Park Slope Cat Whisperer

Deborah is a cat behavior consultant and feline trainer with expertise working with shy, anxious, fearfully aggressive, undersocialized, and feral cats. She applies behavioral science and evidence-based, fear-free methods to create customized solutions addressing all types of cat-related issues. With 20 years of experience working with cats, 10 years in behavior consulting, and a decade in animal training, she has worked with over 1,000 cats worldwide and trained 100 cats in the past two years.

Her feline instinct, passion and expertise is rooted in early hands-on experience, beginning when she rescued her first stray cat with feline leukemia at age four. Throughout childhood, she spent extensive time on a weekly basis socializing feral cats, gradually earning the trust of a steady stream of fearfully aggressive mothers and their kittens living under her family’s backyard deck. Through this consistent work with ferals, she developed deep sensitivity to feline body language, and an ability to connect with and soothe even the most fearful or reactive cats.

Purely through instinct and observing changes in animal body language, Deborah began training animals from age 5, intuitively using positive reinforcement approaches at that young age. She was passionate about discovering creative enrichment activities for animals, and spent years providing enrichment and care for a wide range of domestic and exotic animals, and feral cats, jellyfish, armadillos, and sugar gliders. Over the years, Deborah has also been the proud parent to five cats, ranging from kittens to seniors.

Deborah holds a degree in Social and Behavioral Sciences, with focus in social psychology, and has over a decade of experience in behavior change consulting. She is trained as a trainer of trainers in psychosocial interventions addressing trauma and resilience, which has strengthened her work with fear-based and reactive behavior. She has completed 500+ educational hours in the behavioral science and mechanics of animal training and cat behavior, been mentored in cat behavior and is currently pursuing additional certifications through the IAABC and PPG.