While Bobby was generally well behaved, he would sometimes get into a mood and suddenly become aggressive. He’d pounce, bite and swipe at us for a split second, then calmly walk away like nothing happened. We couldn’t quite figure out what caused this and resigned ourselves to living with his occasional unpredictability.

I first turned to a Facebook group for advice and got lots of responses. Some were a little helpful. Others not so (for example, when I mentioned my girlfriend was freaked out by Bobby, someone said “change girlfriend”. Which is kind of funny, but not helpful ultimately.)

A lot of it was contradictory. Honestly we were more or less still at square one after reading through many well intentioned suggestions. Nothing really worked.

I don’t remember how I came across The Cat People SG but they seemed to know what they were talking about. We wrote in to set up an appointment. We were expecting the email exchange to be just about that but Alen asked us a lot of questions and even offered good advice even before we met and paid! She really wanted to get to know Bobby and us so that the consult would be as useful as possible.

Our close to two hour consult was very helpful. Alen and Vivianne spent the first part taking detailed notes. She offered valuable insights as to why Bobby was behaving the way he was and offered us practical ideas of what we could do. They walked us through step by step. They came prepared with a bag full of different toys, one which has turned out to be Bobby’s favourite. They eventually left a few with us. I thought I’d be charged a marked up price for them but I wasn’t billed a single cent! There was subsequently even homework which Alen checked up on!

A lot of it had to do with understanding cat psychology. You’ll have to engage them to find out more! One could say that there’s lots of information available for free online, and cat expert Jackson Galaxy’s advice is available on YouTube. Why should you pay for it? But it’s different reading about it passively and having someone explain it to you in person with your cat around! It makes a big difference!

A little nudge Alen and Vivianne gave us through their regular follow up after the consultation was to adopt a second cat so that Bobby would have a playmate. Through them we eventually adopted Jingle. Alen and Vivianne walked us through the process of integration many weeks after our consultation at no charge.

Bobbys behaviour got a lot better after we followed the advice Alen and Vivianne gave us. It got even better after Jingle came along. We wouldn’t have had the confidence to adopt another cat — more importantly a cat with the right personality for Bobby — without Alen and Vivianne’s guidance and reassurance.

We highly recommend consulting them if you’re facing challenges as pawrents. You won’t be disappointed!

We have engaged Alen to help us with cat proofing twice, and once for a behavioural consult when we were not making any progress with integrating our two cats and needed some help. Each time, we’ve been very happy and satisfied with the results.

With cat proofing, the team at Cat People have always been very professional and good with their service. The installation was done fast and well, and I feel very secure with leaving my balcony doors open to let my cats out now. Alen was also very helpful with giving a few suggestions on how to cat proof certain areas of our landed home, which were more tricky. Similarly, when we were thinking of cat proofing a rental apartment we were living at, she was able to give rental-friendly solutions, which will definitely be of help to those who wish to have cats but landlords do not allow meshing.

For the behavioural consult, Alen was also very helpful with giving us tips and a routine to get our two boys to bond and become friendly with one another. She walked us through the tell tale signs of when things are escalating, and to differentiate between play and fighting. With her advice, we were able to have our cats get along within a week of her visit. This was after 3 months of us failing to get any progress on our own.

I’m so glad that I engaged The Cat People for my cats’ accidents outside litter box. Vivianne helped us understand more about them and how to correct all of the bad behavior. Should have engaged them sooner. Thank you!

My husband and I reached out to The Cat People over concerns that our two adopted cats were not getting along. Alen and Vivianne came over to our home and spent several hours observing and discussing their behaviour. They have a wealth of experience when it comes to ex-strays and gave us lots of helpful advice about how to care for them (from feeding to playing to carrying to nail clipping), as well as reassurance that our two were getting along just fine. For brand new cat parents, it was the best investment we could have made. We understand our cats much better and how to do our best for them. The Cat People also fitted a combined grille and insect mesh on our bathroom window which allows us to open the window with peace of mind. I highly recommend them for any new or nervous cat parents. Thank you Alen and Vivianne!

Alen knows and loves cats and spent 4 hours with us so that she could really understand us and our Abbath. Her tips helped us establish a happier routine for Abbath. Abbath no longer poos in the sink or scratches our bed!

