My Family Cat’s 2025 Year in Review!

It’s 2026!

My Family Cat is now a two year old feline only, behavior-focused practice, and I met so many awesome cats and clients last year. Being invited into your homes to help you and your kitties with concerns such as fighting between cats, anxiety, elimination outside the litterbox, and fear of the vet was an honor. As a cat lover who has accrued 10 cat-themed T-shirts, I also loved seeing all of the cat-themed decor.

In other My Family Cat news, did I meet my 2025 goal to write a blog every month? No, I did not. Did I write a blog every other month? Also no. Did I manage to write four blogs in 12 months? Yes!

Explore this blog post on urinary housesoiling, where I walk you through a case study of one of my patients and a peek behind the scenes of an in-depth cat behavior consult with My Family Cat. Underlying medical issues should always be addressed with ANY behavior concern, and cats urinating outside the litterbox (including urine marking) are the #2 reason why clients seek my services. (Can you guess the #1 reason? Intercat conflict! Often going hand in hand with cats peeing outside the box).

In another blog I discuss whether you should consider an anesthesia-free dental cleaning for your cat. I also wrote a long form blog that does a deep dive on one of the most important steps you can take towards supporting your cat’s emotional needs: understanding cat body language and the 4 F’s of feline fear, anxiety, and stress. I wrapped up 2025 with a final long form blog that delves into my top 10 enrichment tips for senior cats. There is so much you can do to support the medical and behavioral health of cats over 10 years of age, and I share several enrichment tips that I use with my own nearly 19 year old cat Puff. I hope you’ll share these resources with other cat lovers in your life.

In 2024 I launched the Catnip Club, a free collection of bonus resources for clients who have completed a consult. These include an extensive list of my fave enrichment products and a comprehensive guide on gel cap training, and in 2025 I added another cat training resource and a few other goodies.

For more about My Family Cat or to book an initial housecall consult or recheck for your kitty in the Austin area, check out the link below! If you know an Austinite cat parent who needs cat behavior help, I’d love it if you could spread the word. Your referral is the greatest compliment and I appreciate your support.

Hope you enjoy my 2025 photo diary and Happy New Year!

Dr. Julie Liu

Cat Friendly and Fear Free veterinarian

Owner, My Family Cat

Personal physician to Puff

Learn more about My Family Cat, or book a cat behavior service:

Follow @myfamilycatvet on Instagram:

Follow @myfamilycat on Facebook:

My Family Cat’s 2025 Year in Review

It was another year of orange cats! I met so many of Puff’s orange and orange/white brothers and sisters on my housecalls that I was able to feature them in this collage. So cute.

It was also another busy year of more great professional opportunities. In addition to being a feline veterinarian and cat behavior consultant for My Family Cat, I provide speaking, consulting, and freelancing for vet and pet professionals, vet clinics, and feline-forward businesses.

These speaking engagements included presenting at the House Call and Mobile Vet Virtual Conference in February, giving a webinar on positive medicating for pets for Hound in June, speaking at the AVMA national conference in DC in July (my second year in a row!), giving two talks on feline friendly handling to the awesome team at the Austin Animal Center, co-presenting on portfolio careers at the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association yearly convention in September, and giving a webinar in December for Fear Free on reducing stress for feline in-home care.

I also serve as the Vice President of the Relief Veterinary Medical Association (RVMA), and acted as the chair of the conference committee that spearheaded the first ever conference geared towards relief professionals, the Virtual Relief Veterinary Conference. While sadly I will be leaving the RVMA this month to focus on other opportunities, it was incredible to be part of the founding team for this organization advocating for relief veterinarians and relief technicians.

Costa Rican adventures with Traveling Vet Retreats!

Once again I had the chance to fill in for my friend as moderator/onsite event coordinator for her veterinary continuing education conference business, Traveling Vet Retreats! This time I was excited to travel to La Fortuna, Costa Rica in March. My trip did not get off to a great start when I left my only personal credit card at the Houston Hobby airport where I was having breakfast during a layover. I should have known something would happen because at 4AM I came across a Ronald McDonald statue parked inexplicably at an ABIA gate. I think we can all agree that clowns are terrifying and I took this as a bad omen. However, other than that the trip was amazing!

Highlights included seeing my first volcano Volcán Arenal, gorging on the free hotel breakfast every morning (I was usually the first guest waiting for them to open), and the nature! I saw sloths, coatis, Great currassows, monkeys, tiny poison frogs, leaf cutter ants, a 6’ long snake, and dozens of colorful birds. The scenery was unreal and I want to go back.

