Oh Behave!

From Battling Loss to Living Wildly

I started training and adventuring with my cat Mia in 2020 to drain some of her energy and enrich her life. Our journey became quite popular, and our content has reached over 100M views.

We've helped thousands of cat parents through our YouTube Channel, Online Cat Training Classes, and our newly launched Escape-proof Cat Harness.

However, it was a dark road the one that took us where we are today.

In 2019 I moved away from my friends and family in Barcelona to start a new life with my girlfriend in the US. Only a few months in, we broke up, and shortly after, my dad passed. Then, at the end of that same year, Covid hit.
Albert During the Covid Pandemic
Dealing with the Pandemic

When Covid hit, we were asked to go home and work remotely. Unlike many others, I was fortunate to keep my job.

Without much to do, I shaved my head and spent 100% of my time indoors for 8 full weeks.

When they made the 3rd announcement to extend the confinement, I realized I could not do it alone and I decided to get a companion.
Mia Came to My Life in August of 2020

I am allergic to cats and my working hours made getting a dog not a possibility.

After some research, I learned that bengal cats can be slightly hypoallergenic.

I did some research and found a breeder who was planning a litter for May 2020.

Mia was the smallest of her littermates and moved in with me in August, after 12 weeks with her mom and siblings.
Cats are NOT Low Maintenance Pets

Mia came into my life like a tsunami. She would break anything at reach (and cats' reach can be very broad).

She also started challenging me and my patience: She would wake me up at night, meow constantly for no reason, beg for food, or even try to steal food from my plate.

I did not expect this when I decided to take her in and I even considered giving up on sharing my life with a cat. I was frustrated.
Adventuring With my Cat Mia

I took classes and read many books. I learned that mental and physical stimulation help keep the cat's energy under control, so I started clicker training her.

After cat-proofing my home I got obsessed with operant conditioning. I learned to train my cat and it helped me with damage control.

Covid restrictions started to ease out and I decided to take Mia for walks on a leash as a desperate way to drain her energy.

She loved it so much that we started traveling together to places I wanted to visit: We did a 3,000-mile road trip across Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, we sailed around Long Island and even visited Spain.
Where Are We Today?

Or videos and Pictures took off and other cat parents started inquiring about the methods we used to go on all those amazing adventures together.

We started sharing educational content to help other cat parents.

Our content has since reached over 100M views and we've helped thousands of cat parents through our YouTube Channel and Online Cat Training Classes.

We are working on products and services to help others start similar journeys because neither cats nor humans are meant to be locked indoors.

Helping other cat parents do more and better with their cats gives us purpose.

 

Transcript:

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Announcer: This is Pet Life Radio.

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Announcer: Let's talk pets.

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Announcer: It's Oh Behave with Arden Moore.

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Announcer: The show that teaches you how to have harmony in the household with your pets.

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Announcer: Join Arden as she travels coast to coast to help millions better understand why cats and dogs do what they do.

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Announcer: Get the latest scoop on famous faces.

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Announcer: They're perfectly pampered pets in Who's Walking Who in Renton Tinseltown.

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Announcer: From famous pet experts and bestselling authors to television and movie stars, you'll get the latest buzz from wagging tongues and tails, garner great pet tips and have a doggone fur flying fun time.

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Announcer: So get ready for the pause and applause as we unleash your Oh Behave host, America's pet edutainer, Arden Moore.

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Arden Moore: Welcome to the Oh Behave show on Pet Life Radio.

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Arden Moore: I'm your host, Arden Moore.

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Arden Moore: Hey, you're about to meet a guy who credits his turn around in life to a cat.

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Arden Moore: Things were far from purrfect back in 2019, but now in his Bengal cat named Mia are social media stars.

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Arden Moore: I'm talking over a hundred million views of their possum adventures.

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Arden Moore: And he is here today to help us bring out the best in our cats too.

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Arden Moore: Please give pause and applause to the creator of Outdoor Bangle, a real cat man do Albert Colominas.

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Arden Moore: Welcome Albert.

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Albert Colominas: Thank you for having me here Arden.

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Albert Colominas: I'm super pumped to be here with you today and share a little bit of our story.

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Arden Moore: Well, I am too because life sometimes slaps us down, but you got to get back up.

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Arden Moore: I mean, cats have nine lives.

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Arden Moore: It sounds like back in 2019, that's not going to be one of your favorite years ever, was it?

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Albert Colominas: Definitely not.

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Albert Colominas: Definitely not.

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Albert Colominas: Not for me, not for many people, but I had a rough one for myself that year, yep.

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Arden Moore: Well, we're going to go bummer and then we're going to go sensational.

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Arden Moore: So tell us people what happened in 2019 because you're from Barcelona, correct?

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Albert Colominas: Yes, I'm from Barcelona and the story started with an adventure.

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Albert Colominas: So my life in Barcelona was kind of easy, kind of comfortable.

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Albert Colominas: I had a girlfriend, I had a beautiful job and I was like, it's maybe even too comfortable.

