Menchie to Zyler. So we were lucky in that we had a back room in that condo that ... Cristine: It was the nail polish filming room.
Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: in the condo and there was a sliding door. So we decided to split up the cats so they didn't actually meet face-to-face for two weeks, I think it was. Ben: It may have even been more than that.
Cristine: It might have been more than two weeks. But two weeks was what we were told, like based on our research on the internet, and like what the people at the adoption center said. That's what they recommended, especially for Zyler's benefit, really, who had already been living in that condo for a couple of years now.
Ben: Sure. Cristine: So it was like his space. So for two weeks Menchie only lived in the nail-polish room, which was fine-- she was like a small kitten, so that's fine. And Zyler lived in the rest of the condo and they would just smell each other under the door.
Ben: Uh-huh. Cristine: So they didn't actually like ... And we tried to make them not able to touch by putting towels under the door,
Ben: That's right. Cristine: so they weren't like able to get each other's hands. Hands? Paws.
Ben: But Zyler was super curious. He really wanted to get in there. Cristine: Yeah, he ... it was distressing, for sure, because he could smell that there was another cat there, but I think it was the best way to get them used to each other since ... mostly like Zyler getting used to Menchie's scent and giving Menchie some time to just adjust to us, too. Ben: Yeah. Apparently there are also these like pheromone thing. We didn't do this, but I've heard like that you can plug in these things that emit pheromones that can help relax
Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: cats or put them in a good mood. Cristine: Actually we did do that when we moved into this place.
Ben: That's right. Okay. Cristine: So I bought two and plugged them in. I don't really know for sure it helped,
(Ben: Who knows if that did anything.)
Cristine: but I was worried about moving, you know, because especially Menchie she'd only been in one place her whole life. Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: So when we moved I was like a little nervous, but they were both fine with that. But in terms of introducing to them to each other, I think it was really taking into consideration like your first pet, like Zyler in this case, because he needed to feel comfortable and like not too agitated and very slow so he didn't feel like you were all of a sudden paying too much attention to someone other than him, you know. Ben: And I think Zyler pretty clearly establ-- once they were interacting and we were supervising, I I think it became pretty clear he was the Alpha cat. Cristine: Oh. He started licking her immediately and like pushed her down. He was like, "Get down! I'm gonna lick your face!." Ben: Yeah, so I think the dynamic
(Cristine: Lick the crusties.)
Ben: between them kind of works because there's the clear Alpha cat and then Menchie is happy to be second fiddle in that way and in a sense. Cristine: Yeah. And I think maybe that shaped their personalities and that's why Menchie's kind of like the soft sweetie.
Ben: And they never really fi--- like they'll play-fight sometimes and Zyler will maybe occasionally get a little too rough with her, but she's usually the one that instigates it.
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: So she clearly wants to sort of mess around and then she'll like, oh,
Cristine: "It wasn't me!"
Ben: she'll start making noises as if like Ben: "Oh, he's being mean to me," and we look over and we like know like she was the one who was instigating the situation. Cristine: Silly girl.
Ben: Yeah. Ben: All right. Next question: "Do you think it's irresponsible to let your cats go outside without any supervision?" Yes. Next question! Like is there anything more to it? Cristine: I mean, like I agree with you, but I think some people who ask this question like maybe they or their family like live on a farm and there's just farm cats and that is just the norm there. So you have to consider like there is a whole rural more population where people just let their cats outside, because that's just how it goes. And maybe their cats are like hunters and stuff. Ben: I want to be clear that we should ... we don't want to normalize that. Cristine: No. Especially not for city living is what I think. Yeah. Ben: Yeah. Probably ... I guess more so for city living, but really just in general you shouldn't be letting your cats just wander around outside. And I guess it's hard if you already have a cat that's doing that; to bring them inside
Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: seems like you're depriving them of the world they know. And even Zyler sometimes. He'll look out the window and yowl as if he wants to go out there. Cristine: But it's our way of keeping him safe: making sure he's not picking up any diseases by eating like random dirt or dead animals.
Ben: Or getting hit by a car. Cristine: Or getting hurt, yeah.
Ben: Pooping in other people's gardens and giving them diseases. Cristine: Sometimes there's cats like in our neighborhood or other neighborhoods who ... I'll see a poster that says like our cat is missing and the cat ... I know the cat, because it's an outdoor cat.