I also loved getting to practice my Spanish with the locals, who had so much patience and warmth. I bonded with my shuttle driver because I’d been plugging away at Spanish on Duolingo since Jan 2019, and he’d been plugging away at English on Duolingo. The trip inspired me to take the next step and sign up for in person Spanish classes through Live the Language para mejorar mi pronunciación y hablar con más fluidez. Ya aprendí mi nueva palabra favorita de mi maestra: “gatijo” (gato + hijo = cat son).

Puff’s big year

Speaking of gatijos, 2025 was a big year for my super senior cat Puff as well. He celebrated his 18th birthday in May, got some new plant enrichment, increased his napping to 22 hours a day, and received a major diagnosis of diabetes mellitus in October. I noticed him drinking more with slight weight loss, so brought him to the ER where bloodwork and urine testing confirmed the disease.

As much as I always feared him becoming diabetic since I didn’t think he’d do well with insulin injections, learning about positive training (which is so important for ALL cats) years ago really set him up for success with his diabetes management. Since the age of 14, he’s learned how to station, target, and be medicated using a positive reinforcement-based concept called cooperative care, where you give pets choice and agency in their own care.

I’m proud to report that after about 5-7 days of trial and error and training, he began enthusiastically hopping onto his stationing mat (his medication station) for his insulin injections, and learned to weigh himself after 1 session. Here he is below gnawing on some cat grass and demonstrating cooperative care (my Instagram followers know that I’m not a fan of clothes on cats for fashion, the sweater is to keep him from scratching off his Freestyle Libre glucose monitor so it could stay on for 2 weeks). Thankfully, he’s now in remission (meaning he’s no longer insulin-dependent), but in case he ever comes out of remission, I’m continuing to give him Churu on his medication station twice daily after breakfast and dinner to bank positive associations and continue his training routine.

The morals of the story are to ALWAYS bring your cat to the vet if you notice any new physical or behavioral changes, and positive reinforcement based training is possible for cats at any age!

My big year

2025 was a big year for me as well personally as I had to take a leave of absence to recover from rotator cuff surgery. Veterinarians are notorious workaholics, and being a vet professional is not easy on the body. During housecalls I’m lifting, carrying, climbing, bending, crouching, kneeling, sitting, examining, standing, typing, and walking, and all of which cause wear and tear. And that’s not even to mention the repetitive motion of tossing treats to decrease stress in my feline patients!

While it was really hard for me to step away from my clients, patients, and other work, I took the opportunity to focus on physical and mental rest. I spent time with Puff and my partner Brian, walked almost daily, committed to physical therapy, listened to a bunch of podcasts, and of course watched a lot of streaming. I was re-binging BoJack Horseman when I caught this screenshot of BoJack in a sling, which perfectly mirrored my irritation at the 6 weeks that I had to wear a sling (even while sleeping!). Then at some point I started binging Task and got really excited when I saw Martha Plimpton. First of all, I love Martha Plimpton. Second of all, in one part of the show she was ALSO wearing a sling.

I have to say the timing of my break was perfect because if it hadn’t been for my being at home more with Puff (which he loved!), it would have taken me longer to notice his clinical signs and get him diagnosed. His diabetes also took some tweaking to regulate, so I was able to monitor his glucose changes more easily thanks to being on leave and a couple rounds of Freestyle Libres.

I appreciate everyone’s patience with me during this time as I continue my recovery and work towards full return to function! And special shout out to all of my awesome clients who helped me carry my housecall bags from my car to your home and vice versa since I’m still on weight restrictions for what I’m allowed to lift. You’re all the best!

Backyard friends

One of my biggest hobbies is spying on all of the birds and animals that visit our home. This year was the 5th year in a row we had Bewick’s Wrens nesting in the box out front, and our screech owl box was colonized by squirrels who made four adorable squirrel babies. In my unscientific observations, squirrels seem to have a vertical version of splooting where they hang their arms and head over a structure such as the edge of the nest box opening.

I had my first sightings ever of a Broad-winged Hawk, a Yellow-breasted Chat, and a Black-headed Grosbeak, right in our backyard. We also had Painted Buntings, Orange-crowned Warblers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Eastern Bluebirds, and Baltimore Orioles visit in addition to our regular Carolina Wrens, Northern Cardinals, Black-crested Titmice, House Finches, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Ladder-backed Woodpeckers, Blue Jays, and Lesser Goldfinches.

I highly recommend the Bird Buddy and setting up a plant saucer bird bath with rocks if you want to be a bird spy too.

That wraps up our look back on 2025! Wishing all of you a peaceful and cat-filled 2026.