I have five cats, three of whom vie for the position of being the #1 cat in the house. Needless to say, they would attack each other, given half a chance. It certainly would be a lot easier to manage if the cats got along and so I sought the help of The Cat People.

Another reason for engaging The Cat People – one of our cats, Joy, is on a restricted diet. To avoid her eating the dry food of other cats, we normally keep her in the master bedroom. In recent years, however, she started pooing and peeing on the bed. On a hunch that she preferred to be in the living or dining areas with the other cats (and possibly lord it over them), we felt it was necessary to find a way to have the cats co-exist peacefully and reduce the associated “bombs” on my bed. I am quite sure it was a deliberate CALL-TO-ACTION attempt on her part. If I catch her about to do it and tell her off, she would head over to the litter box.

Helene Papillon was incredible. She asked us to start with two cats and allow them to be in the same area – we were wondering how we would get away with it, without flying fur and shedding blood… When Chestnut first came to us, he managed to slice off part of one of Gandalf’s toes – the bleeding took forever to stop. We had to bring Gandalf to a vet to manage the wound.

Helene brought a toy with her – with artful gestures, she managed to distract and redirect each cat if they came too close to one another – yet allowing them to co-exist in the same area. She gave us tips and pointers on how it was done and that we should try it ourselves.

Although we are not totally out of the woods in terms of getting the cats to fraternize due to lack of time, we did manage to achieve some startling headway, thanks to the expert instruction from Helene. We are attaching some photos/videos for illustration.

A big THANK YOU to The Cat People for making all these possible!

We engaged the cat behaviorists from The Cat People to assist with aggression issues leading to complete separation with our previously get along well cats. During the first session, we established a plan and a routine for the cats. We were also able to clarify the concerns and questions we had about the cat’s behaviours. Following that, they ensured to check in with us and assisted with any issues and obstacles we encountered while following the set plan. They also gave reassurances, which helped us and gave us the confidence to continue following the routine. With patience and discipline, we were able to resolve the issues and the cats are now back to being able to share space and being friends.

Allen from Cat People did a good job when we fail miserable on our introduction. She explain in details and guide us the way. Now both cats have their respect with each other and no longer fight. We are happy with the service

Engage them for the cat behaviourist option. They came to my place, and accurately pointed out some of the “gaps” that I didn’t notice about the relationship between my cats. And have suggested great ways of helping both cats to interact better. Followed by many of the diet and toys suggestions. I really appreciate the timely follow ups that they gave. When I continue to seek help over WhatsApp, they were patient to suggest ways that I could try. As a cat owner of two cats, I have to work closely with the advice they gave, and also learn to be observant about my cat’s behaviour. I will highly recommended their service for any one who is willing to work closely with them and make changes to fit the needs of our cats.

My cat Peanut started peeing at the front door – what was a once in a blue moon occurrence, had become a once every alternate day situation. Despite my keeping her litter box very clean, Peanut just kept peeing on the floor at the door. She had also become very vocal and clingy, demanding attention and yowling/screeching at me. In general, restless and agitated easily.

It was starting to get very stressful for both Peanut and I, so I searched for a cat behaviourist to find a solution or reason why Peanut was being such a ‘pee-nut’.

I emailed Alen and she responded on the same day with a list of starting questions. She was very meticulous and detective-like, really covering all bases and getting the facts.

She advised on play time, feeding, litterbox positioning, type of litter – even asking if there were outside influences like human traffic, strays that might have stressed Peanut out.

We ended up with a long email thread across a few weeks, but with her advice and direction, I did see a change in Peanut’s behavior – she became less needy and more calm. The pee situation was eventually sorted out with a change of litter (soy to sand), which brought a lot of relief to me and it was apparent that Peanut really liked the sand litter so much more – she has been doing her business more frequently each day.

Alen has been extremely patient, understanding and kind, on top of her deep experience and knowledge. I am very grateful for her help and would highly recommend her to anyone with cat behaviour issues as well as catification of their space!

When my husband and I first adopted Katherine, a Bengal-ragamuffin mix (but as Helene can attest, she is probably 90% Bengal sans the liking for water -.-) in November 2017, we had no idea what we were in for as first-time cat owners.