Ben:Um-hmm. Cristine: And so that makes me even more sad, because like the cat lived outside and now they can't find it.
Ben: It makes me upset at the owners for just letting their cats wander around.
Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: You shouldn't do that. Cristine: Okay.
Ben: Okay.
Cristine: So we don't support it. Ben: "I was surprised to learn from a vid that Ben's allergic to cats! Is that difficult to manage? Did this deter you from having cats before Menchie and Zyler?" Cristine: Yeah, so this was like a surprising thing that I guess we never really mentioned before, but despite having two cats Ben is allergic to cats. Ben: Yeah, I've been planning on like going to an allergist, because there are some ways you can sort of treat it, I guess, but I've been putting that off and I'm not going to ...
Cristine: Not going now.
Ben: not going anywhere now. I'd say just cleaning the house more. Having a robot vacuum and air purifiers helped, but ... Cristine: Did you always have a cat allergy? Do you know? Ben: I don't know, because I didn't have a cat or any pets growing up. Cristine: But when you first started staying at my place when I had Zyler, do you remember? Ben: Yeah. Yeah. I remember it being bad, but I think it got worse over time, which is strange.
Cristine: Huh. Ben: Yeah, I don't know. But there are nights where I'm like ... I go to bed and like I can like feel like myself wheezing and it's because I guess they sleep a lot in the bed or they hang out in the bedroom a lot during the day. Cristine: So just be clear, you're not ... you're clearly not deathly allergic to cats, because if that were the case, I'd have to kick Ben out. (*Ben laughs*)
Cristine: Just kidding. But like that's always the question, right? Like who do you pick? Right? Do we get rid of the cats?
(Ben: Who *do* you pick, Cristine?) Cristine: But my point is, is that you're not so allergic that it's a risk to your life. Ben: It's manageable, but it's definitely a sacrifice and inconvenience, I guess. Cristine: But like, from your perspective, you love the cats. Would you want to get rid of the cats so you can breathe properly?
Ben: Yeah, but I'd rather not be allergic to them. Cristine: Right. So that's what we want to ultimately do eventually when you can see an allergist, is try and see if there's any ... Ben: I just don't want to be popping Reactin and stuff all the time, you know.
Cristine: Yeah. Cristine: But that's the goal. We want to have the cats, but we also want to make it more manageable for Ben, too. Ben: I think we just need to clean more honestly; I think it's probably the biggest thing. Cristine: Maybe I shouldn't organize my nail polish into rainbow order and I should clean the house instead. Ben: We could do some real spring cleaning, yeah. And then: "My husband is allergic to cats quite badly. My question is how many to adopt once I kill him." Cristine: Well, how many cats do you want at the end of the day? Ben: How many cats does it take to replace a husband, I guess. Cristine: How many cats does it take to kill a husband? That's a great YouTube title. Ben: Yeah, how bad are his allergies?
Cristine: Ask Carole Baskin. Ben: From Bushy on Twitter: "Here's an interesting question: What wild animals, based on their personalities, would Menchie and Zyler be?" Cristine: Oh, this is fun. So Zyler would be a tiger king. No, no, no: *the* tiger king. Ben: Like a tiger?
Cristine: Yes.
Ben: Or a lion? Cristine: Good question.
Ben: One of the two. Cristine: Like a really old, wise tiger.
Ben: He's the lion king. Cristine: He's the lion king, yeah, okay. Maybe a lion.
Ben: Mustafa. Cristine: Menchie would be like a little lemur or a ferret. Ben: Why?
Cristine: Just like a little derpy animal. Ben: She would be derpy whatever she is. "Will Zyler and Menchie get their own versions of Holo Taco? The OG polishes are impossible to find." Ben: Sip some tea to avoid answering that. Cristine: Hmmmm. Should I spill some tea just for the ... for listening this far into the podcast? Ben: I think you've already teased that there's something in the works. Cristine: I've mentioned that, yes, they will come out eventually, but I'll spill some actual tea and say I am ... we're actively prototyping them right now.
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: So I've already got some samples of Menchie and Zyler. Just, you know, doing some changes, moving the tint around a little bit, just making it like the perfect one, and the goal ... like I'm not trying to dup the originals. It's going to be a different formula with the Holo Taco glitter formula specifically, like because I want to maintain what Holo Taco has done for like our own glitter polish formula. But it's going to be very Zyler and very Menchie. So I'm excited that they're now going to get their own Holo Taco glittery polishes.