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Albert Colominas: So I wanted to go on an adventure and with my partner, we decided to move to the US and we could make it happen, which per se was a huge achievement.

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Albert Colominas: But then arriving to the US, one month later, we break up.

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Albert Colominas: In Spanish, I don't know.

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Albert Colominas: I would swear for sure and I don't know if I can swear.

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Arden Moore: So that was a bummer.

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Arden Moore: Then I'm sorry to hear your father passed.

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Albert Colominas: So the year started not with the strongest vibes and a few months after I was going through the breakup and a few months after my dad suddenly passed, and that just crushed me and I was going over these two losses, a partner and a dad, and then COVID hit.

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Albert Colominas: So it was like the perfect storm.

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Arden Moore: So I understand you stayed at home, but you shaved your head.

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Albert Colominas: Yeah, I did.

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Albert Colominas: So it's funny because there was a bunch of people that, because you're not going out anymore, we did not know when we were going to go out.

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Albert Colominas: Like a bunch of people started doing crazy stuff at home.

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Albert Colominas: And all of a sudden you shaved and I shaved my beard, which I usually don't.

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Albert Colominas: And then I shaved my head and lucky me, I was not going out.

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Albert Colominas: Yeah, you go from a solid six to a solid four.

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Arden Moore: You're not a six, you're the cat's nine plus.

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Arden Moore: Well, but all right, so that's all the bad part.

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Arden Moore: But you are a survivor.

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Arden Moore: So you said to yourself, I think I need to get a cat and not just any kind of cat, a cat that has a lot of energy, a bangle.

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Arden Moore: Have you ever had a bangle cat before in your life, Albert?

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Albert Colominas: I never had a cat at all in my life.

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Albert Colominas: And I'm in fact allergic to cats.

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Albert Colominas: Yeah, it's super fun.

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Albert Colominas: So what happened is that I was completely miserable.

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Albert Colominas: I was in a very dark place and working crazy hours with lockdown, with this bag of losses in my back that I was carrying around.

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Arden Moore: What kind of work were you doing?

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Albert Colominas: I'm a marketeer.

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Albert Colominas: So I do marketing for a living on consumer goods.

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Albert Colominas: And I love my work, but it's very demanding.

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Albert Colominas: And when you're not at your best, it can come crashing down on you because the expectation is very high.

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Albert Colominas: And when you're not at 100%, the pressure of work really settles.

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Albert Colominas: So I was working a ton of hours, carrying my backpack around.

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Albert Colominas: And I called my mom and I'm like, listen, I either come back and call this a failure or I get a cat.

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Albert Colominas: And she was like, you're allergic to cats.

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Albert Colominas: And I'm like, that's a different problem.

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Albert Colominas: That's a problem for the Albert of tomorrow.

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Albert Colominas: If we both agree that getting a cat might be a good idea.

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Announcer: Yeah.

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Albert Colominas: And listen, I'm 35, but I still go to my mom for advice.

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Arden Moore: There's nothing wrong with that.

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Arden Moore: Real men love moms and cats.

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Albert Colominas: So I, yeah, absolutely love both.

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Albert Colominas: And I was like, I think I need some help.

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Albert Colominas: And I decided to get a cat.

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Albert Colominas: And then a whole adventure started in terms of understanding if I could get over my allergies, if there were breeds that were better than others, that I could withstand better.

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Albert Colominas: Male versus female cats.

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Albert Colominas: Which one has more FelD1 protein?

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Albert Colominas: And I started learning everything about cat allergies.

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Arden Moore: And well, that FelD1 for folks out there, that's kind of the marker that says whether they're going to be making you sneeze a lot, right?

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Arden Moore: That's our medical interpretation.

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Arden Moore: It's the sneeze gene.

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Albert Colominas: So that's the protein that cats have that produces allergy to most people.

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Albert Colominas: And I started doing some research and I got to the determination that there was not really a solution for cat allergies.

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Albert Colominas: And then I learned that that's not really true, but that's a story for a different day.

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Albert Colominas: But one thing that I learned is this thing about hypoallergenic cats and there's a lot of marketing about it.

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Albert Colominas: And I have my hesitations on calling them this way right now, because after what I have learned, hypoallergenic cat doesn't really exist.

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Albert Colominas: But it's true that there are some breeds and some particular families and lineages of cats that might have less of this protein that creates the allergy.

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Albert Colominas: And I learned that Bengal cats sometimes are within this family of less allergy producing cats.

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Albert Colominas: So I decided to go for a Bengal, not before finding people online that had Bengal cats.

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Albert Colominas: And I just hopped into their homes and be like, let me hang out with your cat for a bit and see if I can survive the experience.

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Albert Colominas: And I did.

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Albert Colominas: So I decided to get a Bengal cat.

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Arden Moore: Those cats traditionally are not cats that like to just sit on the sofa, are they?

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Albert Colominas: They are not.

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Albert Colominas: And I think that I did not do my due diligence well enough when I decided to get a Bengal.

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Albert Colominas: I was happy with the non allergy producing DNA.

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Albert Colominas: And I was also very happy with the spots.

