My sister got a kitten & a few days a go I showed her this nifty test to see if your cat is aggressive. You give it the test before buying it. Just put it on its back & put your hand on its tummy lightly, an aggressive cat is gonna bite you --but a passive one won’t. BTW: I couldn’t teach that cat to stop jumping on me & slashing with her nails so I gave her the name ‘Slasher’.
Mine are also trained to come when you whistle. It has never had anything to do with food, though, but it’s handy to get errant cats to come in for the night. They also come to me when I snap my fingers, which I didn’t think was unusual until I tried getting a friends’ kittens attention that what- they just stared at me.
They understand more than we give them credit for. On of my cats understands “Get down” (even in a normal speaking tone) and will immediately get off the table or counter. Doesn’t stop him from climbing up on it, though.
Jack puts his front paws on top of his food bin when he wants to eat. I started by putting his feet on top of his food bin just before I fed him. Now, he does it by himself, whenever he wants food.
My cat doesn’t perform, but he behaves. [ul][li] I trained him to wait quietly for food. He was an especially noisy, demanding cat when he first adopted us, and my Mom would feed him to make him shut up. But I would slowly move his food toward him while he was quiet and quickly move it away when he meowed. He caught on. Now he’s the world’s quietest kitty.[/li]
[li]I trained him to stay off the kitchen table. Whenever I caught him on the table, I threw him out with much yelling and foot stomping. Once though, he was sitting on a stool next to the table, and that seemed all right. So after that he would sit at the table while quietly waiting for food.[/li]
[li]I taught him not to take food that wasn’t his. There was often food on the table not meant for him, and whenever he reached for it I would stop him with a sharp ah!AH! and maybe a little bop on the forehead. (Most cats won’t tolerate a bop on the forehead, but this one found it only mildly objectionable.) Soon I was able to put a plate of fish right under his nose, indicate that he was to leave it alone (ah!AH!), and leave the room. The first time I did this, I watched him in a mirror from the next room. As soon as I was out of his sight he made a move toward the fish, until he heard my ah!AH! Then he settled back into a resigned-looking waiting mode. After that he was perfectly trustworthy. He’s so civilized, we let him join the family at the table when we get together.[/ul][/li]We’ve reached some other agreements too, but people seem most impressed by his table manners.
I was sitting at the swimming pool at my (then) apartment complex. A cat came up to a couple, who were it’s obvious owners. The manager came out and told them that no unleashed pets were allowed in the pool area.
They told it to go home and wait on them, whereupon it ran off in the direction of their building. I asked if it would really go home and hang out. They stated that it would be sitting by their front door when they went back. Sounds like a dog in cat’s clothing. That’s the only time I’ve seen anything remotely like a trained cat.
My 9 year old Siamese knows “get up” to mean get off my lap, I need to get up, and comes when she’s called. If she’s doing something bad (ie: on the counter, or scratching the carpet, she’ll stop when I yell at her, but that’s probably just tone of voice.
My 9 month old kitten is a freak. He fetches better than most dogs I’ve met. He has this chicken doll that is about four inches long that he carries around the apartment in his mouth. He knows where this chicken doll is at all times. If you toss the chicken, he will haul ass to retreive it and return it to it’s rightful location (where he had originally put it.) You can continue this tossing game for hours. But he’s not doing it for my amusement. I’m currently trying to teach him to fetch his chicken on the command “Where’s your chicken?” but at the moment, that just gets a confused look and a cocked head.
Between the two of them, there is constant fighting…I mean “playing” in the Swiddle household. And the little one LOVES to get his belly rubbed, so I’m not sure how right on that test is, handy. He’s a demon to his big sister, but if a human is around, he’s all about the belly rub.
My dad just told me that he’s trained the cats to come running when he turns the porch light on and off, so he doesn’t have to call for them. I’ll have to try it.
I trained one of my cats to come eat by calling, “Crunchies!”. I thought it might be the tone of my voice, not the word, so I experimented over about a week’s period of time. I used different voices, ie one day I called her in a deep voice, next day I called her in a high-pitched voice. She came running every time. I dunno.
I had an indoor/outdoor cat that would sleep in my room at night. She would jump up on my outside windowsill and rub against it, and the tags on her collar would bang against the window, letting me know she was ready to come in. I’d either open the window & let her in, or go let her in at the front door. In the morning, she’d scratch on my bedroom door to be let out, I’d open the door and she’d run straight to the front door and wait to be let out. Did I train her or did she train me?
