Crusty has resting homicide face. Hello friends, and welcome to another video. Today we're gonna be doing something a little bit dangerous... We're gonna be walking our elderly cat crusty for the very first time. Tyler: He's very old,
Safiya: Yeah, Tyler: he's no spring chicken.
Safiya: no, he's a winter chicken. So Crusty's a feral adoption, which means that he was once a feral cat who kind of showed up outside of our door, and, uh, now he lives with us. He was a drifter. Safiya: Uh, what do they call them?
Tyler: A streetwalker. So when we took him to the vet for him to get his vaccines, because we thought he was a kitten because of his size, adorable meow, and the fact that he still had his balls. The vet took one look at him, and was like "This cat is 15, he's 75 in cat years, and oh, he had a vasectomy instead of getting neutered. That's why it looks like he has his balls." So when Crusty was a feral and we just started feeding him, he just started to just plant himself in front of our door every single night, he basically became our cat right away. Over time we got more comfortable with him, we let him in. So we were like 'I think he's our cat now,' and so we took him with us when we decided to move. Basically, Crusty has been an indoor cat since like last fall, and he's loving it inside. Tyler: This is his retirement community. This is his Florida. Over the last couple of weeks, he's kind of... getting a little restless. Getting into weird nooks, like... fighting bottle caps and dust mites and old Cheerios on the ground. Tyler: He's been shadow boxing with me. He sees your iPhone wire, he is going in for the kill. He scratches and lifts into the mouth... The final straw towards wanting to walk him outside was noticing him, on the balcony, crouched, ready to pounce to our neighbor's balcony. So we wanted to find a way that Crusty could still have some outdoors time without necessarily making a leap across a five story building. And we've seen videos, and read articles about people walking their cats and it seems like some people are on the "Don't try it, I just dragged my cat around for half an hour" train, and a lot of people, though, are also on the "Hey, this was a great idea, and it gave my indoor cat some good exercise and some good fresh air (with a little bit of practice) but it was good" So Tyler went to PetSmart and picked up a specific cat-walking harness. The instructions say to put him in the harness a couple of times before trying to take him out on the leash. We want to see where we can take Crusty walking. We'd love to take him to this outdoor mall nearby that we love, that's kind of like a park without the coyotes, but we want to make sure he can handle it so we're gonna take him around the apartment today as like a dress rehearsal. He's uh, out yet? Oh, yeah he is. Hey buddy, how you doin'? Oh, meow, man? :3 :3 :3 Let's do it. Safiya: Oh my God, he just gave me such a nervous look. Tyler: He knows there's somethin' up. Tyler: 'Aight, let's go buddy. Safiya: You have the keys? Tyler: ... Tyler: No. Tyler: Yeah? Tyler: C'mon. Safiya: At first I was like "Oh no, is this too much for him?" Crusty: *meow* o.o Tyler: I think that when he was right outside the door to the apartment, he was a little bit like "Did I lose apartment privileges?" Safiya: Maybe we should go further away from the apartment. Tyler: Yeah Crusty: *meow* >_> Tyler: Hey, what's up buddy, come on It seems the further away we get from our apartment, the calmer he gets. I think he was nervous about leaving the apartment, and now he's a little curious. Here we go! We got some walkin' action. Tyler: He liked to have one of his sides accounted for, and he also liked me walking a little bit closer to him and that's actually where we got the best sort of like "Crusty trot". Right? Where he's sort of like "Okay, I know what's on my right side, I know you're on my left side, you're okay. I don't know if I like you anymore, but you're okay." Safiya: Once he got into places that had more shrubbery and places to hide, he was actually pretty chill. He was kinda just like looking around. Oh, I think he's liking it, babe! Tyler: Yeah, I think he loves it, actually. Every once in a while, he was like chugging along just like, you know, the Little Engine That Could, then he would like stop, and just be like Crusty: *meow* O_O Tyler: Hey! Oh, shoot... B-cakes, let's go! I think we gotta go where he goes. Safiya: There were times when he was walking kind of happily. Tyler: He's goin' that way, for sure! I actually do think after a little while, he got pretty used to it. Tyler: Part of, like, walking a cat so far has been it's not as much "walking with him", as much as it is getting him outside. There was definitely a moment where he reached his limit and he was like "I don't want to do this anymore..." Crusty: *meow* ;_; Safiya: See, this is like, uh, "Get me out of here, mom!" and so Tyler picked him up and carried him back to the apartment. Even though, like, there there were definitely some ups and downs, kind of walking him around the apartment complex we thought that he had passed a minimum threshold of liking it. Like, it seemed like he liked it
Tyler: Definitely. Safiya: And also, after we came back to the apartment, he seemed kind of okay with it. When all else fails, he is totally okay being carried in Tyler's arms, so if that's how we spend tomorrow, that's okay too. Safiya: So it's time to go to the mall Tyler: Today's going to be the real test. Crusty, think you can pull it off? He's not fighting at all. Safiya: He's like, fine with it. We got crusty to chill, pretty much. He was a little bit anxious sitting by himself, but then I put him on my lap, and now he's just chillin'. When we got to the mall, I was honestly nervous at first. I was definitely nervous too. I was like, "Can we do this? Is this gonna be, are we gonna get kicked out of the mall? Like, is Crusty just gonna freak out and run away?" We've seen so many people walk around this mall with their dogs in their hands, on leashes, off of leashes, so I'm interested to see if anyone gets mad at us for trying to walk our cat. Tyler: Well I mean like if people are allowed to bring their Paris Hilton dog to malls, it's like "Why can't we bring Crusty to the mall?" Safiya: It was pretty empty, which is perfect for the cat walking. He does not like the fountain. Everybody likes the fountain, but not Crusty. Safiya: The harness was a little bit loose the first day, but it just took some adjusting Tyler: Yeah.
