Are cats smart enough to be trained to fetch?

[astro]

Just curious. Can they be trained to bring stuff back like a retriever?

[Weirddave]

My cat had four kittens, 2 males and 2 females. The 2 females loved to chase down and retrieve a ball of paper from a very young age. They could keep it up for hours. The males couldn't have cared less. I never taught them to fetch though, they did it naturally.

[Musicat]

As long as water doesn't enter into the equation, sure. I've done it. Or maybe my cat trained me; it's uncertain.

And seen other examples of cat & animal training at zoo/parks. Why would cats be an exception? Birds do it, dunno about bees, even educated fleas do it...

[Rigamarole]

I would argue rather seriously that they are smart enough not to be trained to fetch.

[Mindfield]

One of our former cats used to love to fetch little foil balls. She was quite indefatigable in that regard -- she'd play fetch as long as you'd keep throwing it out there for her to get.

None of my current cats play thay way. They expect to be able to eat whatever you throw at them.

[betenoir]

They can't be trained to fetch. They can't be trained to do anything. If fact it you tell them that's called "fetch" they probably wouldn't do it. But when they think it's in their best interest, they'll bring the little ball or the fuzzy aritficial mouse back to you. If they think your thowing it might entertain them.

Sounds like intelligence to me.

[The Great Sun Jester]

They are definitely smart enough, but they won't do it unless they want to. Toss a stick for a cat to fetch and they'll wander off. But if you have a stick bird toy (you know...one of them sticks with a clump of feathers dangling from a string) the cat will hunt it down and follow you around the house with it.

So can they locate an object and identify a useful thing to bring it to (you) which = fun! But will they fetch your slippers for you or continue to retreive? Nope. Not unless they love you very, very much. We can paly about with "why" this is evolutionarily, but when training a cat the foremost principle to keep in mind is: make the cat see how he benefits from the action.

[MelCthefirst]

Yes, they can be trained to fetch - I never thought to train my old cat to fetch, but I trained him to come when I whistled and to jump up when I clicked my fingers.
There is a book called "You can train you cat!" - can't remember author - talks about how to train them using the usual methods of food rewards. Cats you see in TV ads have been trained.

[Antinor01]

I would argue rather seriously that they are smart enough not to be trained to fetch.

This was going to be my answer too.

I believe that cats are smart enough to train you to throw something that would amuse them by retrieving it.

[Loopydude]

I would argue rather seriously that they are smart enough not to be trained to fetch.

Yeah. I've seen my cat do plenty of things that convince me he's actually pretty clever, but getting him to do almost anything when the mood doesn't strike him is pretty much impossible without physical coersion. He comes when I call. Or not. He answers to "Treat!". Or not. He jumps up into my lap when I pat it. Or not. He knows damn well he's not supposed to go in the guest room, but I've caught him creeping in furtively when I've left the door open many times. I don't even have to yell anymore. He sees me, I point my finger "out!", and off he runs. He's well aware of what's going on, the little shit. There's clearly a brain in there, and it's scheming away quite intelligently...on his terms, of course.

[Man With a Cat]

Don't get me wrong, I like dogs. They're cute and loyal pets.

But everytime a dog lover starts telling me how smart their dog is because he fetches, I drop or toss something, at their feet and ask if they'd get it for me. Thanks, I say then I toss it again and ask them to bring it back. Some of them do this for me 3-4 times.

Then I ask them just how smart they feel, bringing me something back just because I threw it and had them retrieve it for me.

[Malacandra]

This thread was funnier when I misread the title... :D

[Nava]

They are definitely smart enough, but they won't do it unless they want to. Toss a stick for a cat to fetch and they'll wander off. But if you have a stick bird toy (you know...one of them sticks with a clump of feathers dangling from a string) the cat will hunt it down and follow you around the house with it.

So can they locate an object and identify a useful thing to bring it to (you) which = fun! But will they fetch your slippers for you or continue to retreive? Nope. Not unless they love you very, very much. We can paly about with "why" this is evolutionarily, but when training a cat the foremost principle to keep in mind is: make the cat see how he benefits from the action.

I just gave a speech like that to my new immediate supervisor the other day. Substitute cats for "people you want to use the new computer system instead of go on with pen and paper"...

[Annie-Xmas]

My lilac Siamese would fetch crumpled up cigarette packs and a little plastic hole filled ball. The minute I started screaming at something, there would be Puppy-Cat, pack or ball in mouth, ready to play a game of fetch to cheer me up.

[BiblioCat]

My cat plays fetch with those little plastic jingle balls, the little cage-like balls with a bell inside. He'll even play it himself on the basement steps.
It's not uncommon to hear the ball go rolling down the steps, hitting each one, and then hear him scampering down after it.