Unfortunately, Katherine endured our failure to attend to her needs for closeness, openness and engagement (in the form of sufficient play) for a good nine months, by which time she had become very frustrated and anxious, resorting to biting hard and attacking us with scratching (we also didn’t know we had to cut her nails regularly).

It got to the point where we thought it was normal (although quite painful) to walk around with multiple scratch scars and swelling from bite wounds on our hands, forearms and lower limbs. Finally, in mid-September 2018, I decided we had to do something about Kat’s relentless (and increasing) attacks that seemed triggered by nothing in particular and found The Cat People from googling for cat behavioural consultants.

I reached out to them on Facebook and soon I set up a meeting with Helene, who visited us for the first time on 3 October 2018. After interviewing us over dinner and meeting Kat, she already had her first confrontation/staredown with our angry little girl.

That evening, she spent no less than four and a half hours with us—so dedicated was she to helping us understand what we needed to do for and with Kat that she ended up only leaving our house and getting home past midnight. She helped us understand her psyche, explained the problems Kat was facing and the trouble with how we had been interacting and shutting her out (of our room at night for instance), and how we were failing to give her enough intellectual stimulation and exposure through interaction. We learned that the toys we were using for her were all wrong too—small ones made her think our hands and feet were also appropriate prey and play targets—and because of the lack of attention (and also slightly too infrequent meals) we paid Kat, she resorted to chewing up plastic, paper, cardboard and even ingested a few of my own pills once around the house too (thankfully she seems to be Wolverine and hasn’t ever fallen sick or shown any issues from these strange aspects of her past diet).

And so we committed ourselves to dutifully obeying her instructions and doing the homework Helene assigned us—opening all our spaces to Kat, swapping out all our small toys to long ones with long strings and sticks for her to chase at a distance, eating with her at mealtimes so she can feel like she is a part of our lives and activities, even introducing calming pressure jackets and using pheromones and essential oils to help calm her down at home. We also started taking her out on evening walks once a week, to give her more engagement with the environment outside, and all these efforts showed cumulative results within the first three weeks of working on Helene’s instructions.

Throughout this time, Helene patiently responded to every question I had and every text I sent to her in panic when Kat didn’t respond to things in the way we hoped or expected. She even came over a second time to help us with some follow-up challenges we faced, teaching us how to put on her jacket, guiding us in teaching her new tricks to help her focus on a task and to feel engaged and involved with us, and would later on personally oversee installation of catification for our little home.

A couple months later saw us adopting our second kitten George — a mostly-grey domestic shorthair, who came to us, one of a National Day litter of four, at four months old in early December. And of course, Helene was there for us every step of the way, even assisting us in the adoption process—sussing out potential “candidates”, advising us on personality traits to look out for, even going the extra extra mile in helping to enquire on our behalf with rescuers and fosterers to assess a cat’s suitability before recommending them to us to meet them. After we adopted George, she didn’t stop there— she also taught us in great detail how to integrate George into the household, how to prepare a separate room for him, how long to keep them apart, what to do and look out for because he was sick at first, and how to carefully introduce them to each other so Kat wouldn’t feel threatened by him. She would review every video I sent her—through broken phone screens and a hectic house move on her end—through the year-end holidays and send me once-again immensely detailed text messages assessing the situation and giving me very helpful guidance, picking up signs in each cat’s behaviour in their interaction and alerting me to them and what they mean.

We believe we can now say Katherine and George are happy siblings who play together, eat together, sleep peacefully in respective spots during the day and share food at mealtimes. They did go through a period of rough play and some fighting—which Helene really guided us closely on as well, by the way—but with Helene’s mentorship, we were able to work with both to keep Kat calm and from “bullying” George a bit too excessively, and also give George the opportunity to stand up for himself too.

I can’t explain how grateful I am to Helene and The Cat People for all she and they have done for us and our kitties :) George is still learning how to jump to the higher platforms on our catification but he is already enjoying it almost as comfortably as Kat :)) we love it all — and them both — as much as they do!

Helene was very nice and accomodative. She assisted my family on how to tackle Kiki’s problem and also made my kids and I to learn more on cat behavior..i would definitely recommend Cat People. ♡♡♡ No regrets at all.😊