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Albert Colominas: And I was like, this looks like good enough for me.

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Albert Colominas: Spots, non allergy, I'll get these cats.

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Albert Colominas: And then I learned that, oh man, like all cats need enrichment, but Bengal cats are one of a kind.

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Albert Colominas: So yeah, I got faced with a challenge.

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Arden Moore: So Mia, what was she like?

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Arden Moore: Because I jokingly say, Albert, I've written 27 dog and cat books.

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Arden Moore: And one of them is the Cat Behavior Answer Book, which I'm not Oprah, but after the show, I'm going to mail an autographed copy to you.

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Albert Colominas: Please do.

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Arden Moore: Casey made the cover.

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Arden Moore: So that's cool.

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Arden Moore: But I say that the first year you have with a kitten is called the wonder year.

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Arden Moore: You wonder where your sanity goes.

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Arden Moore: Now, multiply that by a million.

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Arden Moore: And that's growing up with a kitten, a Bengal kitten named Mia, right?

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Albert Colominas: Absolutely.

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Albert Colominas: She would reach places I did not know cats would reach.

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Albert Colominas: And she was tiny.

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Albert Colominas: And I could find her on top of a fridge.

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Albert Colominas: And I'm like, there's no way she can get out on the fridge.

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Albert Colominas: Like there's no material way that she could possibly use to get on top of the fridge.

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Albert Colominas: But she was there.

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Albert Colominas: Or she would disappear for four, five, six hours.

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Albert Colominas: And then I would realize that under the couch, she had crawled underneath, poked the hole into the sofa, and just made the sofa her own hammock.

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Albert Colominas: Like she was destructive in ways I could not have imagined.

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Albert Colominas: And she was demanding for my attention all the time.

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Arden Moore: But that was a good thing.

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Arden Moore: And everyone, we're going to find out how he took this crazy refrigerator, climbing, get tucked under a couch, kitten named Mia, and how they team up now, and they're going to help us.

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Arden Moore: So the adventures of a Bengal cat named Mia and Albert are going to continue.

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Arden Moore: You know the drill.

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Arden Moore: You're going to sit, purr.

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Arden Moore: We'll be right back.

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Announcer: Time for a walk on the red carpet, of course.

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Announcer: Oh Behave will be back in a flash, right after these messages.

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Arden Moore: Pause up, Pet Pals.

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Arden Moore: Arden Moore here, your host of the Oh Behave show.

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Arden Moore: Me-

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Arden Moore: Wow!

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Arden Moore: Did you know there's up to 100 million free roaming cats in the United States?

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Arden Moore: And without spay or neuter, that number is only going to keep growing.

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Arden Moore: Not only does spay neuter humanely reduce the community cat population, it keeps cats healthy.

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Arden Moore: Scooter, the neutered cat, is on a mission to give cats an extra life by making it hip to be snipped. Visit his website, givethemten.org, to help pioneer a better world for cats.

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Arden Moore: That's GiveThemTen, spelled out, T-E-N, dot org. Hey, check them out.

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Amy Schumer: Hi, this is Amy Schumer.

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Amy Schumer: You're listening to Arden Moore on Pet Life Radio, where they keep it real and make everyone feel like they're pets.

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Announcer: We're back from the lot.

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Announcer: Just check the paper, and we had a record showing at the box.

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Announcer: The letter box, that is.

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Announcer: Now back to Oh Behave, here's Arden.

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Arden Moore: Welcome back to the Oh Behave Show on Pet Life Radio.

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Arden Moore: I'm your host, Arden Moore.

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Arden Moore: Our special guest today is Albert Colominas.

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Arden Moore: He is a marketer, but he also is the creator of a company.

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Arden Moore: I want you to check out, it's called Outdoor Bangle.

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Arden Moore: And as we've discovered, his life just started getting full of ready-for-it-purpose once he adopted Mia, his Bengal cat.

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Arden Moore: So you started delving into cat training and behavior.

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Arden Moore: You do your homework, you're a marketer.

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Arden Moore: So you're doing your research.

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Arden Moore: So when did you realize, I can have a box of Kleenex and I can live with a cat, but this cat's a star?

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Albert Colominas: So it's good you ask because there's a transition where you realize that the cat is extremely smart.

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Albert Colominas: And from the moment you realize the cat is extremely smart and the moment you decide to do something about it, there's a gap in realization.

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Albert Colominas: And with Mia, she was giving me these cues that she understood what was happening around.

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Albert Colominas: If I opened the fridge, she would come by.

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Albert Colominas: And it's like, that's positive reinforcement per se.

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Albert Colominas: At the time, I did not know what that was, but that was basically the cat linking something that was happening externally with something that she was rewarded with, because every time I was opening the fridge, if she came by, I would give her something.

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Albert Colominas: And these little things are, I would get the keys.

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Albert Colominas: And when I was giving the keys, she knew that I would give her a head rub, and then she would climb on the counter to get her head rub.

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Albert Colominas: And these little cues that like, she really understands what's going on here.

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Albert Colominas: So I started researching about dog training.