He can carry the ball in his mouth, and loves for me to throw it for him. He can keep it up for a long time.

[Count Blucher]

This thread was funnier when I misread the title... :D

Me too. What with the 'Screech' thread, I accidently read an 'L' somewhere. :smack:

[pravnik]

My boy cat Bullitt (Steve McQueen spelling) will fetch. He gets his toy mouse or one of my girlfriend's hair scrunchies in his mouth, drops it at your feet, and sits there looking at you until you throw it. When you throw it he takes off in a sprint chasing it, picks it up carefully, and brings it back and drops it at your feet again. If you hold your hand out sometimes he'll drop it right in your hand. It's pretty hilarious. He's the smartest cat I've ever had.

[scotandrsn]

An old boyfriend of my sister's trained her cat to fetch the litlle tapered plastic screw tops you find on things like eye drops. Not only did he get her to fetch it, he got her to bring it to and drop it into a little white plastic mug we had hanging around.

Once, someone left the same style mug in a different color out, full of milk. She was very upset when she dropped her little lid in, and couldn't see it anymore.

[E-Sabbath]

My dog fetches things by name. We didn't train him to do that, either. Right now, he can tell the difference between about eight toys by description.

Freaks people out. He also fetches _people_. "Where's Mommy? Go get mommy." Great herding instinct for a standard poodle.

[davenportavenger]

If fact it you tell them that's called "fetch" they probably wouldn't do it.Sounds like my struggles trying to teach my cat to speak on command. He's very nonvocal, but has recently started being more talky now that I've hit on a cat treat he really likes (Pounce Meaty Morsels). He talks when I go to the table with the cat treats on it. He talks as I take a treat out. But when I say "what do you say?" Nothing. I swear it is on purpose. "How dare you try to use a command phrase on me! I'll not bow to such condescension."

One thing that I heard about cat training is that you always have to reward with food. Dogs will keep on doing tricks even if they never get a physical reward because they love you so much; cats are more cagey. That's maybe why I like them so much, they're so much more like people.

[Anastasaeon]

My cat fetches. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jBsURAz1Cw) No one trained her, she just started doing it one day after she was about a year old.

[taxi78cab]

I had a cat that would fetch, and now my fiance's cat fetches. Both of them just did it on their own though; we never trained them. KeithT's (fiance's) cat will both bring toys to you that you've thrown and bring things to you when she wants to play. But it definitely is on her terms and when she's tired she'll just stop fetching so you have to go and pick up whatever you threw. Or she'll go and pick it up but then detour to her food bowl, drop the toy, eat, and then forget that she was bringing the toy to you. We regularly find her feather wands near her food bowl.

[KlondikeGeoff]

As with other posters, one of my cats will fetch as long as I keep tossing his toy mouse. I almost always give up before he does. However, he did it naturally, I didn't train him. The other cat would not fetch if his life depended upon it.

For years I pondered the fact that in circuses, a number of big cats could be trained to do all sorts of tricks. I wondered why house cats could not.

Then, some years ago, I saw a TV show where a woman put several cats through all the tricks the big cats do. I suppose with enough time and patience, most house cats could be trained.

But, why bother?

[The Mad Hermit]

I misread the thread title; I was expecting a discussion on how to make your cat flush.

My cats don't fetch, but they occasionally bring me things, like dice and game pieces from games left set up. They will chase string, though.

[Zsofia]

Sometimes when I won't throw his stick for him, my cat tries to throw it for himself. It's very sad and I think he needs company. Or therapy.

[Patty O'Furniture]

One of my two cats loves to do this. I always get tired of it before she does. I'll walk away to do something else leaving the ball of paper on the floor in front of her.

The next morning I will almost always find the ball of paper in my shoe.

[Llama Llogophile]

The cat I'm babysitting will bring me crumpled up pieces of paper for me to throw. If she's really in the mood, she'll bring it back, but in her own sweet time.

[pinkfreud]

I saw this thread yesterday, and I ignored it. So help me, I thought the title said "felch" rather than "fetch."

Few cats are as interested in pleasing humans as dogs tend to be. But I have seen cats who played "fetch" games, and I knew one cat who loved to pursue and leap for Frisbees, then bring them back for another round. It looked to me as if the cats enjoyed these pursuits, and hadn't really been taught by anyone. I have both dogs and cats, and the cats seem to be every bit as intelligent as the dogs, but much more wilful and self-directed. I believe my cats love me, but not enough to cause them to do something they don't already want to do. In that respect, they are a lot like most of the humans I know, who are also resistant to learning "tricks."

[freckafree]

This thread was funnier when I misread the title... :D

There aren't enough EW's in the universe for that! (And besides, I think the shape of the muzzle would prevent them from getting adequate suction.)