Ben: Sure. So keep an eye out for that.
Cristine: Yay! Yay! Ben: From Facebook: "Have you dealt with difficult health crises with the kitties or have they been fairly healthy? I've had many pets, I know how scary it is to have a sick pet."
Cristin: Um-hmm. Ben: Yeah, so both ... Zyler as well. Maybe less people know this.
Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: He had crystals. Cristine: Before your time.
Ben: Yeah, I wasn't around.
Cristine: Yeah, Zyler had crystals, which is common in orange cats and I think, although like I could be mistaken because this was a while ago, from my understanding It's similar to kidney stones in humans, but like a cat version. And it's common in male orange cats specifically.
Ben: For some reason. It usually has something to do with diet. Cristine: It has to do with their food. So I was a university student who was just buying whatever cat food I could at like Loblaws, the local grocery store. It was nothing fancy. And according to the vet, that's basically what gave him crystals. So after that I started having to buy like expensive veterinarian food that was a mix of both wet and dry, that didn't have some of the like bad chemicals or whatever it was that was not working in his digestive system. Ben: There's definitely a lot of healthier options for how to feed your pets now than there were before, 10, 15 years ago. Cristine: And I just didn't know, honestly. Like I wasn't ... I didn't know.
Ben: Well, that's fair. Cristine: And like ... I didn't have ... I didn't want to spend $300 a month on my cat's food at that time, so I kind of thought that was ridiculous to go buy fancy food.
Ben: Sure.
Cristine: I'm like, my cat doesn't need fancy food. Ben: So how bad was it, though? You had to like rush him to a vet? Cristine: It was ... yeah. This is before I knew that it was the food that was different doing this, but he was urinating blood or at least it was like kind of red colored,
Ben: You could see the red. Cristine: so I took him to the vet and they were like, "you got here just in time," because something got spliced in his insides and he would have ended up like bleeding out internally. Ben: Eeee.
Cristine: So they did some surgery of some sort on him. They had to like draw a bunch of samples: blood samples, urine samples, and concluded that he did have crystals, but luckily it didn't get so far that something was punctured that would have been irreparable. Like it was just early enough that we knew, okay, now we change his diet and like flush his system, basically, and after that I was ... I didn't care how much the food cost. Like I do not care and I made sure that I was only feeding him what the vet recommended and the serving sizes like that they said. So that was very scary. And I think he was only three years old at the time, so I was like crying.
Ben: Wow. Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: And he was a ... he was a bit of a chunky boy. He's always sort of loved his food, eh? So not only was he probably not eating the healthiest food, he was probably ... He would probably go
(Cristine: Gorging.)
Ben: binge eat as much as you would give to him to him.
Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah. Oh, Zyler.
Cristine: It's okay: We both learned our lesson, right, bud?
Ben: Yeah. Well good PSA out there: Please care about what kind of ...
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: I know it's tough, because it can be expensive, but you should be feeding them somewhat a healthy food that's not just full of fillers and just not all pure carbs.
Cristine: Yeah, not just like the cheapest option available at the supermarket. Although I also understand like being a student and that's just what's most accessible, So I'm not going to like judge people either.
Ben: Sure. And then with Menchie, I think I alluded to this at the very beginning, like when we first ... before we even adopted her, we noticed her eye was a little leaky and it progressively turned from her eyes little leaky, to it was like watery, to she started sneezing a lot
(Cristine: Sneezing.)
Ben: and you have this really ... we thought it was an adorable picture of her with like her mouth open when she was a kitten, but we ... looking back at it now It's actually really sad, because it was because she was having trouble breathing through her nose that she was only ...
Cristine: Yeah, she'd open her mouth to breathe. So she had respiratory issues
Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: and we took her to like a 24-hour Hospital. Ben: Yeah, so it's a dangerous thing, too, when a cat's that congested, because I think if they can't smell their food, they're not going to eat it.
Cristine: Right.
Ben: So I think she just stopped eating at a certain time Cristine: That's why we took her
(Ben: And that's when you rushed her ...)
Cristine: and they had to give her an I.D. ... I.V. And this was only a month into having her.
