Cattitude

Cats, Comedy & Rescue: The Wild World of Nathan the Cat Lady

BIO:

Transcript:

Hello, feline friends. Welcome to Cattitude. I'm your show host, Michelle Fern.

And I have a guest that I adore. He's been on the show before, but it's been a long time, like too long, you know, except for some, you know, meetings at Global. And he's just amazing.

So stay tuned, and you'll find out who it is. Welcome back, everyone. I'd like to welcome Nathan Kehn, also known as Nathan the Cat Lady, which is how you guys probably know of him.

Welcome, Nathan. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to have you.

So you haven't been on Cattitude for almost six years, but I've seen you too long, and you were doing a whole other thing. So what's been going on? You said, you know, we were talking a little bit earlier, you said it's been a hectic year, hopefully in a good way. Yeah, no, in a great way.

I mean, shoot, six years, so much has changed. I think when I first was on here, I was almost exclusively just doing comedy. It was just funny cat videos, you know, me in a bathrobe, being a goofball with the kitties.

And right around 2023, I was at a convention. And I still had a full-time sales job. I was still doing comedy.

I had jaw surgery. And I was at my fifth convention of the month, just basically running around like, hey, I can do anything I want. Why not? And I ended up collapsing and spent two days in the emergency room running tests and stuff.

And basically, I was like, you know what, I need to stop and slow down or I'm going to die. Oh my God, I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm glad you slowed down. Yeah, no, I quit my full-time job.

I moved apartments. And then I decided I was like, you know what, I want to get way more into rescue. And ever since then, I've just been working with so many amazing organizations all over the world.

One of the things I try to do on this show, one of the things that's near and dear to my heart is just educating everyone about anything. Well, that's what the show is, Anything and Everything Cat, you know, educating everyone. Because as much as you know, there's also a lot you don't know.

And things move so quickly, it's hard to keep up. But rescue is like near and dear, because there's always something going on, and there's never enough, and there's always something more we can do, more we can communicate. Before we get into that, though, I don't think I've ever asked you this question, but where did the moniker Nathan the Cat Lady come from? Like, did Nathan the Cat Dude not work? Well, for one day, I was like, I'm going to try Cat Daddy, not realizing there was another connotation to that.

I tried it for one day on my story, right? Well, I guess I'm, you know, the Cat Daddy. And the creepiest DMs, like I didn't realize how many people in America needed daddies. Oh, gosh.

I did that. And man, everybody came out of the woodwork like, Oh, daddy, hey, daddy, love what you're doing. And I was like, you know what, not what I'm looking for right now.

So I decided to lean into the stereotype, you know, everyone makes fun of crazy cat ladies. And I was like, you know, I was like, speaking of, here's one of my kitties. I was like, you know what, I'm going to lean into it.

And everybody already calls me a crazy cat lady. So I'm just gonna embrace it. And I was switched it to Nathan the Cat Lady.

And yeah, we never looked back. Right. And then, as you were saying, the Cat Daddy, Jackson Galaxy is known as the Cat Daddy.

Yep. But I guess if you just put Nathan the Cat Daddy, then... Yeah. But, you know, I think it's more fun.

I think it's more fun to lean into the stereotype. And I think it's more important, which is why I, you know, I rock the bathrobes, which I even now sell the bathrobes on my website. You can buy a Cat Dad or a Cat Lady bathrobe.

And they're, you know, very nice, plush robes. And it's just kind of elevating the stereotype and making it cool to be a cat lover. Yeah.

As long as it's cool. I mean, as long as people know who you are and know what you do, and you keep reaching people, that's the most important thing. And you've been known as Nathan the Cat Lady for years.

Yeah. You have a community of more than a million followers, but you do a lot more than just creating content. And you said you started off with comedy.

I remember the bathrobes. I remember seeing you in the bathrobes at Global. So what made you decide, you explained, you know, you got sick and everything.

What made you decide, I need to focus on rescue other than maybe other things? You know, it's been kind of a snowball effect. But I think it's one of those things where you don't realize how bad the problem is until you know. And I think the more I started getting in, it's like my buddy Sterling the Trap King showed me TNR and I was like, oh, I didn't even know there was that many cats outside.

