Cats Are So Expressive

As "My Cat From Hell" returns to "Animal Planet" for a fifth season, HuffPost TV spoke with Jackson Galaxy for a friendly reminder that basically everything we think we know about cats is wrong. Galaxy, the most (/only) famous cat behaviorist in the world, elaborated on the beauty of pet parenthood and all the kitty I-love-you's you've been missing out on.

When cats blink, they're basically saying "I love you" ...
For cats, communicating love is the equivalent of communicating vulnerability. As predators, a long blink is actually a very important feline gesture, because it surrenders the animal to harm and sends up a message of trust. "When a cat shuts their eyes to you for an extended period, it's a grand gesture," Galaxy explained. "It is to say to a potential predator, 'Go ahead, I trust that you won't kill me.'"

... and rolling over on their back doesn't just mean they want a belly rub. 
As Galaxy knows all too well, most people think of a cat rolling over as "an invitation to go and pet their tummy," but it goes back to that idea of being vulnerable -- what he considers the "highest compliment" a cat can give you. "What they are showing you, by exposing their midline, is 'This is my most vulnerable spot, if you were a predator, you could eviscerate me right now. Just like the blink is the cat I-love-you, this is the cat version of a hug," said Galaxy.

Cats rarely attempt to make statements (read: peeing outside the litter box does not mean Princess Sparkles "hates" you) ...
In all the time he's spent with cats and their pet parents, Galaxy knows that they can function almost as "four-legged tabula rasa ... just ripe for projection." That idea that all of a cat's behavior can be understood as a "statement" is wrong. The answer usually lies in some issue with their surroundings.

... and when cats are acting out, there is usually a reason.
Cat behavior is not random. Of course, some of any feline's behavior can be attributed to their inherent disposition, but environment is almost always a factor. Galaxy said, "It’s so much easier for us to treat cat behavior in a vacuum, as opposed to treating it as a reflection of our own social dynamic."

All cats have different personalities, and it's silly to assume they all follow the same pattern of behavior.
Understanding your cat's temperament can be crucial to raising a well-behaved animal. To encourage this, Galaxy sometimes has pet parents create a backstory for their cat. Especially when it comes to rescue cats, owners often don't know their story. "I really believe that if you put on those glasses and look at their world with stakes involved, as if it matters, then you will start to solve their problems," he said.

Cats need (and enjoy) our attention ...
One of the most common misconceptions about cats is that they want to be left alone. Galaxy disagrees. "We absolutely need to be interactive with cats, they shouldn't just be on the periphery," he said. "Your job as a pet parent extends beyond cleaning the litter box and putting out food."

... in fact, you should actively be making time to play with them. 
Again, because cats are predators, spending time with them is crucial to letting them expend their natural energy. Even if you're hyper busy, Galaxy encourages at least 10 minutes of "brushing or loving." He says that quality time will make a difference, even "if you can just sit next to them or make sure they are happy and stimulated" in your home.

"My Cat From Hell" premieres Saturday, April 26, at 8 p.m. EDT on Animal Planet.

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“The Republican Party will adapt, evolve or die,” Paul said Friday. “The Republican Party needs to look like the rest of America in order to have a chance.”

Rand Paul’s road to 2016 took him through Boston to tap two key groups he’ll need if he runs for the GOP’s presidential nomination: support from the party’s establishment donors and a fresh source of young voters.

The Kentucky senator tested his brand of “libertarian twist” Friday during with an event before students at Harvard’s Institute of Politics in Cambridge, Mass. Joking that Republicans likely accounted for only 5-to-10% of the audience, Paul found himself outside of his usual element: a posh, ivy-league setting compared to the grassroots base he’s built from the right-wing’s establishment outsiders.

But if his northeast visit wasn’t proof enough, Paul is clearly trying to bridge those two worlds. Though he hasn’t officially announced a 2016 presidential bid, the senator has said he is very seriously considering his options. Boosting that image, Paul reportedly met earlier Friday with the architects and top donors for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign who would prove crucial in building inroads with the party establishment.

