Training your Cat

Cats are very intelligent creatures and can be trained with a little patience and know-how.

Examples of unacceptable behavior that can be changed by training:

  • biting
  • climbing your legs
  • plays loudly during your sleep cycle
  • jumping on counters
  • digging in houseplants
  • scratching furniture
  • hissing at guests
  • urinating or defecating outside of the litter box

Or you can train your cat to perform one of these “tricks”:

  • High five
  • Shake
  • Come here
  • Sit up
  • Fetch
  • Lay down
  • “Round-about”
  • Agility training (competitions involving clearing obstacles during a timed event)

Watch Cooper beg and wipe his face on command in the following video from YouTube:

The key to training cats is to remember they are not dogs – tactics that work for training dogs can fail miserably with cats.

Cats are not overly impressed with praise from their trainers and if this is the only motivation they receive, there just isn’t enough reason for them to learn. Cats do respond to bribery with treats best, and when followed by praise cements in their minds that this new behavior is a good thing.

You should never, ever hit your cat as a form or punishment. They will only remember that you hit them (and will be afraid of you and not responsive to your wishes) and not what they did to warrant the punishment.

Effective methods of stopping a cat from bad behavior include:

  • loud claps
  • a click from one of those toy clickers that sound like a cricket
  • hissing like a cat
  • an air horn or whistle
  • a rattle
  • blowing some air in their face

If you have a cat that likes to bite, grab its tongue and gently hold it for a few seconds. This should deter it from trying to bite again (might take a few times before it realizes this is a pattern).

If your young kitten likes to carry things in its mouth, you’ll have a better chance to train it to fetch. Praise works best in this case, with treats bribery coming in a poor second. The reward for fetching is that the object (toy) gets thrown again. If your kitten isn’t into the game, it will simply chase the toy then run away without bringing the toy back to you. 

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