And, you know, you start doing TNR and you're like, oh, wow, there's a lot of cats that need help. And then I met somebody at a convention, a cat fest in Colorado. And she walked up and she was like, you know, yeah, I go to Spain every year and I rescue galgos.

And I was like, what's a galgo? And she told me about the Spanish greyhound that, you know, is tortured and killed every year as part of their culture. And I was like, what? Never heard of that. Let's go.

And I've kind of just started saying yes to groups. I kind of had this motto ever since I collapsed that I'm going to close my eyes and run as fast as I can, which basically just means I've just been saying yes. And all these rescue groups have been showing me all these problems.

And I'm like, you know, I have a following. I've got a very loyal following that just love to support anything I do. And so it gives me a great platform to help.

And it's I don't know, I love my comedy. I will always do my comedy. But it's so gratifying to do a rescue video and save a life and have that video take off, as opposed to like a comedy sketch.

You know, it's just it's like that video actually changed a life. So Nathan, the cat lady, do you I'd like to use the whole name. So Nathan, the cat lady, do you think when people see the videos that inspires people or is your goal to inspire people to do more TNR, to seek out shelters to adopt, to do more donating everything? Yeah, I mean, I've been speaking at conventions lately at festivals at all sorts of things.

And I've been giving full talks of everybody can do something. And because I think a lot of people, especially nowadays, they love to talk, but they don't love action. And so I like to show people, you know, so I've had people I do, you know, the wings of rescue flights and I'll have people be like, wow, I wish I was traveling and doing that to help animals like I wish I could help.

And I'll write them back and be like, you can you can share this post. If you share this on your story, somebody watching you might actually donate and, you know, do more. I think I really stress on people like everybody can be doing something.

And you know, not that everybody has to do something. But there's a lot of people out there that like, man, I wish I could help. And I can't because I can't travel to Nicaragua right now.

And it's like, well, you could still share this post. You could still talk to people about this. You could still donate five dollars, you know, so I really trying to get more people involved in all aspects because I feel like everybody has something to offer when it comes to helping animals.

Right. And, you know, I've had a lot of different guests that do a lot of different things for, you know, helping cats. And you can always just do your part, even if you don't have a lot of time or don't have a lot of money.

There's always your part. I mean, this podcast is my part that I've been doing nine years and there's just been a lot of voices that have heard what we're talking about here. A lot of people educated and, you know, it's like small steps, you know, climbing a mountain with small steps.

That's how I see it. Absolutely. Absolutely.

So you mentioned Wings of Rescue and they have been on the show. They do amazing things. What is that like behind the scenes? Man, Wings of Rescue is such an amazing organization that I got brought on to by my buddy Jesse Cove, who he found out about it through David Chilcotee from Baywatch because they did a movie together, but they brought me on.

And it's it's just incredible, you know, because a lot of rescues, not to diminish anything that anybody does, but, you know, it's one thing I'll work with a rescue, you know, doing TNR or something and we'll save one cat's life that day. And we're like, man, this was an awesome day. We saved this cat's life.

But when you go with Wings of Rescue flight, they're moving to 300 animals that were going to be euthanized, pulling them from a shelter, putting them on a flight and flying them to states that have a backorder of adoptions. So a lot of them are adopted before we even land. And it's just incredible because you're I mean, that's a lot of work.

I've got a video coming out this week. One of my updated ones that went a little haywire just because we almost couldn't fit everything. And it was in Dallas.

So it was incredibly hot. And the pilots, for some reason, didn't put on the AC. Like it was just a miserable flight is a lot of work.

But at the end of that flight, I was like, man, we just saved like 300 animals lives. And it's just there's so few places and organizations you can work with where you're like, today alone, we save a couple hundred animals lives. So it's just it's such a great group to work with.

That's incredible. Were you in Dallas? Did that have anything to do with the floods? So they had been doing flights to help with the floods because the you know, obviously, when the flooding happened, so many animals ran away. They flooded the shelters, metaphorically speaking, not literally.

And so, yeah, they were doing trips out there. The flight I did was right after that. So it was unrelated to the flooding.

