About Us
At Helping Kitty, Dr. Suzanne Hetts and Dr. Dan Estep provide you with the information you need to better understand your cat’s behavior and prevent and resolve behavior problems. We are Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists (CAABs) with over 25 years of experience working with people and their pets.
Dr. Estep is a former college professor in psychology at the University of Georgia and Dr. Hetts created the Behavior Help-Line at the Denver Dumb Friends League (a widely known private animal shelter) and provided behavior services at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital at Colorado State University. We’ve helped hundreds of pet owners improve their pets’ behavior, lectured on four continents to pet professionals, and consulted with major corporations in the pet industry, including those interested in cats. For more information about our backgrounds, visit the About Us page on AnimalBehaviorAssociates.com
Not only have we both lived with cats for over 30 years, we’ve had years of professional experience working with hundreds of cats and their owners; we’ve consulted with cat-only shelters and cat-related pet industry corporations; and we keep current on the scientific behavior literature about cats, so our knowledge of cat behavior has been acquired from a broad perspective of sources.
We know that cats are often under-valued, under-appreciated, and mis-understood. Many cat behavior problems could be solved, and even more importantly prevented, by just recognizing and providing for cats’ behavioral needs.
The programs you’ll find on Helping Kitty help loving cat owners do just that. Our motto is “if you build it, they will come!” We give you detailed guidelines about what makes cat friendly scratching posts, litterboxes, and toys that cats are likely to use. And we help you understand the subtleties of feline social behavior, which if overlooked, can result in your feline family not getting along. Many cat conflicts can be prevented or resolved with introductions or re-introductions that are micro-managed using the system we give you in our Helping Kitties Co-Exist Program.
Start today to learn more about your cat’s behavior by registering for our FREE Feline Behavior and Training Audio Tips. Even if your cat doesn’t have any “behavior issues”, these be-weekly tips will help you provide a quality life for your cat.
If your cat is new to your home, watch our WelcomeYour Cat videos so you can prevent the three most common problems new owners encounter. We want to help you and your Kitty get started off on the right paw together!