“Let’s Talk About Cats: Conversations About Cat Behaviour” provides many useful takeaways for cat owners to improve their own every-day connection with their cats. In this review, you will learn what this book is actually about, whether it is worth buying,who should read it, and how it can improve your life with your cat.
A few words about the author of the book
Anita Kelsey holds a degree in Feline Behaviour and Psychology. Also she is a qualified cat groomer that specialises in grooming problematic cats and runs a vet referral service dedicated strictly to the diagnosis and treatment of behaviour problems in cats. Her debut book “Claws. Confessions Of A Professional Cat Groomer” was published in 2018 and her second book “Let’s Talk About Cats” came out recently. I would like to thank Anita for a copy of her book in exchange for this honest review.
Let’s talk about interviews
“Let’s Talk About Cats” started as a book of interviews about the lives of cat professionals and people whose lives had been transformed by cats. Over time, the book has developed into something more – one of a kind guidebook full of helpful advice and interviews with feline experts.
Contributors include cat behavioritst Jackson Galaxy (whose book Total Cat Mojo I recently reviewed (link)), Dr. Jennifer Conrad. who created The Paw Project, composer David Teie, whose album “Music for Cats” was released by the Universal Music Group (you can read more about music for cats in my article (link)) and more cat experts!
What is the book “Let’s Talk About Cats” about?
“Let’s Talk About Cats” covers many important topics and it would be difficult for me to list them all, because to do that I would have to quote the entire book. Within the first 15 chapters presents the combined wisdom of experts from all over the world on the psychology, behavior, and cat diet, and also it features one chapter with an amazing interview about The Cat Man of Aleppo.
I listed the most important (in my opinion) things that you can learn from it and divided them into four groups.
Living with a cat
Catification, scratching and training:
- how to enrich your cat’s living, why cat furniture is so important, and how to keep your indoor cat happy and entertained;
- a lot of useful tips on training methods that work best for cats;
- why cats need to scratch, how to prevent furniture from being scratched, and more about declawing (onychectomy) from an interview with Dr. Jennifer Conrad.
Cat-human relationship
Connection, communication and emotions:
- how to connect with your cat and how important is the bond with your cat;
- how cats communicate with other cats and how they try to communicate with humans;
- about cat emotions, whether cats can be therapeutic animals, and what to do when cats need therapy from us;
- how much attention your cat needs and why some cats don’t like too much attention.
Cat nutrition
Healthy diet, myth-busting and food labeling:
- what should you feed your cat to gives your cat optimum health;
- how to read cat food labeling, what ingredients could be in the food and what to look for while choosing a healthy cat food;
- what are the pros and cons for a cat kibble (dry) diet, what’s the commonest illness from a dry diet and why kibble doesn’t clean cat’s teeth as marketed.
Problems and how to deal with them
Grooming, lost cat and a senior pet:
- why some cats need help with grooming and how to teach your cat to enjoy grooming;
- how to deal with a lost cat and what to do when you find a “lost cat”;
- how to take care of elderly cats and how to cope with the emotional trauma of losing a pet.
My opinion about Let’s Talk About Cats
The form of the book intrigued me because I also once cooperated with various experts in the form of interviews. Let’s Talk About Cats is packed with helpful advice, guidance and true stories of cat care topics, explaining the important topics, giving something to think about and expanding on all the most important issues and debates in the cat world.
I found a lot of interesting content in the book. Among others I learned that cats can purr not only when they are happy, but also when they are ill, afraid or just self-soothing. Second thing that I learned is that in declawing (onychectomy) not only the claw is removed, but some bones are also removed. Bones are amputated at the last joint and cannot be undone or repaired. Once the part of the cat’s paw is removed, it cannot be “replaced”.
I love analysing and reviewing cat food so there is no surprise that my favourite topics from books orbit the topic of cat food. I am very happy that Anita shows why kibble diet is bad for cat health. This is very importnat topic because kibble (dry) diet can lead to cat obesity and f your cat gets used to it from a young age then it could take a lot of time and effort to change his diet into a healthy raw or canned diet.
I really liked the structure of chapters, because each chapter has a very clear layout. First is a brief introduction to the topic, an in-depth interview with an expert in the field, summary of what you have just read and the ending with a real-life examples or case study. Each of this chapters deal with a certain question that cat caretakers may have.
PS. If you like our paw bookmark, you’ll find the instruction and the template here: How to make a felt 3D cat’s paw bookmark
Who is this book for and is it worth buying?
Whether you are a new cat parent or an experienced one, you will learn something from “Let’s Talk About Cats” book. It is worth taking care of the basics of a healthy diet and good habits as soon as possible to save yourself unnecessary problems later. I believe that everyone can learn something helpful from it.
Availability
You can find Let’s Talk About Cats by Anita Kelsey at Amazon – link to the book and at your local bookstores.
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What do You think?
I would love to see your thought, suggestions and questions in the comments below!
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The photo of Anita Kelsey, the author of the book comes from press release info and I do not claim any rights to it. The rest of the photos in the article are mine. More information on copyright can be found in the Blog rules.
