How are cats trained?

How are cats trained?

Basic Cat Training
Contrary to popular belief, cats can be trained, at least to a degree. While they may not be as easy to teach as a dog, teaching your cat to change or modify their behaviour will ensure you have a happy and healthy relationship.
Rewards: Essentially we get cats to do what we want by rewarding them. The reward is
usually a little piece of food, but it can also be praise and affection.
Food: Scandalous as it might sound to some (I’ll return to this subject later) food is not
left out for the cat to munch on anytime it wants. Instead the cat’s daily ration is divided
into portions and given at regular mealtimes. A certain amount of food is kept
specifically to be used as “treats” during training.kittens
Repetition: As the old saying goes: If you want to learn a new skill there are three things
you have to do. The first one is practice. The second one is practice. The third one is
practice.kittens
Consistency: Training every single day for two minutes will give better results than
spending hours one day but then doing nothing for a week or two.
Be nice! Cats are social and enjoy affection, but they are not pack animals. They don’t
have an instinctive need to be part of a group. If bad things happen when they are around
a certain person or in a certain place, they will stay away. Try to mold your cat’s
behavior with praise rather than scolding, with affection rather than anger. (I might add
that this approach works well with people too!)
Cats hear, see, smell and sense things that humans do not. Cats have instincts that cause
them to react in ways that humans do not. Cats do not react to pleasures and hurts, praise
and insults the way that humans do. Yet if you take the time to understand what kind of
animal your cat is, to try and understand how it might see the world and treat it with love
and respect, then the bond that forms is remarkable.kittens
What sorts of things can cats learn to do?
It really depends how much time you want to devote to training. There are several videos
posted on the internet that show the sorts of things that cats can learn. How far you take
it is up to you.
The nuts and bolts of getting your cat to do what you want:
Here is a basic truth of cat psychology: A cat will not do something unless it is
worthwhile (for the cat). It’s just the way they are built. You can love it, you can hate it,
you can argue, you can call cats “selfish” or “arrogant” or a bunch of other names, you
can get angry, you can wish it wasn’t so, you can do whatever you want, but until you
accept the idea you won’t get very far training a cat.kittens
It is just this simple: Make it worth the cat’s while and it will (literally) jump through
hoops for you. If you don’t make it worthwhile the cat won’t give you the time of day