Safiya: so it wasn't riding down his legs. We put him down and the first place he wanted to go to was the Cheesecake Factory. Crusty! Tyler: Which actually forwards the conspiracy theory that Crusty grew up in a dumpster outside of a Cheesecake Factory. One thing we learned from the first day is that you can't pull Crusty, like he really has to want to walk. What would happen was we would sort of carry him from one location to the next, put him down, see if he liked it. If he wouldn't move, we'd pick him up and try another spot. So we put him down next to the grass... He did not want much to do with the grass. He did want everything to do with the sushi restaurant next to it, though. Now he's outside of the burger, beer and ramen place. I think he was just smelling the food and he was like "That's where I want to go." Tyler: "There's plenty of cover. Safiya: Exactly.
Tyler: There's like, places I can hide, there's a fence I can sneak through." He's like, reverting back to his "street alley cat instincts". "I need to go there. They have a food disposal. I'm also a food disposal." So we wanted to see where else Crusty might want to go. Safiya: He did not want to go to the Apple store... Tyler: No.
Safiya: He didn't really want to go see a movie, he didn't really want to go to Urban Outfitters, um, he felt medium about Sprinkles. They have a vegan cupcake! Crusty, we know you're a vegan. Safiya: Crusty is the furthest thing from a vegan. Tyler: We all know Crusty's pretty environmental, I mean... Safiya: I don't know that he wants a Tesla... Tyler: He doesn't like Tesla? I think he's thinking about it! Safiya: Oh no, he's going for this... pipe! Tyler: He's not going down that pipe. Oh, no! He's thinking about it. Safiya: He did not want to go to Sephora... Tyler: No. But the people at Sephora loved him. They started taking photos of Crusty from the entrance of Sephora. He is quite the hit right now... I don't know if Crusty, likes the mall, but the mall likes Crusty. Tyler: Yeah, they love him. Safiya: They LOVE the cat being out. Tyler: There are more cat people out there than you think. There are just more opportunities for people to be dog people in public. Safiya: People kind of were down for the idea of the cat getting walked. In fact, one person was like "Yeah, looks like he's getting a little plump, he needs a walk." Yeah, no, they... They're right. You know, I've seen examples of people like dragging their cat along, and like that doesn't seem cool to me. I didn't want him to be scared or stressed. I think there was a few moments where he was like "This is a lot." Loves a good bush, man. Are we done with the mall, you think? Yeah. He handled this really well, and I got such like, cat-daddy jitters every time Crusty would start, like, walking by himself, I'm like "This is the best!" I think that walking Crusty was a moderate success. I think that this actually does do a good job of getting him out, getting sort of his angst out, getting some exercise, as long as he doesn't fully sneak into the Cheesecake Factory and eat their food. Like he's been less sort of feisty, less scratchy. He doesn't actually mind the harness or the leash, really. It's more just the new environments, I think. Tyler: Yeah. It's gonna be on a cat-to-cat basis, like with Crusty, Crusty's pretty unique, because he was a feral, and he lived outside for so long, he does have a degree of that confidence and even for him, he got to a place where he was like "This isn't that cool." I don't know that we'll be doing this all the time, but I would definitely do this again. Thank you guys so much for watching! If you liked this video and this cat, make sure to SA-MASH that "Like" button, and if you want to see more videos about this cat, (or not about this cat,) (oh my God) make sure to SA-MASH that "Subscribe" button, and make sure to sa-mash that little bell icon to turn on post notifications so you get a notification every time we post. We post three times a week. Here are my social media handles, make sure to check out my Nextbeat, I do a lot of Q&As and daily vlogging on there. Those are Tyler's social media handles, make sure to check out his Nextbeat, he does the same. Hope you guys liked this video, and I'll see you next time.