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Albert Colominas: Well, I look for cat training, I did not really see much.

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Albert Colominas: So I started looking at dog training to see how people train their dogs.

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Albert Colominas: And I started using dog training on my cat Mia.

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Arden Moore: With cats, they're all about predictability.

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Arden Moore: They're very smart at observing us, right?

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Arden Moore: So your cat, even though she was tiny and young, she was picking up these consistent cues.

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Arden Moore: So when did you say, I think she would be an adventure cat?

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Arden Moore: What were the cues?

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Arden Moore: And tell us some of the things that you two do together.

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Albert Colominas: So, yeah, it's another funny one.

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Albert Colominas: So she was looking out the window all the time.

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Albert Colominas: I have a small, tiny balcony in my apartment and I would open the door and she would run like straight outside as soon as the door opened.

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Albert Colominas: So I was like, she's really curious about the outdoors.

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Albert Colominas: She has a ton of energy.

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Albert Colominas: What if I walk her, like by the time she could stay on command, she would come when called.

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Albert Colominas: I think I taught her how to spin, how to wait for her foot.

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Albert Colominas: So I was like, she's doing all these things that I've never heard a cat could do before.

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Albert Colominas: So what if we continue challenging the status quo and we try to get Mia to walk on a leash?

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Albert Colominas: And I did a little bit of research here because I wanted to make sure that I was not overwhelming her because cats are predators, but they are also prey and they are a lot more cautious when they go into the outside.

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Albert Colominas: So I was like, let me see if it can be done.

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Albert Colominas: But then very quickly, I remembered that there's more cats outdoors than there's indoors.

00:14:00.720 --> 00:14:02.440
Albert Colominas: Like indoor cats are a new thing.

00:14:02.620 --> 00:14:04.060
Arden Moore: Yeah, relatively, yeah.

00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:05.340
Albert Colominas: That's the modernity of it.

00:14:05.400 --> 00:14:08.120
Albert Colominas: But cats are designed to be outdoors.

00:14:08.140 --> 00:14:11.720
Albert Colominas: They have shark claws, they have huge, beautiful reflexes.

00:14:12.020 --> 00:14:14.400
Albert Colominas: So I was like, she can really go outdoors.

00:14:14.420 --> 00:14:17.720
Albert Colominas: Let's just make sure that she goes outdoors in the most comfortable way.

00:14:17.980 --> 00:14:19.820
Albert Colominas: So did some research.

00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:24.260
Albert Colominas: I learned that you cannot walk a cat using a collar because they can choke themselves.

00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:26.660
Albert Colominas: Or if you're using a cat collar, they break away.

00:14:26.680 --> 00:14:27.960
Albert Colominas: So you might lose your cat.

00:14:28.160 --> 00:14:29.360
Albert Colominas: And I got a cat harness.

00:14:29.380 --> 00:14:30.980
Albert Colominas: Well, I got a ton of cat harnesses.

00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:34.400
Albert Colominas: And when I found one that she liked, then we started going on adventures.

00:14:34.680 --> 00:14:39.080
Albert Colominas: And sorry, I went on a rabbit hole, but you were asking about what, what adventures.

00:14:39.640 --> 00:14:41.400
Arden Moore: We're talking cats and rabbit holes.

00:14:41.420 --> 00:14:46.980
Arden Moore: But so now people need to know, you're not just taking Mia around the block.

00:14:47.100 --> 00:14:50.200
Arden Moore: I understand she probably has a kitty passport now.

00:14:50.560 --> 00:14:51.820
Arden Moore: Where have you taken her?

00:14:51.980 --> 00:14:52.980
Arden Moore: What are some of the places?

00:14:53.180 --> 00:14:54.740
Albert Colominas: Yeah, she has a kitty passport.

00:14:54.960 --> 00:15:00.220
Albert Colominas: The reason why, and the first time I traveled, I traveled for pleasure, but then I'm from Spain.

00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:03.220
Albert Colominas: I visit my mom at least twice a year.

00:15:03.280 --> 00:15:04.500
Albert Colominas: I try to make it more.

00:15:04.780 --> 00:15:09.800
Albert Colominas: So I wanted to make her comfortable when traveling because I did not want to leave her behind.

00:15:10.020 --> 00:15:14.680
Albert Colominas: And I also did not want to overwhelm her every time I was taking her on a trip.

00:15:15.260 --> 00:15:21.380
Albert Colominas: So I wanted to do some training with smaller trips around the country before I took her overseas.

00:15:22.100 --> 00:15:25.700
Albert Colominas: And it was still in the middle of the pandemic, things started to open up.

00:15:26.100 --> 00:15:31.860
Albert Colominas: And I was with this kitten that had a ton of energy and I also needed to go outside.

00:15:32.380 --> 00:15:37.060
Albert Colominas: And I decided to go on a road trip with a girl I was seeing at the time.

00:15:37.260 --> 00:15:38.080
Albert Colominas: Didn't work out.

00:15:38.260 --> 00:15:40.800
Albert Colominas: I have great experience in having-

00:15:40.820 --> 00:15:41.700
Arden Moore: Stick with cats.

