The TV Column

My Cat From Hell returns Saturday for 9th season

Jackson Galaxy helps a querulous Savannah adjust to its people (and vice versa) when My Cat From Hell returns to Animal Planet at 8 p.m. Saturday.
Jackson Galaxy helps a querulous Savannah adjust to its people (and vice versa) when My Cat From Hell returns to Animal Planet at 8 p.m. Saturday.

There's a wise old maxim that says, "There are no bad cats, just bad cat owners." OK, maybe that's about dogs, but the same could be applied to our feisty feline fur babies as well.

Don't take my word on it, although I am a certified cat person (just ask the paper's Otus the Head Cat), but you can trust the world-famous "Cat Daddy" from Animal Planet, Jackson Galaxy.

The 52-year-old New York native, is to kitties what "Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan is to pooches. If you have a chaotic cat, Galaxy is your go-to guy.

You can pick up all his tips on Animal Planet's My Cat From Hell. Season 9 purrs in at 7 p.m. Saturday with "Posey the Terror." Posey is "a troubled cat terrorizing a family about to bring home a newborn baby." There are a couple of other tales in the episode, but Posey will be the main challenge.

A second episode, "Pee Battle," follows at 8. In what might be an all-too-familiar situation for many viewers, Galaxy helps a mother and daughter whose cats have what he calls "pissing matches" that are ruining their furniture and their relationship.

Just one look at Galaxy (who was born Richard Kirshner) with his shaved head, beard sculpture, hoop earrings and tons of tattoos, will tell you he's not your ordinary pet guru. He looks more like a heavy metal dude. In fact, he started out to be a musician (he still carries his cat toys in a guitar case) when he moved to Boulder, Colo., in 1992, where the rock scene was hip 'n' happenin'.

Unfortunately, it was too happenin' and Galaxy soon lost his way with assorted addictions. In his 2012 book, Cat Daddy: What the World's Most Incorrigible Cat Taught Me About Life, Love and Coming Clean, Galaxy says he found his road to redemption at the Humane Society of Boulder Valley.

He worked there almost 10 years and it was a calling that earned him a reputation as a cat behaviorist and, once he moved to Los Angeles in 2007, landed him a gig on TV.

For many, Galaxy is a last resort. Their psycho cats from hell have wreaked such havoc that relationships are at the breaking point, and injured owners have even been sent to the hospital.

The most important lesson Galaxy hammers home with vexed owners is that cats are not, as many believe, totally self-sufficient. True, they are resourceful and may seem aloof, but they still thrive on companionship and the social structure of a home. When you are gone, they miss you. You are their person.

On My Cat From Hell, Galaxy frequently treats the owners' bad habits as well as the cats' -- especially about the importance of play. A good deal of cat behavioral problems stem from not having an outlet for the energy that, in the wild, is used for hunting, catching, killing and eating.

During the new season, Galaxy will join an old friend and animal welfare expert to recruit volunteers to save feral cats in Philadelphia, and visit a prison program called Meow Mates that places foster cats behind bars to help rehabilitate inmates.

Other episodes will cover a foster cat guardian desperate to save his animal from being put down, and a traumatized veteran whose therapy cat is causing even more stress.

The bottom line is My Cat From Hell is heart warming and inspirational, and maybe you can even pick up a few tips along the way.

Wolves and Warriors premieres at 9 p.m. Saturday on Animal Planet, meaning if you stick with Animal Planet all Saturday evening, you'll segue directly from cats to wolves.

This new series follows the husband and wife team behind Lockwood Animal Rescue Center in Frazier Park, Calif. Navy veteran Matt Simmons and Dr. Lorin Lindner run the private sanctuary that rescues and rehabilitates wolves and wolf/dog hybrids whose lives are threatened.

The center employs a team of combat veterans who help rescue and care for the wolves as a way of recovering from their own trauma.

In tonight's first episode, Matt and the team rescue Sadira, a grey wolf, out of a backyard in Oregon, and an Army veteran joins the team as he tries to mend his relationship with his family.

• Race finale. The Great Food Truck Race wraps up Season 9 at 9 p.m. today on Food Channel. The final two teams return to Los Angeles, where host Tyler Florence welcomes them to the historic Pueblo de Los Angeles, the center of LA's Mexican heritage and culture.

Ancient Aliens, 8 p.m. Friday on History Channel. Here's an episode that'll get you to pondering stuff. In "The Artificial Human," we take a look at whether intelligent robots are simply the next step in human evolution -- a destiny prepared by aliens who visited thousands of years ago. Oooo.

The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email: mstorey@arkansasonline.com

Weekend on 08/30/2018

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