Land on Your Feet (LYF) Cat Behavior Consultant Mentorship with Katenna Jones
Working as a behavior consultant, whether you’re a beginner or one with years of experience, can be frustrating. It’s difficult to grow your business when you’re juggling so many hats, and without others to go to for support, it can be an isolating career, often leading to compassion fatigue and burnout.
Even harder, there’s resources available for dog trainers and behavior consultants, but very little that’s specifically targeted at cat behavior consultants and trainers. While working with cats and helping them stay in homes is becoming more widespread, it still can feel like cat consultants aren’t given the full attention they deserve!
Join LYF!
LYF is a monthly mentorship program designed to help you build your cat behavior consulting business through group support, peer accountability and expert assistance with everything from feline behavior and training to business and marketing. LYF is designed to help you grow in your chosen field and help more cats and their families.
How is this different from other mentorships?
Kitten loads of great resources include live online meetings with mentors, recorded online meetings, guest speakers, a cat behavior body of knowledge.
Your LYF Mentors
Katenna Jones, ScM, ACAAB, CCBC, CDBC, Certified Fear Free Trainer
Through Jones Animal Behavior, Katenna Jones provides in-person and virtual behavior consultations as well as educational seminars to pet owners, rescues, and other pet professionals. She speaks at international events, contributes to a wide variety of publications, and is author of Fetching the Perfect Dog Trainer: Getting the Best for You and Your Dog. Katenna began her career as a shelter volunteer in 1999 and went on to earn her Master’s Degree from Brown University where she studied animal behavior, learning and cognition. Eventually, she became a cruelty investigator, worked for American Humane Association and also for the Association of Professional Dog Trainers. Katenna is an Associate Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist, Certified Cat and Dog Behavior Consultant, and a Certified Fear Free Trainer. She shares her NY home with two cats and chickens.
Mychelle Garrigan, MSW
Mychelle Garrigan runs Firelink Digital Marketing which focuses on small to medium businesses and non-profits, with a special niche for pet care professionals. She provides a full range of online business services include website design, copywriting, SEO, Google analytics, and web accessibility audits. She also has a specialty in helping individuals develop online course platforms, whether it’s on their own website or using pre-configured learning management systems. She also works with many pet care professionals providing digital marketing services to help grow their businesses.
Mychelle’s professional background includes over 30 years working in administration, development and marketing/communications positions in the non-profit world. She currently serves as Vice President of the Sioux Empire TNR Coalition, which works to improve the lives of cats in the Sioux Empire through TNR, adoption, education and more.
Mychelle has a long history working as both staff and a volunteer for various shelters and rescues. She is a former Certified Dog Behavior Consultant through the IAABC. She was a regular writer for several websites on dog and cat behavior and training and small animal and reptile care. She also served for many years as editor for both the IAABC and the APDT journals and as the Technical Course Manager for IAABC’s online education program and was the original website designer for their award-winning journal. Mychelle lives with her dog Darcy, cats Ranni, Howl, Raven, Castiel, and Bucky, a few snakes and several foster kittens and cats in Sioux Falls, SD.
LYF Includes
Online Group Meetings
Cat Chit Chats (3rd Thursday, 8 pm EST) to review cases, ask questions, networking, sharing, chatting, encouraging, brainstorming, socializing, etc. These are not recorded.
Topic Meetings: A preplanned topic is presented. (1st Tuesday, 11 am EST). Recordings of past meetings are available. Our current topic schedule is:
January (2026) - FAS
February - Health/Medical/Nutrition
March - Normal Cat Behavior
April - Spraying/Litter Box
May - Play Aggression
June - Cat-Cat Conflict
July - Counseling Skills/Working with Clients
August - Self Care
September - Petting Aggression
October - Cat-Dog Conflict
November - Dementia/Aging
December - Frustrated Aggression
Discussion Group
Private discussion forum to ask questions, share cases, or discuss anything mentees want.
Live Consult Observation
Sit in on actual live online cat behavior consultations with real clients to learn more about how to work with clients effectively.
One-on-One Office Hours
One-on-one office hours with Katenna are available for guidance on anything you need help with: education options, a case you’re working on, dealing with a client, general behavior, or anything at all related to cats. There is no charge for this unique and incredibly valuable opportunity!
How to Sign Up
- The LYF mentorship is a monthly subscription for $50/month.
- Monthly rate is set to auto-renew unless you cancel.
- You can start and stop the mentorship at any time.
- Questions? Email us at [email protected]!
FAQs:
Absolutely! In addition to the monthly live meetings where the mentors will be in attendance, you’ll have access to the discussion forum where mentors will respond to your posts. On top of all that Katenna holds one-on-one office hours just for you, which you can schedule at your convenience.
No! This mentorship is designed for anyone who wants to work with cats in a behavior consultant role. We welcome beginners and experienced mentees alike! Our goal is to create a mentorship where you not only learn from us but also from each other, and find an open, supportive environment. In fact you don’t ever have to work as a behavior consultant if you don’t want to! You can just gather this knowledge for your own personal reasons.
100%! You can start and stop the mentorship at any time, for any reason.
No. LYF is designed to disseminate knowledge and information, which will certainly contribute to your readiness for certification. However, LYF nor HippocampusOnline are intended to certify, or qualify, anyone to work as a cat behavior consultant.