So far, Paul has successfully tapped into the network of libertarian followers loyal to his father, a former Texas congressman and failed presidential candidate. While typically associated with the tea party wing of the Republican Party, his profile is starting to extend beyond grassroots circles to the party’s establishment as a likely presidential candidate down the road.

Trey Greyson, director at the university’s Institute of Politics and, coincidentally, the man Paul beat to the Senate by a near landslide in 2010, introduced Paul as the party’s best shot at grabbing young people. Paul is “without question the Republican who best connects with millennial voters across the country,” Greyson said, noting the “shellacking” Paul gave him when they met head-to-head in the Senate election.

Paul has frequently prodded Republican elites to make the party more inclusive – particularly to women and minorities. And though he voted against the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform bill last year, Paul didn’t rule out the possibility that Congress could pass at least something this year.

“The Republican Party will adapt, evolve or die,” Paul said Friday. “The Republican Party needs to look like the rest of America in order to have a chance.”

Paul still has a ways to go in appealing to a larger swath of more traditional conservatives. Many were turned off by the Kentucky senator’s comments on abortion this week when he said wouldn’t make efforts to dismantle Roe v. Wadeanytime soon. Though his comments were largely in line with the position he’s always held on abortion – he’s against it and believes life begins at conception –social conservatives were furious to hear the high-profile Republican wouldn’t make bans on abortion a priority.

Paul nudged back Friday, saying sometimes the debate “gets dumbed down too much that we’re in one extreme or the other.”

“I think there may well could be incremental change and that’s most likely to happen,” he added.

The Kentucky senator managed to avoid any mention of Cliven Bundy, the rancher caught illegally free-loading in letting his cattle graze on federal land for the better part of two decades. Paul was one of the first, and certainly one of the most prominent, to jump behind Bundy’s cause against government overreach amid an armed stand-off with the Bureau of Land Management. Paul however quickly exchanged his tacit endorsement of Bundy’s cause with a full-throated condemnation after a report in The New York Times captured Bundy spouting a litany of racist comments.

Paul Friday instead steered a libertarian pitch toward the crowd of mostly young people with a clear intent to hook millennials on issues that don’t clearly fall on one side of the aisle, and then reel them in on other conservative issues.

“I think a change will come out, or we’ll lose,” Paul said of the Republican Party. “One of the two.”

Easter ...Reese’s Pieces of April

Easter just passed, the holiday where we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ by poisoning our children with marshmallow, chocolate and caramel. It's a difficult holiday for the whole "separation of church and state" thing because it's definitely Christian but it also has a secular component, in that we celebrate with non-Jesus stuff like bunnies and dyed eggs and jellybeans.

The White House gets away with its annual Easter Egg Roll because they keep it about the secular, fun stuff and there's not a sermon or a lot of talk about "He has risen." Otherwise, on Ramadan, they'd have to let a bunch of Muslim kids come on the White House lawn to stone a woman for driving.

But in Dearborn, Michigan, it gets a little more complicated. Dearborn has a large Muslim community and some of the parents there are concerned that the public schools have been handing out flyers inviting their kids to a local Presbyterian church for an Easter egg hunt. They say having the kids dye eggs or make construction paper bunnies is one thing, but school officials passing out flyers to attend a Presbyterian church is an attempt at converting their children to Christianity.

Now, you might think, "Relax. It's an Easter egg hunt, not the Crusades." But I'm reminded of how some Christian parents went ballistic when they heard yoga was being taught as part of gym class. They were sure it was an attempt to lure their impressionable Christian kids into an Eastern religion mindset.

First of all, how powerful is your religion if you think gathering colored eggs or sitting in the lotus position is going to lead to conversion? And second, isn't this exactly why we need to keep state-sponsored endorsement of religion, prayer and creationism out of our public schools? Because there are all kinds of kids with all kinds of faiths, and even non-faiths - and, as Republicans love to say, "It's not the government's job to be picking winners and losers."

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