History Series / MyCatFromHell

** Averted with Good Kitty, who is the Token Good Teammate cat in her house and the training she needed was to help her stand up for herself.

* Averted and inverted with some cats ( like Good Kitty, Charlee, Lita, and Buddha) who were bully victims and need to learn self-confidence. These cats are rather very friendly and if they hissed at Jackson, it was justified because they were suspicious he might hurt them or their bullies were near.
** Also {{averted}} in the recurring segment "My Cat From Heaven," in which Jackson showcases cats working in altruistic roles such as therapy or service animals to do good in the community. One rescue cat wound up saving a baby's life from a fire.

* ADogNamedDog: A cat named Kitty, in one case.

* Does not Like Men: Buddy had abused Lita so much that she no longer trusted men, to the point of hissing at Jackson for trying to pet her.

* ThemeNaming: Some of the clients coordinate the names of their multiple pets. e.g., Pepper and Olive; Chompy and Bitten (ironically, Bitten was the aggressor who used Chompy as his ChewToy); Bear and Monkey; Tokyo and Godzilla; [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal Bombadil, Bliss, and Bowie]].

* CuteButCacophonic: Noise complaints are a big reason people end up calling Jackson, such as in the case of Oscar, a sphynx cat with an ''amazingly'' loud and grating meow. Oscar's owners actually had got an official noise complaint from their neighbors, and Jackson lampshades Oscar's amazing lung capacity several times.

* GenderBlenderName: Larry and Mufasa both have male names, but are female cats.

** Sphynx cats are huge attention seekers and will act out in order to get it.

* ThemeNaming: Some of the clients coordinate the names of their multiple pets. E.g., Pepper and Olive; Chompy and Bitten (ironically, Bitten was the aggressor who used Chompy as his ChewToy); Bear and Monkey; Tokyo and Godzilla; [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal Bombadil, Bliss, and Bowie]].

* TooDumbToLive: In many cases, the ''owner'' is the source of the problem, often due to major ignorance or lack of common sense in dealing with the cat.
** Multiple owners have insisted on roughhousing with a cat when it's sending clear signals it doesn't want to be touched.
** Khrys claims to be the owner of her cat Kitty, but leaves it to her boyfriend to clean the cat's litterbox and chase Kitty down when he escapes out the front door, because "That's men's work!"
** One pregnant client has a cat who bit and scratched her. She had been explicitly told by her doctor that they could not give her antibiotics if she got an infection, so Jackson told her that her job was to make sure she didn't get bitten. As they're talking, she reaches over to pet the cat, something Jackson had ''literally just told her'' not to do... Guess what happens.
** Derek from the Macho Cat episode proceeds to be an ass to his girlfriend and to Jackson Galaxy on national TV. You know, idiot, if you want people to sympathize with you, it's better ''not'' to be such a {{Jerkass}}. [[spoiler:Or [[DomesticAbuse abusive]].]]
** In the season 5 episode ''Demon Cat'', Vincent is a 6-year-old male cat who pees on the floor, tears open window and door screens, chews window blinds, and claws the wall trying to get outside where he routinely gets into fights with other cats. Vincent [[spoiler:isn't neutered]]. When Jackson learns this fact and explains to Vincent's guardians that this is '''the reason''' for the behaviour problems, the dad ''can't imagine how that would change anything''. [[spoiler:Meaning, in 6 years of his male cat acting like any gonad-possessing male animal in any wildlife documentary, and (presumably) having internet access, he hasn't connected the dots.]]
** In the "Vibrational Therapist" episode, there is ''nothing wrong with Pump or his behavior'' aside from his painful thyroid (which causes him to yowl loudly at night). Jackson even points out that there is an almost scary level of [[PsychologicalProjection projection]] from the girlfriend of Pump's owner.

** Sphinx cats are huge attention seekers and will act out in order to get it.

* ImpossiblyTackyClothes: While Jackson doesn't like cats being dressed up in clothes in general, his expression is almost always a FlatWhat at some of the more ''interesting'' things owners dress their pets up as. Not only will Jackson point out how ridiculous it is, he'll also point out how it could possibly be ''harmful'' to them as well, and one of the major things he has the owners quit doing as homework. (This does not apply if the clothes serve an actual purpose, such as protection from abrasions for cats that are paralyzed and get around on their front legs but drag their bellies on the ground.)

* ImpossiblyTackyClothes: While Jackson doesn't like cats being dressed up in clothes in general, his expression is almost always a FlatWhat at some of the more ''interesting'' things owners dress their pets up as. Not only will Jackson point out how ridiculous it is, he'll also point out how it could possibly be ''harmful'' to them as well, and one of the major things he has the owners quit doing as homework.
** Jackson has stated that he makes an exception if the clothes serve an actual purpose, such as protection from abrasions for cats that are paralyzed and get around on their front legs but drag their bellies on the ground.