But again, places like Dallas and Los Angeles and Florida, they're just overrun with animals right now. Yes, yes. I'm in South Florida.

And I was in Los Angeles. I wish I was back there, I guess because of seasonality or something. It's, you know, we just get overwhelmed.

There's Yeah, there's so many in shelters. So many. You mentioned rescuing galgos from Spain and relocating them.

Yeah. Was that like, Oh, man, let me tell you, I hate Spain. I had never, never been to Spain.

I didn't know much about them. But I learned about these galgos. And essentially what galgos are is they're like our American greyhounds.

They're Spanish greyhounds. But out there, they breed them, they train them horrifically to kind of do sport hunting. So they release a rabbit, two dogs chase it, whichever dog kills the rabbit, that's the winner.

But at end of the season, it's cheaper for them to kill the dogs, and then get new dogs next season. But they don't just like euthanize them. They'll hang them from trees.

They'll drown them. They'll do like horrific things. I've seen dogs there that were one dog had that showed up to the shelter had a carabiner hooked through his Achilles tendon to keep him from running away.

And they sodomize them like it's it's horrible. I mean, I know we're a cat show. But this is an important rescue.

And some of us cat people have dogs. And you can like both even if you if you're a cat person, you can still like dogs. But people always love dogs.

Yeah, that's incredibly that's crazy. Well, in the wild thing, here's what a blow your mind. They're aware of this abuse.

They're aware of the torture and killing. But because so many people do it, they've made exemptions to the law that exempt galgos and bulls from the abuse laws. So it's illegal to abuse other animals.

But bulls and galgos are considered working animals. And you can do whatever you want without punishment. So I always trash Spain when I'm out there and people get really mad because they're like, it's not all of Spain doing this.

And I say yes, but your laws are exempting them. So until people get angry enough to change that, I'm going to keep saying it's all of Spain. Now am I aware it's not all of Spain? I am aware it's not.

There's a lot of amazing people out there. We've met a lot of amazing rescues. But if you want to make change, you kind of have to rile people up a bit.

And so whenever I'm out there, I'm just like, Yeah, guys, this is what Spain does to animals. And man, it has been getting it's been ruffling feathers. Good, good.

Sometimes we need to ruffle feathers. You know, we're gonna take a short break. And we'll be right back.

Welcome back, everyone. We're talking to Nathan Kehn, better known as Nathan the cat lady. Nathan, you've done so many amazing things.

You've also worked with a lot of nonprofit rescue partners. What makes a good rescue partner to work with? And what can organizations accomplish together that they might not have been able to accomplish independently? Although we talked about that a little with Wings of Rescue, but what other nonprofit rescue networks are there out there? Okay, so hot take, everybody listen up. Rescue is one of the cattiest group of people I've ever met in my life.

Rescue people do not like to collaborate with each other. They don't like to work together. They fight relentlessly.

But and this is where I'm building to this, when they finally do decide, hey, you know what, let's put egos aside. And let's work together. They do incredible things.

Because the biggest thing is finding groups with are finding resources and staff and time and money and just everything. So for instance, yesterday, I was in Skid Row in downtown LA with LuxPause that organized with FixNation. They also rented a spay and neuter truck from Allison Eastwood and the Eastwood Foundation.

So there's a bunch of organizations, LuxPause has been very good about reaching out to different groups and being like, hey, let's work together. Let's work together. You know, and it's, it's amazing what people can do when they start working together.

I mean, I was with PETA the other day on Skid Row. And PETA, they're doing some amazing things. And I was with one of their I don't remember, she was the founder, not the founder, but she's, she's on their board.

Like she is very high up in PETA. And I pulled her aside. I was like, hey, like, I love that you guys are out here.

I want to do more. I was like, I realized we don't agree on TNR. PETA has a very different outlook on TNR and they fight with TNR people about this.

And I told her, I was like, look, I know we disagree on TNR. Can we put that aside for now and help fix this problem and then go back to fighting? And she's like, absolutely. I love that.

Let's talk. Let's figure out how we can do it. And I was like, oh, thank God, because it's so important for rescues right now, especially in places, I mean, places all over.