00:15:41.880 --> 00:15:43.100
Arden Moore: Stick with cats, Albert.

00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:45.080
Albert Colominas: That was my realization.

00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:46.700
Albert Colominas: That was my realization.

00:15:46.720 --> 00:15:48.020
Albert Colominas: Mia is gonna be there forever.

00:15:48.280 --> 00:15:52.900
Albert Colominas: So we decided to go on a road trip and I took Mia with us.

00:15:53.220 --> 00:16:00.100
Albert Colominas: And that was the first time that I realized that she can really enjoy and thrive outdoors.

00:16:00.380 --> 00:16:04.220
Albert Colominas: We went to Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.

00:16:04.460 --> 00:16:09.160
Albert Colominas: We did, I think, close to 4,000 miles on a van.

00:16:09.740 --> 00:16:15.680
Albert Colominas: And then it's also when our Instagram, TikTok, sorry, at the time exploded.

00:16:15.880 --> 00:16:19.000
Albert Colominas: We were sharing our adventures and people started to get curious.

00:16:19.020 --> 00:16:20.180
Albert Colominas: How are you doing this?

00:16:20.640 --> 00:16:22.980
Albert Colominas: How do you teach her to walk on a leash?

00:16:23.260 --> 00:16:26.700
Albert Colominas: How do you manage poo and pee when you're traveling?

00:16:26.900 --> 00:16:33.320
Arden Moore: Yeah, going 70 miles an hour and your kiddies got to go and you've got air conditioning on and they drop a deuce.

00:16:33.660 --> 00:16:35.000
Arden Moore: You better keep going.

00:16:35.580 --> 00:16:36.800
Albert Colominas: Yeah, exactly.

00:16:36.820 --> 00:16:38.700
Albert Colominas: You open the windows and hope for the best.

00:16:39.020 --> 00:16:47.200
Albert Colominas: Now, with the van, it was kind of easy because we had a portable litter box and we set it up on the floor of the co-pilot.

00:16:47.560 --> 00:16:52.120
Albert Colominas: So she was inside her carrier at the time and she would start meowing.

00:16:52.420 --> 00:17:01.420
Albert Colominas: We would open the door and even while driving, she would know where the sand is, where the litter box was, and she would just do her thing.

00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:04.020
Albert Colominas: She would cover her thing and we could continue going.

00:17:04.180 --> 00:17:06.840
Albert Colominas: Then ensure that that still sticks.

00:17:06.940 --> 00:17:10.780
Albert Colominas: So you need to do something about it, but it's better than if she does it on the carpet.

00:17:10.920 --> 00:17:14.480
Arden Moore: So with people want to follow you on TikTok, Albert, what is it?

00:17:14.520 --> 00:17:15.080
Arden Moore: How do they go?

00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:18.840
Albert Colominas: So our TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, everywhere, it's the same.

00:17:18.840 --> 00:17:20.860
Albert Colominas: It's outdoor, Bengal.

00:17:21.600 --> 00:17:27.480
Albert Colominas: And yeah, you'll find us in every single platform, social media platform that we're present with, with that handle.

00:17:27.600 --> 00:17:29.760
Arden Moore: Good thing you've got marketing as a background.

00:17:30.020 --> 00:17:33.860
Arden Moore: So I understand sailed around Long Island with her?

00:17:33.980 --> 00:17:34.940
Albert Colominas: Yes, yes.

00:17:34.940 --> 00:17:36.380
Albert Colominas: We did a few beautiful trips.

00:17:36.520 --> 00:17:38.420
Albert Colominas: We went to do this road trip.

00:17:38.540 --> 00:17:42.080
Albert Colominas: We went to the Caribbean for a bit during COVID as well.

00:17:42.100 --> 00:17:48.000
Albert Colominas: I was still working remotely and we went to the Caribbean for five months and we were living there for five months.

00:17:48.320 --> 00:17:48.980
Arden Moore: What countries?

00:17:48.980 --> 00:17:53.660
Albert Colominas: In the Virgin Islands because the company I worked for, they wanted us to stay in the US.

00:17:53.940 --> 00:18:00.360
Albert Colominas: So I took the USA map and I was, how far south can I go?

00:18:00.980 --> 00:18:07.020
Albert Colominas: And I realized that there was something even more south than Florida, which was the Virgin Islands.

00:18:07.040 --> 00:18:07.780
Albert Colominas: So there we went.

00:18:07.880 --> 00:18:16.540
Albert Colominas: And it was the same time, it was Eastern time, just like it's one hour less than Eastern time, but it was also very easy to manage from a work point of view.

00:18:16.680 --> 00:18:17.920
Albert Colominas: So that was also beautiful.

00:18:17.940 --> 00:18:24.500
Albert Colominas: And then coming back from the Caribbean, I had a couple of friends that owned a sailboat, and they also have a cat.

00:18:24.640 --> 00:18:28.500
Albert Colominas: They got Coyote, it's the name of their orange cat.