[Crescent]

I've had several cats that liked to play fetch. When Cobbius was around 5 months old he found a ratty half inside out yellow rubber glove in the basement and developed quite an attachment to it. As long as we were willing to throw it he would bring it back. He also brought it to bed every night. It got so ratty that my husband finally threw it out, then Cobbius found a ratty piece of duct tape in the basement. :p He still plays fetch with toy mice and balls of paper. I swear Chester learned to play fetch from watching Cobbie.

I think the ony link to a picture I've ever posted here was the picture of Cobbie carrying his beloved Glovie.

[Annie-Xmas]

In that respect, they are a lot like most of the humans I know, who are also resistant to learning "tricks."

Balderdash. Dogs think they are human. CATS think they are gods.

[Ellis Dee]

Which Are Smarter, Cats or Dogs? (http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/Features/Columns/?article=catsanddogsmain)

Probably the best-known expert on the intelligence of dogs is Stanley Coren, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia and the author of several books about dogs. [...]

Dogs, like humans, are social animals. They think in terms of how they relate to others. Domestic cats are not pack animals [...] This is [...] why many people, Coren included, make a strong case for dogs being smarter, paws down.

"The reason is very simple," he says. "If you have two animals that are roughly at the same evolutionary level and roughly the same [classification]--cats and dogs are both carnivores--the one that has the more complex social structure is almost always brighter."

Pack animals have to read signals and anticipate the effect of their actions. It's kind of like being a chess player. If you look at it in human developmental terms, a dog is about equivalent to a human two-year-old, which means it knows about 260 words or signals. The average cat, meanwhile, is more like an 18-month-old, which means it knows about 50 words. The more words a creature knows and the better it's able to communicate, the more it is apt to succeed in a social environment.

It's not that cats are too regal to perform tricks or obey commands, Coren says. It's that they don't understand how to do them. They just aren't able to learn language and read social cues as well as dogs.

Dogs, on the other hand, are champs at it. Maybe this is why dogs joined human families about 14,000 years ago, while cats were first domesticated 4,500 years ago. Dogs were quicker to figure out how to hop on board the human gravy train.Emphasis added.

[Musicat]

from Which Are Smarter, Cats or Dogs? (http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/Features/Columns/?article=catsanddogsmain) It's not that cats are too regal to perform tricks or obey commands, Coren says. It's that they don't understand how to do them. They just aren't able to learn language and read social cues as well as dogs.Yet they do just fine at theme parks. I honestly don't remember which one it was, but at a theme park in California years ago (Sea World?) I distinctly remember watching the trainers control a motley assortment of animals, including birds and cats, to do tricks on command. And animal "wranglers" in Hollywood can train just about anything from a spider to a tiger to perform on cue. I don't see cats as an exception.

Some links:

Animal trainers (http://www.imdb.com/company/co0067355/), including training a cat and a mouse for one movie, Mousehunt. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119715/)

Animal wrangler Luke Hura claims to have trained cats for movies. (http://www.abc.net.au/gnt/future/Transcripts/s1229932.htm)GEORGE NEGUS: What other animals do you train or have you trained?

LUKE HURA: Well, I do cats. I've done rats, chooks, pigs, goats. Quite a variety of different jobs. In fact, I've just come back from Sydney only about a week ago. I did a big cat food commercial up there. And we had quite a few cats. I think there was something like about 12 I was training altogether for this particular role. We had to use a lot of them.

[betenoir]

"It's not that cats are too regal to perform tricks or obey commands, Coren says. It's that they don't understand how to do them. They just aren't able to learn language and read social cues as well as dogs."


Balderdash. As evidenced in this thread, they are able to fetch. They also can know and respond to their name. And lord knows they know what the sound of a can opener is.

Ok, regal is not the best word, but they don't have less intelligence, just a different kind. They're not social creatures in the same sense dogs are. They don't live in packs. So they don't interact with other creatures in quite the same way. Stands to reason.

As a member of a pack tending species, who nontheless doesn't like packs that much, I guess that's what makes me a cat person.

[Cat Whisperer]

Good question - my cats are definitely trained. They are trained to do what I want them to do, which didn't include fetch. I trained mine to come when called (tuna training really does work for cats) and stay off counters, tables, and coffee tables. I trained Jim's cat the same way, but I got her much later, and she doesn't listen nearly as well, but she knows there's only one alpha female in this house, and it isn't her. Cats need the will to please to be trained well, in my opinion - my cat has it, and Jim's cat doesn't.

As for training dogs, most dogs I've seen act quite a bit like cats - always testing their human to see if he's really serious about the command, not just following commands immediately.

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

I've had several cats over the years that would fetch. They all figured it out on their own and did it when they felt like it.