Ben: We had ... I don't even think it had been a month and we're taking to the animal hospital. I remember,
Cristine: Yeah.
Ben: the doctor calls me and he's like, "This is going to cost a lot of money," we didn't have a ton of money at the time and the doctor at the animal hospital is basically asking me like, "Are you sure you want to do this if this is a brand new kitten?" Cristine: Yeah. Like, basically, you could just let the kitten die. Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: And I refused.
Ben: I know, oh, yeah. I mean ...
Cristine: I don't care how much it costs. So she ended up staying at ... what was most expensive was like just staying under the care of the animal hospital. It ... she didn't need surgery or anything, but it was just several hundred dollars or more basically to keep her on IV fluids.
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: They had to like give her some suppositories, I think. They were like doing tests on her. They were trying to clear her nose, airways,
Ben: They were giving antibiotics and then we had to put her on medications and stuff, but, yeah, there was ... there was a point at which we didn't know if she was gonna make it, and that was a super scary thing even though ... even though we had barely had her. It was ... she so ... she became a part of our family so quickly, right? Cristine: And I'm so happy that we made sure that like we weren't giving up and we saw it through. Ben: Damn, I'm getting emotional talking about this.
Cristine: Ben! Love my kitty. My baby. Ben: Okay. Next question: "How well-behaved are your cats? Have you trained either any tricks? Do you/how do you discipline them?" So, yeah, we already mentioned, they don't really know tricks.
Cristine: They don't know tricks but ...
Ben: They know what to do to get treats Cristine: Yeah, so Zyler will open his mouth and you'll just toss a treat in, but I don't know ... like I didn't teach him to do that. He just started doing it and I'm like, wow!
Ben: I guess the discipline question's more interesting. We're not experts on this, but I think the main thing we should communicate is positive reinforcement over negative reinforcement, right? I think it's harder with cats than with dogs though. Because like if a cat's behaving badly, you can't positively reinforce that and it's not always clear that if you're positively reinforcing them when they're good that they're ... that doesn't necessarily mean they're not going to do the bad thing. Right?
Cristine: Right. Ben: So there have been times where, I'll admit, when we were super frustrated or I was super frustrated with him meowing all night, there were times where I would just yell at him or maybe we would put him in our back room In the condo and like that was his punishment, like go to that room, Cirstine: But then he learned ...
Ben: He learned how to open doors. Cristine: He literally opened the door. Like he'd open the handle or he'd reach it, he'd pull it and he'd open the bathroom door and come up. He'd be like, "Ha ha, you stupid parents." Ben: So maybe we were just lucky that they haven't behaved badly in a way where we've really had to correct behavior. Cristine: I feel like they know, though. Like sometimes ... our cats are not allowed on the kitchen counters or the kitchen table.
Ben: Mm-hmm. Cristine: And when we're around there, they normally don't do it. But when we're not home and we check the security cameras, they're both just sitting on the
(Ben: I know.)
Cristine: freakin' island in the kitchen just loving their lives. Ben: As soon as we leave.
Cristine: As soon as we leave. But when we're home, occasionally like I'll be upstairs and then I'll walk downstairs and I'll notice that like Menchie's on the counter, because the dishwasher was just on so like the counter is warm or something. And then I'll go "Menchie!", you know, like yell at her and then she knows immediately
(Ben: Oh, yeah.)
Cristine: that she's done something wrong and she'll run off like nothing happened. Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: So they know.
Ben: They know not to do it.
Cristine: They know but they do it anyway sometimes. Little rascals. Ben: Maybe we've just given up a little bit.
Cristine: No, we still yell at them when they're on the table Ben: Another question: "Have Menchie and Zyler ever gotten lost? My cats get lost a few years ago ... got lost a few years ago, but lucky that they were all found." Cristine: So they don't get lost, because they're not outdoor cats.
Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: So there's ... unless they get lost in the house. Which sometimes I guess we don't always know where they are, but ...
Ben: It's not that big a house. Cristine: but we'll find them. We'll find them, you know.
Ben: Just to be fair, I know there're ... it's not only outdoor-cat people that lose their cats, though, right? Sometimes you have an indoor cat maybe
(Cristine: Yeah, where he runs out.) Ben: someone was over and left the door open and a cat runs out, right?
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Like we had
Cristine: Oh, yeah.
