Companion Animal Behavior

UPDATE: It has now been a year and a half since Yody helped our little furry family. I wanted to come back to leave an updated review because I am just so grateful for her intervention. Since we’ve worked with Yody, my cat Karma has been consistently using her litter boxes and we’ve had minimal accidents. THANK YOU, YODY! ORIGINAL: My 8 year old cat has always had problems peeing on soft things around the house. We did everything we saw online to make it stop. We love our cat but this was really starting to put a strain on our relationship. We reached out to Yody and she stopped by for an in home consult. She spent some time observing and interacting with our cat. After the consult she sent me a list of recommendations to try and solve the problem. We implemented a few of the recommendations at the same time and it immediately had an effect. It’s been over six months now and we’ve only had two accidents since then, where we typically used to have two in one week. Super grateful to Yody for the support. It has really helped our mental health and solved a major pain point in our lives.

Prior to January 3rd, my two bonded littermate cat sisters were the best of friends. I brought them both home at 8 weeks old, and for almost four years they shared everything; beds, food dishes, toys, even their cat carrier! Their bond was so sweet, and generally I lucked out with how low maintenance they were - I never had to feel guilt when leaving them home alone because I knew they had each other. On January 3rd, I accidentally stepped on June’s tail while both June & Coco were under my feet waiting to be fed. June let out a yelp, and the next thing I knew, the cats were engaging in a vicious, loud, chaotic fight that I never could have imagined was possible between them. I would soon learn what “redirected aggression” was and I became simply heartbroken and hopeless. After two weeks of separating the cats and trying to restore harmony on my own with Google as my guide, I was at my wit’s end. The cats didn’t want to be confined to separate spaces but they could hardly tolerate even the smell of one another, much less visual exposure. Our lives and routines felt completely uprooted but with seemingly no progress being made. I hired Yody and within a few days she came to my home for a consult. Yody would subsequently guide me through a very tedious, methodical, but essential process for reintroducing the cats which in our case took months. It required patience, new routines, dedicated time with each cat, new products/supplements and an increased awareness & understand of the cats behavior. However, the most impactful guidance that Yody provided to me was how to adjust and understand my own behavior. She was honest with me about the expectations I should have for the process if my goal was long term harmony. She explained how my own temperament can influence the temperaments, and therefore behavior of the cats. She reminded me that they pick up on my anxiety & fear, and even a subtle change in vocal tone. This was proven true so many times over the next two months both in our setbacks and in our steps forward. Ultimately, the work I did on my own attitude and approach accelerated progress just as much as the work I did with the cats. The best advice she gave me was to trust the process, which was the hardest part at first. Two months later, June & Coco are physically back together. They nap together, eat together, and are slowly but surely getting back to all of their original routines and sibling antics! Truly, I never thought this day would come when the incident first happened and the cats were so aggressive toward each other for weeks. I believed the bond was broken - it wasn’t, but easily could have been if I didn’t seek help. While Yody is an expert, her guidance and recommendations don’t work magic unless the pet owners put in the work and understand that no two pair of cats are exactly the same. I saw for myself there is not a quick fix for behavioral issues that stem from significant traumas like in our case - especially when dealing with cats - they already prefer doing things their way, and on their own timeline. I note this for anyone reading these reviews who may be on a similar journey that I was on. A behaviorist will support and inform the process but you must invest the hard work to resolve a sibling rivalry dynamic! It is worth it!

Very expensive and did not get results. It took a while to get responses back via email and she did not follow up with us. she also told me a bunch of information that i already knew from doing some research online. the things she did tell me to do thwt i hadnt heard before were costly and not effective. I did everything they told me to do though. After spending over 300$ on the service I was also advised to buy other products that did not do anything except waste my money. My poor cat is still having issues and we really have tried everything. I will admit that my situation is very unique but charging so much money just to talk on zoom is ridiculous. if anything she told me had helped our situation it would have been worth it but it didnt so were just out that money and still dealing with an extremely stressful situation. if these people really cared about our pets they would do more. i get youre running a business but animals health and welfare shouldnt even be a business in the first place. i wish i knew what more i could do for my sweet cat. im glad that it has worked for other people but they should offer some kind of refund for the people it doesnt work for. even a partial refund would be better than nothing

We worked with Yody for several weeks on our cat’s outside the litter elimination problem. We were dismayed to find nearly all of Yody’s professional advice and recommendations were the same common answers anyone can get from googling the issue. We tried all of her suggestions that had no consistent results, and when asked for further solutions she simply said talk/follow your vet’s advice. To her credit she did continuously respond to us when engaged although responses did take on average more than 72 hours. Ultimately for $300 of advice anyone can google or be told to go to your vet this service is a waste of money, time and trust. Very unsatisfied.

We have a 2 1/2-year-old rescue dog that developed separation anxiety after the kids left for college. Yody came to our house, completed a thorough review of our dog’s activities and possible stressors, and provided great resources and homeopathic aids for us to try to ease our dog’s anxiety. Within two weeks of using the suggestions from Yody, our dog was significantly less anxious and is tremendously improved. The approach from an animal behaviorist was worthwhile, especially since my veterinarian only offered anti-anxiety meds as a suggestion. Our dog tried them and they didn’t work; I wasn’t sure what to do next. I am extremely happy that I found Yody and even happier that my dog is now living a more enjoyable, relaxed life.