00:18:28.740 --> 00:18:30.140
Albert Colominas: They got Coyote because of Mia.

00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:33.800
Albert Colominas: They learned that, oh, cats can go outside, cats can do fun stuff.

00:18:33.820 --> 00:18:41.340
Albert Colominas: They were living on the sailboat at the time, and they decided to get a Coyote to accompany them on their trips.

00:18:41.600 --> 00:18:45.720
Albert Colominas: And they went on the summer of 21, I think it was.

00:18:46.220 --> 00:18:54.540
Albert Colominas: They went on a round trip, circumnavigation along Long Island, and Mia and I went along with them, and it was beautiful.

00:18:54.800 --> 00:18:56.520
Arden Moore: Now, what are some things Mia can do?

00:18:56.540 --> 00:18:57.600
Arden Moore: Can Mia swim?

00:18:57.640 --> 00:18:59.540
Arden Moore: Can Mia go on a paddleboard?

00:18:59.560 --> 00:19:02.120
Arden Moore: What can Mia do in the world of outdoors?

00:19:02.580 --> 00:19:06.740
Albert Colominas: So she's ridden almost every single means of transportation.

00:19:06.900 --> 00:19:08.760
Albert Colominas: So she rides with me on my bike.

00:19:09.280 --> 00:19:12.200
Albert Colominas: She hikes with me either walking or on my shoulder.

00:19:12.400 --> 00:19:14.180
Albert Colominas: We have done paddleboarding.

00:19:14.200 --> 00:19:15.340
Albert Colominas: We have gone sailing.

00:19:15.360 --> 00:19:17.580
Albert Colominas: She's pretty good at car drives.

00:19:17.580 --> 00:19:19.700
Albert Colominas: She will stick her head out the window.

00:19:19.720 --> 00:19:20.580
Arden Moore: Uh-oh.

00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:28.600
Albert Colominas: Yeah, note for everybody listening, make sure you're wearing, you have a good harness on your cat if you let them do that.

00:19:28.680 --> 00:19:31.800
Albert Colominas: But she's very good with movement and speed.

00:19:31.820 --> 00:19:34.920
Albert Colominas: She likes the air on her face, but she does not swim.

00:19:34.940 --> 00:19:36.280
Arden Moore: Oh, she doesn't swim.

00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:44.260
Albert Colominas: One of the things that I read when I was looking for what Bengal cats do and what Bengal cats are, it's that they love water.

00:19:44.740 --> 00:19:48.260
Albert Colominas: And I just learned that that goes cat to cat.

00:19:48.380 --> 00:19:51.460
Albert Colominas: Not all Bengal cats will like going on a leash.

00:19:51.560 --> 00:19:53.940
Albert Colominas: Not all Bengal cats will like water.

00:19:54.120 --> 00:19:56.120
Albert Colominas: And Mia is one of those that she likes.

00:19:56.140 --> 00:19:56.800
Arden Moore: Well, that's all right.

00:19:58.400 --> 00:20:00.500
Arden Moore: That makes her a little more human, I guess.

00:20:00.820 --> 00:20:08.440
Arden Moore: So you've not only got this adventure cat, you're a marketer and you're like, wait a minute, there's some products out there that I've been using.

00:20:08.460 --> 00:20:11.380
Arden Moore: I wish I could just tweak them and make them better.

00:20:11.860 --> 00:20:13.820
Arden Moore: So we've got a few minutes left.

00:20:13.820 --> 00:20:20.300
Arden Moore: Tell us how you ended up coming up with some outdoor Bengal line of products.

00:20:20.320 --> 00:20:22.360
Arden Moore: And can you name some of the things that you've done?

00:20:22.680 --> 00:20:23.960
Albert Colominas: Yes, absolutely.

00:20:23.960 --> 00:20:33.840
Albert Colominas: So one of the things that I do for a living, it's understand consumer needs and then take products that are in the market and see if those consumer needs are met.

00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:41.200
Albert Colominas: And if they are met, just communicate them to consumers so that they know that the product can solve the needs that they have.

00:20:41.480 --> 00:20:51.960
Albert Colominas: But if the needs are not met, what we do in my team is we find ways to improve those products so that consumers can get the results from the products they're buying that they are expecting.

00:20:52.380 --> 00:21:02.540
Albert Colominas: And I use that expertise to taking the dozens of cat harnesses that we've tried over the last two years before I launched our own cat harness.

00:21:03.100 --> 00:21:09.180
Albert Colominas: And we decided to take the best of all of them and remove the worst of all of them and design our own cat harness.

00:21:10.140 --> 00:21:13.120
Albert Colominas: And it's been an adventure.

00:21:13.140 --> 00:21:14.480
Albert Colominas: It's been extremely fun.

00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:19.220
Albert Colominas: And the harness, it's called Houdini because it's a...

00:21:19.360 --> 00:21:19.940
Arden Moore: Perfect.

00:21:20.120 --> 00:21:28.760
Albert Colominas: Yeah, I started calling it scape-proof, but the reality is that there's no such thing as an escape-proof cat harness because cats are Houdinis.