But like in California, the government out here is absolutely dropping the ball. They're not helping. They're not contributing almost nothing.

And, you know, you have veterinary clinics that are raising spay neuter costs to seven, eight hundred, sometimes two thousand dollars. Wow. The population is booming.

And it's like, OK, guys, if the government's not going to help, the veterinarians are not going to help. We have to band together or there's no saving the animals. So I really think it's important.

And Wings and Rescue, like you said, is such a testament to that. They fly around and they work with organizations all over the country and they say, hey, you need dogs and cats. They have dogs and cats.

Can we fly them to you? And they're like, yes, please. And it's it's just been so great. And they just hit ninety three thousand cats and dogs that they've helped fly.

And eight thousand of them were this year. That's incredible. I'm just curious.

This will get some people a little riled up. But what state? Because I would think California is always progressive in as far as different things. And you said they're not doing enough.

What state do you think does the most? I mean, New York just passed the declaw like that made that illegal. Oh, that's good. I mean, yeah, that's great.

I'm pretty sure somebody let me know if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I mean, it's man, it's hard. I mean, it's definitely not Hawaii.

Hawaii is looking to make it illegal to feed colony cats and they're trying to put colony cats down. So Hawaii, you're on my you know what list. California is a joke with the amount of money that comes into California that could be going to help.

And the amount that they I mean, it's not even people assuming anymore or conspiracy theory. It's just a well-known thing that, well, yeah, they get a lot of money and then all of the companies they work with jack up the prices. And then, you know, the money is going to the builders and it's going to the quote unquote charitable foundations that the government, you know, they know there's so much fraud in California.

None of it is going towards the animals. And it's just it's become something that we've just accepted out here for some reason. So, I mean, California is out.

I think Florida is out, too. I mean, we have a lot of fraud. I don't know if it's animal related, but we have a lot of fraud here and we are aware.

Yeah. I really wish I knew somebody that could be like, you know what? This state is crushing it. But unfortunately, there's not a lot of money in animal rescue.

Yeah. And so it's not very high on the priority list, which is disappointing. So I don't know that I've got anybody that's at the top of my list, but that's also because when I go to a state, it's because they're not doing well.

You know, I'm more cynical than most. All the traveling I've been doing, I was in Nicaragua, I was in Spain, I was in Hawaii and everybody's like, oh, you went to all these beautiful places. No, I go to the worst parts of these places.

I don't get to see so much of the good. Yeah. I can relate.

Sometimes when I travel, it's to the messy areas and just doing that. It's not, you know, fancy restaurants, hotels. It's just messy stuff.

Yeah. Let's talk about other aspects of your work, because you also have worked in building spaces for cats, like catios, and you've built other enclosures and dog parks and habitats. How did you get into that? And where did that come from? Are you secretly a builder, too? So I was a handyman and carpenter for two and a half, three years.

It's one of the many random hats I've worn over the years. And so, yeah, the first, is it the first? I think roughly, yeah, I think the first one of those was right after I collapsed in Vegas. I got a message from Beagle Freedom Project, and they were like, hey, we're turning an animal testing lab.

We purchased a testing lab in Nevada, Oklahoma, and we're turning it into a sanctuary. We're rescuing, I think it was 90 cats and 180 beagles. And they're like, we want to build this sanctuary.

Are you down to help come cut the ribbon? And I was like, yeah, but I can do more. I feel bad just coming out to cut a ribbon. I'm not one to just- I love that.

Yeah. I'm not one to just show up and be like, look what I did when I didn't do anything. So they were like, well, yeah, what'd you have in mind? And I was like, I don't know, let me reach out to some sponsors and see what I can do.

So within three weeks, I reached out to sponsors, and I raised about $150,000 worth of supplies, food, cat food, dog food, toys, leashes, shampoo, everything you could think of, and had it sent out there. So my first trip went out, and then we had started talking about, they're like, well, we want to have a cat cafe for these cats. And I was like, hey, throwing it out there, what if I helped build it? And we called it Nathan's Cat Lady Lounge.

And they were like, I love it. Let's do it. So I was a little misunderstood when I went out there.

