Cat Training

Archive for June, 2008

Some people will tell you that cat training is a fruitless endeavor. The common wisdom is that cats do their own thing and couldn’t care in the least what you want them to do. That may be true to some extent, however, cat training is possible. It may be difficult to train a cat to do tricks, but even that is not impossible. You certainly can, however, modify cat behavior and make life with your cat more pleasant for both you and your cat as he learns good behavior.

When I was much younger and much more patience I did some cat training in the more classical sense. I trained a couple of kittys to sit up lay down and do other simple tricks. The cats are actually pretty good at performing the tricks about 70% of the time. Unfortunately, I no longer have the patience or the time for that type of cat training.

Cats are intelligent animals, but felines also have their own agenda. If you are going to try cat training to modify your cat’s behavior you need to either provide rewards for the cat or get the cat to recognize the negative consequences of the behavior.

You need to avoid having the cat associate bad consequences with you. Otherwise, instead of learning to avoid the negative behavior they will be learning to avoid you. For example, if you want your can’t stop jumping on the counter you need to make it unpleasant for the cat to be on the counter and not yell at him or chase him away. Placing something unpleasant for the cat such as sticky paper or aluminum foil on the counter can do the trick. That demonstrates one good approach to Training.

Positive rewards for positive behaviors works well in cat training just as it does for training other pets. If there is a particular type of tree at your kitty enjoys you can reinforce positive behavior with the treat. That is cat training though positive reinforcement.

Cat training for good behavior is not only possible, it is necessary to to keep the felines and humans of the household happy.