[pinkfreud]

In that respect, they are a lot like most of the humans I know, who are also resistant to learning "tricks." Balderdash. Dogs think they are human. CATS think they are gods.I guess I didn't phrase my statement very well. I didn't mean to say that cats think that they are like humans. Cats would, no doubt, reject this insulting notion. I think that cats are like (some) humans in their stubbornness and self-absorption. A resistance to doing things in order to please others is a rather common human characteristic, I think.

[Q.N. Jones]

Cats can be trained. Many cats respond to their name (both of mine do), and some people train their cats to come when they're called.

I've heard of some cats being trained to fetch, but mostly I've found that they either think of it on their own, or they just don't do it.

Funny fetch story: My sister's cat, Boo, came up with the game of fetch herself. She will make you throw her felt mouse all day long. However, this only works if you keep the bathroom door closed. Sometime last year, she learned that she really, really likes to see her felt mice floating in the toilet. So now, if she has a chance to get it into the toilet, she won't return the mouse to you. She'll go drown it. :)

[BiblioCat]

Funny fetch story: My sister's cat, Boo, came up with the game of fetch herself. She will make you throw her felt mouse all day long. However, this only works if you keep the bathroom door closed. Sometime last year, she learned that she really, really likes to see her felt mice floating in the toilet. So now, if she has a chance to get it into the toilet, she won't return the mouse to you. She'll go drown it. :)My cat does that, too, but he prefers to drown the felt mice in the water bowl.

[blackhobyah]

Ok, regal is not the best word, but they don't have less intelligence, just a different kind. They're not social creatures in the same sense dogs are. They don't live in packs. So they don't interact with other creatures in quite the same way. Stands to reason.


I keep hearing the idea that cats aren't social creatures, but I think the myth of the cat who walks by herself is, just that, a myth.

While cats are not social in the same way dogs are, I don't think it's at all true that they don't evidence complex social interactions. I've seen a documentary on feral cats which certainly shows that they live in groups, with female cats sharing kitten duties, some mothers caring for all the babies while the other mothers hunted.

I've also read that cats who live in close proximity (such as cats in urban environments) will develop territories that are not just geographic but temporal (i.e. one cat will patrol a similiar or over-lapping geographic territory as another cat, but at a different time), the time difference being to minimise the need for territorial battles, which indicates a reasonably sophisticated form of territorial awareness.

I have several cats of my own, and they are pretty social with each other, they play with each other, share beds and food and co-exist with the dogs, none of which would be possible without an understanding of how to live in harmony with other animals.

A couple of years ago I interviewed a man who trains cats for television advertisments and film. He said they weren't all that hard to train, but that you had to be a bit more patient and willing to break the tricks down into small increments. Of course, part of that might have been because we don't routinely train cats the way we do with dogs, the cats were starting from scratch without a basis of simple obedience.

[Cat Whisperer]

Oh, they evidence complex social behaviours alright. We have two females who were introduced t each other well into adulthood - if I were a cat sociologist, I could write theses on their interactions.

[betenoir]

I keep hearing the idea that cats aren't social creatures, but I think the myth of the cat who walks by herself is, just that, a myth.


Yeah well...I basically agree with everything you said in your post. But you note I said "not social in the same way". Cats are social. I said as much in my first post.
Just not like a pack animal would be. Different intelligence. They don't hunt together in coordinated ways. Different. Is what I'm saying.

[MelCthefirst]

Don't get me wrong, I like dogs. They're cute and loyal pets.

But everytime a dog lover starts telling me how smart their dog is because he fetches, I drop or toss something, at their feet and ask if they'd get it for me. Thanks, I say then I toss it again and ask them to bring it back. Some of them do this for me 3-4 times.

Then I ask them just how smart they feel, bringing me something back just because I threw it and had them retrieve it for me.

Depends very much on the breed. Border Collies, Retrievers and Poodles always come somewhere at the top of the list of intelligent dog breeds and most dogs from these breeds will fetch if you ask them to do. They have been bred to work for humans and it doesn't make them less intelligent because they'll play a seemingly dumb game of fetch, over and over.

[Llama Llogophile]

My temporary cat and I did some research this evening when I introduced a new toy: a party favor "helicopter". She went nuts over it, possibly thinking it was some sort of bird.

She retrieved it over and over for about fifteen minutes until she appeared to get tired.

The toy is basically a stick with a propeller on top. You roll the stick in your hands and let go for it to fly away. This kept her interest longer than any other toy so far, and she's never retrieved so many times and so quickly!

[Llama Llogophile]

I should mention that I encouraged her with a big fuss and vigorous petting each time she brought it back to me.

A couple of times she went to it, picked it up and dropped, then returned to me. In that case I didn't fuss or pet her, got it myself for another throw, and then she retrieved it properly.

So I'd say she successfully "fetched" about 80% of the time during this play period. I'll try to get a picture of her doing it next time.