** One episode dealt with Jackson taking fifty kittens from and overburdened shelter in Los Angeles to a Colorado town where the shelter had people wanting to adopt.

[[caption-width-right:300:''My Cat From Hell'']]

* WrongGenreSavvy: Some owners think that cats can respond to punishment the way dogs do.

** Jackson's reaction to Darwin the Savannah cat leaping from his owner's fridge to a vent hood suspended above a kitchen island. Jackson was 'terrified'' for the cat and knew they needed to start working right away lest the cat break the kitchen and harm itself.

* ShellShockedVeteran: None of the cats have actually been in war, but one of Xena's problems was that she suffered from PTSD.

** This is basically Jackson's reaction to a Season 7 cat named {{Dark}}ness. Darkness' female owner Laura was convinced the cat was demon-possessed and would freak out if he so much as moved toward her. Jackson's argument was that calling the cat Darkness, plus ''expecting'' him to act aggressively, wasn't helping anything. [[spoiler:As such, one of Jackson's first homework assignments was having them change Darkness' name; they ended up changing it to Jedi.]]

* DomesticAbuser: [[spoiler:In the episode Macho Cat, Buddy mirrors his owner's dominating and bullying nature to such a point, you can't help but see Derek as a DomesticAbuser to both his girlfriend and her cat. It gets so bad that Ryann, the girlfriend, moved out with her cat.]]

** This is basically Jackson's reaction to a Season 6 cat named {{Dark}}ness. Darkness' female owner Laura was convinced the cat was demon-possessed and would freak out if he so much as moved toward her. Jackson's argument was that calling the cat Darkness, plus ''expecting'' him to act aggressively, wasn't helping anything. [[spoiler:As such, one of Jackson's first homework assignments was having them change Darkness' name; they ended up changing it to Jedi.]]

See ''Series/ItsMeOrTheDog'' for the canine equivalent.

** Khrys claims to be the owner of her cat [[CaptainObvious Kitty]], but leaves it to her boyfriend to clean the cat's litterbox and chase Kitty down when he escapes out the front door, because "That's men's work!"

* CrazyCatLady: While usually [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] because this is RealLife, Jackson ''has'' come across some loons over the course of the series. Dressing pets in ridiculous clothes, treating them like children, and ''even having kitty weddings between their pets''. Naturally, this kind of behavior is one of the first things Jackson has the owner attempt to cut out as part of their 'homework'.

* SenselessViolins: A non-weaponized example; Jackson has a guitar case (with cat eyes painted on the outside) that he carries an assortment of cat toys and other tools of his trade in. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] when a client says he hopes Jackson has a Tommygun in there to deal with their cat.

** This is basically Jackson's reaction to a Season 6 cat named [[DarkIsEvil Darkness]]. Darkness' female owner Laura was convinced the cat was demon-possessed and would freak out if he so much as moved toward her. Jackson's argument was that calling the cat Darkness, plus ''expecting'' him to act aggressively, wasn't helping anything. [[spoiler:As such, one of Jackson's first homework assignments was having them change Darkness' name; they ended up changing it to Jedi.]]

-->'''Jackson''': If I walked up to you and called you idiot, then that might affect our relationship. Just because a cat doesn't understand English doesn't mean they don't understand.

* BittersweetEnding: The hour-long episode featuring Lux, the cat who was so aggressive that the owners had to call 911 when he attacked their seven-month-old child and trapped them in a room, resulted in him being rehomed (a rare outcome for the show). It turned out that Lux, an otherwise calm cat, had a condition causing him to feel pain on random occasions, triggering his violent behavior. Both Lux's owners and Jackson agreed that rehoming was the best choice for Lux and the family. The ending is "sweeter" for Lux in light of the owners' admission that they'd allowed their child to play rough with the cat, the husband had in fact kicked him, and evidence and allegations of neglect/abuse. The family later tried to get him back, but were blocked.

** Jackson when faced with a cat with with a sleep disorder so strong it started thrashing and flung itself off any furniture it was sleeping on. Jackson first witnessed this when it flung itself off a bench ''headfirst'' (thankfully the owners had foreseen this and put pillows all around the bench). Jackson realized the owners were pretty much living in a perpetual state of OhCrap as well, with the stress hugely wearing them down.

* PoundsAreAnimalPrisons: In the final episode of the eighth season, "A Brave New Cat World," Jackson gives an extreme makeover to a cat shelter that very much gives off this vibe.

* WrongGenreSavvy: Some owners think that cats can respond to punishment the way dogs do.