00:21:29.140 --> 00:21:40.240
Albert Colominas: So now I call it escape-resistant, it has an escape-proof system, but it's true that if you've set a cat wearing any harness for an extended period of time, the cat will escape.

00:21:40.440 --> 00:21:46.540
Albert Colominas: But it's a very safe harness that's comfortable for Mia and by extension for all cats.

00:21:46.740 --> 00:21:53.800
Albert Colominas: But then we like these developing products things, so we also created a clicker training kit.

00:21:54.360 --> 00:22:00.340
Albert Colominas: So it comes with a target stick, with a clicker, with a short quick start manual.

00:22:00.680 --> 00:22:02.640
Albert Colominas: And we also developed a card game.

00:22:02.900 --> 00:22:05.000
Arden Moore: Yeah, I was interested in that.

00:22:05.100 --> 00:22:09.920
Arden Moore: I understand it's called the card game, the Click Crusade cat training card game.

00:22:11.520 --> 00:22:12.280
Arden Moore: How does that work?

00:22:12.560 --> 00:22:24.940
Albert Colominas: So something that I struggled with when I started learning more about operant conditioning and clicker training and learning about things that dogs can do, it was coming up with things to teach me.

00:22:25.060 --> 00:22:31.640
Albert Colominas: She was learning super fast and there was not enough resources for me to gather inspiration from.

00:22:32.180 --> 00:22:37.920
Albert Colominas: And after these three and a half years of teaching her tricks, she knows over 40 tricks now.

00:22:38.000 --> 00:23:06.640
Albert Colominas: So I decided to create this short, easy to understand cards for everybody that's training their cat and they want to go beyond seat and stay and spin and lay down and they want to teach their cat to maybe jump on their shoulders or jump through your arms or I don't know, get off the counter, like having a bunch of get on the carrier on command, all those tricks that maybe some of them, not even dogs can do.

00:23:07.420 --> 00:23:12.000
Albert Colominas: I wanted to just put them on a card game that was easy to understand for everybody.

00:23:12.300 --> 00:23:12.900
Arden Moore: I like that.

00:23:12.920 --> 00:23:20.840
Arden Moore: So what would you say are the top three pretty tough tricks that Mia seems to like or does so well?

00:23:20.860 --> 00:23:21.420
Arden Moore: What are three?

00:23:21.420 --> 00:23:22.100
Arden Moore: What would you say?

00:23:22.600 --> 00:23:26.220
Albert Colominas: My favorite one is jumping on my shoulder on command.

00:23:26.980 --> 00:23:29.580
Albert Colominas: And that's something that some cats do naturally.

00:23:29.640 --> 00:23:33.200
Albert Colominas: Mia was not doing naturally and I was fascinated by it.

00:23:33.620 --> 00:23:40.860
Albert Colominas: And we found a very simple way to teach her to do that, which is using your knee as a ladder.

00:23:41.100 --> 00:23:47.160
Albert Colominas: So I go down a little bit, I offer the knee, and then she jumps from the floor to my knee, from the knee to my shoulder.

00:23:47.180 --> 00:23:52.980
Albert Colominas: And then she walks, she crawls to the other side of my head to stick the head out next to mine.

00:23:53.600 --> 00:23:55.260
Albert Colominas: That's my favorite trick by far.

00:23:55.440 --> 00:23:58.100
Arden Moore: So you look like a pirate with a parrot, right?

00:23:58.260 --> 00:23:59.900
Albert Colominas: It's a heavy parrot, but yes.

00:24:01.420 --> 00:24:02.600
Arden Moore: All right, that's number one.

00:24:02.620 --> 00:24:03.260
Arden Moore: What's a couple other?

00:24:03.280 --> 00:24:04.180
Albert Colominas: That's number one.

00:24:04.300 --> 00:24:07.140
Albert Colominas: Number two, it's a combination of this one and riding a bike.

00:24:07.300 --> 00:24:13.540
Albert Colominas: I first thought Mia to ride on a bike with me on the basket, but then she was more comfortable on my shoulder than on the basket.

00:24:13.820 --> 00:24:17.820
Albert Colominas: So she would jump from the basket to my shoulder as we were riding the bike.

00:24:17.940 --> 00:24:20.400
Albert Colominas: So now I just, I don't have a basket anymore.

00:24:20.420 --> 00:24:22.420
Albert Colominas: She goes on my shoulder when we're riding the bike.

00:24:22.580 --> 00:24:23.940
Albert Colominas: And this is another thing that I love.

00:24:23.960 --> 00:24:27.200
Albert Colominas: I think I love these two tricks because dogs could not do this.

00:24:27.220 --> 00:24:28.880
Albert Colominas: They don't have sharp enough claws.

00:24:29.060 --> 00:24:31.420
Albert Colominas: So I'm like, hell yeah, hooray for cats.

00:24:31.860 --> 00:24:34.180
Albert Colominas: She's doing something that a dog could not do.

00:24:34.540 --> 00:24:36.040
Arden Moore: And what would be the third?