Ben: a worker over here one time who thought he accidentally let Zyler out, but really there was just some orange cat in the neighborhood that happened to be hanging out around our house and he's like, "Oh, I must have accidentally let their cat out." So he grabbed this random orange cat, dropped it in our front door and closed the door. And, I mean, I'm sitting on the couch and I see ... I see an orange cat there and I wasn't really paying attention, but then I see another orange cat and they walk up to each other and I thought I was like fucking hallucinating or something. But I had to run over and grab this ... I grabbed Zyler and then the guy realized he had messed up and he grabbed the stranger cat. Cristine: Random cat.
Ben: But like, Zyler was like his world was shook. Like ... I'm not sure if he thought he was looking in a mirror ...
Cristine: That was so funny. I looked that up on the security footage after and just saw like the worker like lifting up this random cat and putting it in our house, shutting the door and going back to his truck. Ben: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cristine: So we haven't lost our cats, but we've had other random cats put in our house. Ben: That's right. All right. "How do you convince your mom to buy you a cat?" How did that work for you, Cristine? Cristine: When I was 15?
Ben: Yeah, did it take a lot of convincing? Cristine: So I studied a lot. Like I had books on hamsters, rabbits, cats, I literally ...
Ben: Studied. Cristine: Like for Christmas, I would ask for like books on how to raise animals. So I remember having a hamster book. And the whole idea was that I was gonna get a hamster first. But then they just decided like, "that's just dumb--we'll just get her a cat," I guess. I don't know. But I was like per-- ... fully prepared to get a hamster and showed and tried to prove that like I'd researched all the breeds, where to get the hamster, and like how to take care of the hamster, and then I did the same thing for a rabbit, and then a cat. So maybe if you just show your parents ...
Ben: You showed you were serious.
Cristine: Yeah, that you put a lot of work into it you know what's expected, and it's not just like, "oh, I want a fun cat, because like my friend has one, so I want one," you know. Like you got to show that you're going to be responsible for it and the types of things that you will need to do to take care of it. Who's going to buy all the cat litter? Who's going to buy the cat food? Is it going to be you? Like if it's your animal, maybe it's your responsibility. You'll have to kind of decide or negotiate with your parents how that's gonna work, too, right? Because maybe part of the reason why parents don't want their kids to get animals is because like they're like, "I don't need this additional expense," right? Like that is a big part,
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: Aside from responsibility ..
Ben: It's the expense and responsibility. If you prove to your parents that you're willing to take care of that, at least to some degree, that should probably help you be persuasive. I would like ...
Cristine: Yes.
Ben: But that didn't work for me. I feel, yeah, my sister begged our parents to get a dog and that just
Cristine: But did she do research and prove that she had documented what breed makes most sense, how she was going to support it financially?
Ben: I mean, she had volunteered at like a vet's office; I feel like she had put in the work. I don't really know why my parents never went for it.
Cristine: Aww. Ben: Yeah.
Boooooo.
Cristine: So sometimes it ...
Ben: Mom and Dad,
Both: Booo! Cristine: So sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but we can't guarantee that ... that your your mom will let you get a cat
Ben: But the cool thing is, when you're 18 or whenever you leave the house, you can ... Cristine: You can do whatever the fuck you want. Yeah.
Ben: You can get that cat. Cristine: Yeah, get a cat. That's what I'm going to do when I'm 18. I'm going to get a cat. Never mind going to bars. Who cares about drinking? I just want a kitty-cat. Ben. All right. Another question from Ellenore Holbrrok: "Do you ever take off their collars and have them run around naked? And yell 'your're nakeyy!' at them while they do so?" Cristine: Yeah. Let's do it right now. Ben: He's not going to run around.
Cristine: Zyler, you're nakeyy! You're nakeyy! Ben: You know, because they're indoor cats, I've seen the question like why do we put a collar on them even, right? I guess there's always the off chance they do get out somehow and you do want to have that information on them. Cristine: That's the number one reason, especially when I lived with roommates.
Ben: Sure. Cristine: So Zyler first got a collar because I was ... I did not 100% trust my roommates to like always make sure that the cat was inside, as much as I put a sign on the door and like made sure everyone understood "you can't let this cat outside." I had my phone number, my email, and his name on the tag just in case he did get out. Yeah. So it was a safety precaution.
Ben: I know, too, you like being able to hear them.