One of my cats loves it when I sing. (I sing opera and I used to sing in an Early Music Ensemble) I got her when she was just a little bitty 2-week-old scrap of fur, and after I fed her, I’d lay on the sofa and let her crawl around. When she got sleepy I’d hold her on my chest and either hum or sing to her. Now, whenever I sing, she comes running, and rubs up against me and purrs and gives me kisses.(Which makes it difficult to keep singing if I’m sitting down) If I’m practicing with the keyboard she usually walks all over it, too. So I guess I trained her to like singing.
I have two cats, Rocky and Chili, who each come running when I call their name. If I call one, that’s the one that runs in.
When they feel like it, they both sit on command (yes, it took a long time).
They both come running if I whistle.
Chili talks back to me all the time. One day I’ll figure out what he’s saying. I probably don’t want to know.
Rocky plays fetch better than my retriever does (who doesn’t retrieve at all). Ball up a piece of paper and he comes running like a fiend. He’ll bring it back for as long as you feel like tossing it, and he catches it in the air, as well. The cat is a freak.
If you have patience, you can train a cat. Well, most cats, anyway.
Shoogie and Merci both fetch. They have been behaviour modified not to scratch the furniture, or jump on the counters. I gave up on the dining room table, though. Their furry butts OWN it! They disdain the (rather expensive) cat tree I purchased for them (You got that for the dog, right?)
Conversely, they have me trained to get out of bed by 5:00am each and every morning of the week. Even before the alarm goes off, Merci will start grooming my eyebrows with his sandpaper tongue. I reward this ‘trick’ by feeding them the wet goo from cans that they so sluttishly crave.
Shoogie’s big thing is to get stuck behind the washer/dryer.
He’ll start meowing and chirping pathetically, Um, kitty mistake? A little HELP here? One of these days soon I’m going to throw my back out retrieving the furkid. He’s only eight months old, and already weighs 15 1/2 pounds!
Does anyone know how to train a cat to use a treadmill?
Um. Generally speaking female cats do not like to be touched on their tummies. Male cats often like belly rubs.
Persephone asked:
It works quite well on kids, or so I’ve been told. It is basically operant conditioning, also known as behavior modification. Scientifically, it is based on the work of BF Skinner, among others. Try doing an internet search, I’m sure you’ll find a lot.
My two older cats and I used to go for walks when we lived downtown in a good sized city. I’d put them on their leashes and they would walk just as nice as anybody on a leash. One rather warm Sunday morning, we set out, and we may have been going a bit faster than usual. Two blocks to make it home and Frances began to pant, signalling it was time to stop Right Then. She’s not a carrying kind of cat - she likes to assume the large-awkward-parrot-backwards-on-a-pirate’s-shoulder position when handled - so just toting her home wasn’t really an option. We were right in front of a church, just at the time people were going in before the service began. I parked them both under a bush, and said, “Edie, Frances, wait here. I am going home to get the car and will be back for you in a few minutes. Do not go into the church. Do not interact with the people. Wait right here until I get back. Do you understand?” And I looked at them very hard. They gazed back, like, “yeah, ok, so we’ll just wait here,” and off I went. Five or so minutes later, when I got back, they were waiting under the bush and hopped into the car.
Around the same time, Edie had some kittens, one of whom understood what Taco Bell meant. She would say Mew! in a way that meant “bring me a soft taco supreme”.
My cats have trained me to provide them bites of whatever I’m eating - they put their front paws on the chair and lean forward expectantly, and like clockwork, my fork lunges forward to their little drooling mouths.
FTR, Edie always walks with me and the dog, and Snuggles walks sometimes. I try to get them to go back home and wait, but they don’t know Go Home. Edie used to make me carry her most of the second half of the trip (picture an 80 lb dog dragging a girl carrying a cat), but she’s gotten better at pacing herself and her stamina has improved. Frances never walks.
“Kiss kiss” will get me a peck on the cheek.
“Paw” will get them to put their paw in my hand to shake.
One of my cats travels with me and hates to be left behind. All I have to do is hold up the harness and she’ll run right over to me so I can get it on her. She’ll then walk to the door and look back at me if I don’t move fast enough. They are not allowed out of the yard and if I catch one trying to escape I tell them to go to jail. They go. I have had several cats who would sit up and beg. Oh yes, they can be trained.