00:24:36.320 --> 00:24:44.060
Albert Colominas: The third one, which it's not the most useful, but it's something that wows people a lot.

00:24:44.080 --> 00:24:53.720
Albert Colominas: When I travel with Mia and we're at the airport and she's walking on her leash and the gate open and there's everybody standing up and it's our time to get inside the plane.

00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:59.000
Albert Colominas: I just point at the carrier and I say, great, and she will just pop onto the carrier.

00:24:59.020 --> 00:24:59.940
Albert Colominas: Let me close it.

00:25:00.300 --> 00:25:01.500
Albert Colominas: And it's just beautiful.

00:25:01.520 --> 00:25:09.080
Albert Colominas: And everybody that's around that see these, they're like, how in the world did you teach your cat to get on the carrier on command?

00:25:09.100 --> 00:25:10.720
Albert Colominas: So that's another one that I found funny.

00:25:11.500 --> 00:25:13.140
Arden Moore: Well, we're almost out of time.

00:25:13.240 --> 00:25:17.500
Arden Moore: I want everyone to please go to outdoorbangle.com.

00:25:17.720 --> 00:25:22.440
Arden Moore: That's also the name for all his social media, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube.

00:25:22.620 --> 00:25:28.260
Arden Moore: But Albert, what's something that Mia has done to make you a better human?

00:25:28.520 --> 00:25:32.020
Albert Colominas: She has made me a better human in so many ways.

00:25:32.340 --> 00:25:34.080
Albert Colominas: I cannot thank her enough.

00:25:34.260 --> 00:25:39.340
Albert Colominas: I have focused on myself and my career for a long part of my life.

00:25:39.700 --> 00:25:46.200
Albert Colominas: And as soon as I got Mia, I realized that someone else's happiness was entirely dependent on me.

00:25:46.260 --> 00:25:56.220
Albert Colominas: I've had partners and I want to say that I try to be the best partner I can be, but I like strong people that are independent so they don't need me.

00:25:56.240 --> 00:25:59.280
Albert Colominas: And I try to find partners that don't need me, that they just want me.

00:25:59.700 --> 00:26:07.940
Albert Colominas: But with Mia, she depends entirely on me to get her enrichment, to get her food, to get her care, to get her love.

00:26:08.440 --> 00:26:18.380
Albert Colominas: And that made me a much more selfless person because I know that I need to provide for someone that depends entirely on me.

00:26:18.420 --> 00:26:19.300
Arden Moore: That was beautiful.

00:26:19.620 --> 00:26:22.680
Arden Moore: If I was your mom, I'd be so proud of you, young man.

00:26:22.700 --> 00:26:26.280
Arden Moore: Hey, we're speaking with Albert Colominas.

00:26:26.380 --> 00:26:28.660
Arden Moore: Please check out Outdoor Bangle.

00:26:28.780 --> 00:26:30.460
Arden Moore: Please follow Mia.

00:26:30.840 --> 00:26:32.180
Arden Moore: What an adventure cat.

00:26:32.560 --> 00:26:34.800
Arden Moore: And I thank you for being on the show.

00:26:34.820 --> 00:26:36.540
Arden Moore: I hope you had a good time, Albert.

00:26:36.680 --> 00:26:38.600
Albert Colominas: Thank you so much for having me, Arden.

00:26:38.740 --> 00:26:41.240
Albert Colominas: Absolutely a pleasure to be here with you.

00:26:41.400 --> 00:26:45.520
Arden Moore: Man, at this time, I want to do a shout out to my producer, Mark Winter.

00:26:45.780 --> 00:26:48.860
Arden Moore: He is the executive producer of Pet Life Radio.

00:26:49.100 --> 00:26:52.260
Arden Moore: This is the biggest pet radio network on the planet.

00:26:52.280 --> 00:26:53.480
Arden Moore: Check it out, Albert.

00:26:54.040 --> 00:27:01.360
Arden Moore: And our show has been on the air since 07 and makes us the longest running weekly pet podcast anywhere.

00:27:01.580 --> 00:27:04.300
Arden Moore: Please follow me on YouTube, Arden Moore.

00:27:04.920 --> 00:27:09.100
Arden Moore: Arden knows pets on Tik Tok, please, Albert, follow me.

00:27:09.600 --> 00:27:16.420
Arden Moore: And everyone, I just have two words to all you two, three and four leggers out there, Oh Behave.

00:27:17.240 --> 00:27:21.460
Announcer: Coast to coast and around the world, it's Oh Behave with Arden Moore.

00:27:21.580 --> 00:27:28.820
Announcer: Find out why cats and dogs do the things they do and get the latest buzz from Wagging Tongues and Tails in Rin Tin Tinseltown.

00:27:29.240 --> 00:27:37.140
Announcer: From famous pet experts and bestselling authors to television and movie stars, you'll get great tail-wagging pet tips and have a fur-flying fun time.

00:27:37.160 --> 00:27:45.580
Announcer: Oh Behave with America's pet edutainer, Arden Moore, every week on demand, only on petliferadio.com.