I had brands donate for tools and stuff like that, like buy-in so that I could have supplies and tools when I was out there. And I got out there. I was like, all right, who's the team? Who's building? And they were like, oh, you.

And I was like, oh. You're the whole team? Yeah, I was the team. Yeah.

So day one, I ripped down an entire wall. Day two, I started framing it out. I framed, I mean, I was there a week.

I ended up framed in about three quarters of it, ripped down the old walls. And then I also had to build some pig stairs and a ramp for some pigs that they had outside. And then I left.

And luckily, by that point, they had made connections with another team that was like, hey, we'll come in and finish the walls. And I was like, thank goodness, because one man trying to do that, and I don't have that kind of time, but started building that. And then I met this amazing group called Easy Pet Fence, and they were like, hey, we love what you do.

We want to partner with you sometime, but we just don't know how. And I was like, well, what do you do? And they're like, we make dog parks and catios. And I was like, well, do you want to go build dog parks and catios in Nevada, Oklahoma for a recently built dog sanctuary? And they were like, absolutely.

So they donated two huge dog parks and a catio. And so I got a bunch of volunteers, went out, and we spent a whole week building. We built two parks and a catio.

And that kind of just sparked this whole thing where I'm like, I have all these resources, I have skills, let's go start reaching out to these groups. So since then, I've built, I had built my own little cat sanctuary thing up in the desert. I had built a monkey enclosure, just a bunch of random, odd jobs where I've just been going out and just finding rescues that need help.

And I'm like, let me help you. You've done incredible work. I mean, man of many trades, it's incredible work.

We talked about this a little bit. It's incredible with cats and especially with TNR, because there's a lot of focus that there's micro, then there's macro, then there's micro, but there should be more focus on micros joining together, maybe to be mini macros. Where do you think the big disconnect is? In what way? Well, where do you think that the, you know, where the system is really breaking? Is it more, you know, the larger systems? Because you talked about that a little with, you know, the states and I get that.

Do you think it's with some of the larger organizations? Yeah, I mean, I, it's tough to say, you know, I never want to say I'm an expert on the back end of things. But it's, you know, there are a lot of these massive organizations, you know, that I'm not saying they're all in it for the money. They're doing amazing work.

But I think at some point you, you know, you build these big organizations and you have, you know, you've got shareholders, you've got different divisions and all this stuff. And a lot of that money slowly starts going out and out and out and out to team and development, stuff like that. And you kind of forget like, yeah, we're supposed to be out there hands in the dirt, helping animals.

Whereas a lot of these smaller organizations, you'll see them, they're out there. A lot of them are volunteers. They're just out there volunteering.

Like Trap Neuter Return is a great example of that. Most, I'd say 99% of people that do Trap Neuter Return are not getting paid for Trap Neuter Return. They're just volunteering in the neighborhoods and they're doing amazing work.

And a lot of them are having to fundraise themselves just to cover the spay neuter costs, cover the medication and stuff like that. And I think it would be amazing if some of these bigger organizations, and like I said, the government would come through and I've said this to one of the candidates in California recently. She was at an event and I went up and told her essentially that California is a dumpster fire.

And when I say essentially, I mean, I literally told her it was a dumpster fire, but I was just like, look, you have an army of people that want to help, but you guys have to just pick up the cost of spaying and neutering, pick up the cost of the medical. And then all of the labor and the man hours, these people are ready to do it. But I feel like sometimes when organizations get too big, everybody wants to get paid.

And with the government right now, animals is not a big priority. They'll do enough to just stop getting yelled at, but they're not really out to fix the problem. When realistically enough money put into this, we could fix the problem.

We have hundreds of people trying to spay and neuter right now that just have nowhere to take the animals, but I could build an army of trappers. We just don't have anywhere to get them fixed right now or the animals fixed. And it's crazy.

It's crazy that TNR people can't get any, I don't know, special voucher or something to be able to take it to a, you know, Chewy now has vets that are out, you know, veterinarian locations or some other, uh, BCA has a whole chain, you know, or they can take these vouchers and just take the cats in and the government could give them some kind of a write-off, right? It's very broad and vague, but that's an idea of something that could get done. No. And that's the thing.

