Do you have a newly adopted adult cat, or are you bringing home a new kitten? Are you curious if they can learn the same skills as your dog? Great news: they can!
Cats learn in the same manner as dogs do. The key with training cats lies in understanding their motivations and breaking down behaviours appropriately.
Here are three tips to begin training your cat!
- Find what motivates your cat
Some cats are intensely food motivated while others love to play and bat around a toy. Find what works for your cat! If they are heavily food motivated, then treats or even their own kibble should suffice as rewards for training. If they are pickier, opt for savoury treats that can be easily homemade; boiled or grilled meats such as chicken, steak or salmon
If your cat loves to chase and play with toys, then you can easily interchange food and toys in your training. Its important to remember with cats however, that being proactive about rewarding good choices such as scratching their cat posts verses your couch, or using their litter box appropriately should always be occurring. For example if they use their litter box correctly and they love to pay, reward them with a little play session outside of the litter box room afterwards.
2. Opt not to Free Feed
Although free feeding tends to work well with a busy human schedule, it can cause your cat to lose some of its driving motivation for food because its always available! if you are hoping to use your cat’s food for easy rewards, then you are devaluing it by having it out 24/7.
We suggest meal feeding your cats, similar to your dog. You will create a feeding routine by doing this, and it will help to structure your training times! A good example of a feeding routine would be to feed your cat two solid meals a day (dry or wet food, morning and evening) and leave out some of that portion for snacks, training and food puzzles during the day. The small portions you leave out will ensure you are having short and effective training sessions.
3. Use a Marker System
If you choose to train your cat, you are going to want to use a marker system. A marker system in training tells your cat when they have done something correct and have earned a reward. It is a tool to improve training skills and communication between trainer and animal. For example, your cat wanders off to their cat tower to scratch for a few moments. You want to encourage and reward this behaviour over her scratching your furniture, so you mark the correct behaviour with a verbal marker – YES! and reward her.
Some trainers prefer to use a clicker as their marker for training, but a verbal cue such as YES can work just as effectively. This allows you to reward behaviour accurately and quickly, and your cat will learn why they have earned their rewards as a result. Without the use of a marker, our training is more likely to be muddled or confusing to our cats.
Ready to get started, but need ideas?
Simple behaviours you can teach your cat that are useful include recall, name recognition, focus and impulse control! You can also reward your cat for good behaviours in the home such as not counter surfing.
Still don’t believe it can be done, or need a visual to help you out? Check out Henry learning to lift a paw in the video below! He has been trained with a clicker and knows basic commands such as Sit, Recall, Mat Training and Target.