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: So there's like a little bell on their collar.
Cristine: That developed later, but in the beginning it was like a security precaution, Ben: Sure.
Cristine: and then the cats just got used to wearing a collar. Like, look, I took Zyler's collar off two minutes ago and he's still sniffing it and he wants it back on. Ben: Oh, he wants it back on?
Cristine: He's looking at it. He's like, "why isn't this on my neck? I miss my necklace." Ben: We take it off sometimes and just like scratch their neck and clearly they like that. Cristine: To brush them sometimes we'll take off their collars. But I guess now they wear them because they're kind of used to them, we're used to them, because we can actually hear the bell, so it's just ... it's comforting to be like, oh, I can hear Zyler. He's upstairs.
Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Sometimes when Cristine takes off her clothes, I yell at her,
Cristine: Excuse me?
Ben: "You're nakeyy! You're nakeyy!" and she runs around ... so. Cristine: Oh, my god, Ben.
That's awful. Ben: The cats are just sort of naked all the time, you know. It's more special.
Cristine: They are naked. Ben: They see us naked sometimes and that's the weirder thing. Cristine: You do? Don't show your daughter ... Ben: All right. And last question: "Have you ever considered fostering cats for the SPCA? Or are Menchie and Zyler enough for you?" Cristine: I ... like I love the idea of fostering like six baby kittens, but I struggle with two things. First is giving them up when the foster period's over
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: and second is, I don't know how I could do that while I have cats of my own, Menchie and Zyler, without the possibility of like Infecting, you know ...because that's a huge thing with foster cats or just any new cats. They might have like other ...
Ben: Upper respiratory infection. Cristine: Anything. Just like Menchie has. So I don't want to put my own cats at risk because I'm taking care of others. It's just not fair to them. So that's like a huge reason why I just can't.
Ben:Yeah. It's something we've talked about potentially wanting to do one day though right? Maybe getting a third cat isn't in the cards anytime soon, but I could see us at some point down the road if we had, you know ... if other obligations in our life slow down, maybe we just want to spend a bunch of time fostering cats. That could be a cool, cool thing to do. And we should note that like I know times are really strange right now, maybe a lot of ... like I know like a lot of pet stores or pet adoption places aren't physically open,
Cristine: Yeah. but my understanding is a lot of these places are doing like virtual tours or you can see online like what cats are up for adoption. And there's still cats that need rescuing right now, so I think it's still very important that if you want to support the local cat rescue in your area, definitely still do that. There's still people rescuing and raising cats and kittens so ...
Cristine: There's still cats out there that need homes.
Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: Yeah, and now is a great time to, you know, start raising a cat, honestly. If you're home more, because that's the best time. You don't have to leave the cat. Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: Yeah. So. There's also other ways that we can help support rescue cats, which we've done in the past. Like maybe we ... it just doesn't make sense for us to like get just a bunch of foster kittens in our house,
Ben: Sure. Cristine: but we support our local cat cafe and we've raised some money for ...
Ben: Humane Society,
Cristine: Humane Society ...
Ben: a few smaller rescues,
Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Money isn't always the answer to these problems, I guess is the point like, but ... yeah, maybe we ... kitten season's coming up. We'll reach out to some of the ... some of our contacts in the community and see what would help. Yeah. Anything we didn't answer?
Cristine: I don't know. Ben: A lot, a lot of cat questions Cristine: Everyone, yeah, most questions are just, they want to know if we're getting another cat. Ben: No, that was like half the questions: "Are you getting another cat?" Cristine: I mean, like it used to be, "When are you going to have a baby?" Like that's just a common question that any female on the Internet gets. But now they know me and now they're like, "When are you getting another cat?" Thank you, guys. I appreciate it.
Ben: Yeah. Cristine: Zyler, are you gonna? Is Zyler going to say the outro? Ben: No, I just ... sorry. I just had to quickly say sorry to Dr. Mike, we were going to have him on today, but the cat segment went a little longer than expected. But maybe another week.
(Cristine: We already had a doctor on the podcast.).
Ben: Yeah.
Cristine: Sorry, Dr. Mike. Ben: All right, everybody, we'll see you next Taco Tuesday. Cristine: Thanks for watching. Ben: Thanks so much for watching.
Both: We'll see y'all later. Cristine: Bye. Meow.