They have a voucher program. They have it for residents and they have it for TNR. The problem is first of all, the voucher for TNR is like $75 and a TNR spay and neuter is usually an average of 150.

So it's only covering about half. It should cover all of it. Yeah, it should cover all of it.

And also like the ones for the public, I was talking to a guy literally yesterday. He was, he's homeless. He brought his dog in and the city gave him $150 voucher and he called around to vet clinics and they were saying it's going to be about 1700 to get your animal spayed or neutered.

He called. 1700. Yeah.

Which, I mean, I know you can find it for cheaper, but most places, a lot of them are like 7800 now and they're giving him $150 voucher. I'm like, no, the city should just be covering this. There should be places that you can go and just bring these animals.

Cause again, this is a city problem that people are fixing. If the city is overrun with cats and dogs, that's a city problem. And the fact that volunteers are having to fund out of their own pocket is crazy to me.

You know, I mean, we, again, California, just cause I live here, you know, we have a failed $116 billion train that's never going to get built. If you give us a billion dollars, we would solve the animal crisis in Los Angeles in six months. Easy.

But they just, the money mismanagement is just insane. It's a shame. That it is.

Nathan, the cat lady, if you could change one thing about the way people think about animal rescue. So not just cats, but you know, all animals, mostly it's cats and dogs, but there's others, you know, horses and pigs and so forth. What would you want people to understand? I only get one.

You can do more. Yeah. There's two big ones that I want people to really.

And I feel like I've been driving them home on this. And I'm sure there's a lot of people giving their thumbs arthritis, already sending me DMS, listening to this. But I think the two big things I want people to know is one, the government is not fixing the problem.

I know so many people that they'll send me a video of a kitten. They found like, Hey, I found these kittens. Who do I call to come collect them? Why? Like the government should come pick these up or where's the shelter.

Why aren't you just bringing those animals to the government shelter? I don't understand. Cause everyone just has this view that the government is, has all these rescues and shelters and they're taking care of it. And I want people to realize like most of the rescue that's happening is small organizations that are volunteer based that are trying to fund it themselves.

Even wings of rescue. They are totally crowdfunded. Each flight is like $25,000, but they're funding it themselves by just asking for donations and monthly donors and stuff like that.

So that would be the one thing I want people to realize is like, you can't just put this on the back burner. Like, Oh, the government's got it. They don't, they don't care.

The other thing is again, what I spoke about earlier is that everybody can do something. I think a lot of assume, Oh, if I can't go save an animal, like pick up an animal physically and bring it to a vet, then I can't help. And that's just not true.

You can be sharing other people's posts. You can be donating to things. You can be volunteering to walk dogs or clean kennels, or you could do TNR.

I mean, there's from the top down, if you have time, you can volunteer. If you have money, you can donate. If you don't have time or money, but you have enough time and money to watch a video of us asking for money and supplies, you can share that video.

So there's no excuse. I've never met a single person that can't do even a little bit. Thank you for that.

Now, where can listeners connect with you, learn more about TNR and learn more about your work? Absolutely. So you can follow me on all platforms, Nathan, the cat lady, Instagram, Facebook, I've just started a new series on YouTube. So you can track and see my long forms of all the adventures and stuff I've been going on.

And then also my website, Nathan, the cat lady.com. And there's merch on there, you can get those robes. There's also a blog going up that'll just keep you updated with all the things I'm doing. There's also a page where you can donate to a lot of the rescues I like to work with.

So yeah, Nathan, the cat lady everywhere. Nathan, the cat lady, thank you so much for coming on Cattitude. I so appreciate it.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I hope you all enjoyed this show.

Please go ahead and follow Nathan, the cat lady. He is a wonderful human being. He's done so many amazing things for animal welfare, especially cats.

So thank you, Nathan. And thank you again for coming on Cattitude. Thank you to my cat crew, all rescues, Dennis, Charlotte and Molly.

Thank you to my listening audience for just listening and loving cats. And I know that you move the message forward, you know, for TNR. So thank you for all you do.

And of course, thanks to my producer, Mark Winter, the show would not be the same without him..

So remember, lose the attitude… have Cattitude!