teach my cat to do tricks

Saw some cats doing tricks on you tube and thought I’d give it a go. My cat was 4 months old when I got him and in a few days I taught him to sit on command and since then I have taught him to walk on a leash (where I want to go :) high-five, turn-around, roll-over, fetch a ball and a few others right now I am teaching him to clap and he’s about half way there! Go ahead, they are trainable!

She was outside and didn’t want to come inside so I got out the clicker. She came in and then sat and held up her paw to shake! We haven’t worked on this for a few weeks so I was happy that she remembered.

Silly cat, (but it really is cute).

She wanted cat treats last night and she held up her paw to shake before I could even get the treats ready. So, she has learned that behavior will get rewards. Very cute. The others are not learning as fast, possibly because it gets confusing when they are all trying to get the cat treats.

Since I was gone for a couple of days, I thought I’d work on the cats’ training. I clicked the clicker and Kona flew into the kitchen. She knows that she gets treats for showing up. Then I worked on “sit” and “shake”. She sat right away but shake was more on the order of grabbing at the treat with her claws. After a few tries she was better but her focus is food, not tricks.

I stocked up – 4 bags so that I can continue the training. I also bought a new clicker!! Petsmart had them for $1.49. The one I have is probably 15 years old and I was always worried that it would break and I’d be out of luck.

So when I came home from shopping I got the treats and clicked the clicker. Soon, a few cats came looking for me. Kona remembered the command for “sit” and “shake” (though she thinks shake means grab. We are working on that.)

Progress.

One cat has learned a new trick but more because of her efforts than mine. And I ran out of cat treats so Kona hasn’t been practicing her tricks. She did sit for me on command but without reinforcements, this may not last long.

Time to go shopping!!

One of my cats is now catching balls of paper that I throw. She catches them with her paws! It’s great. I have never had a cat do this before and I need to figure out how to reinforce the behavior. Sometimes she bats the paper far away. She likes to jump in the air after the paper so for her, it’s all about jumping and catching.

She has “sitting” down, and sort of understands “shake”. She doesn’t like me touching her paw, but she loves food, so she lets me “shake” her paw. Too funny. I am working on one cat at a time to make sure each one understands the trick before moving on to the others.

I need to qualify this goal. I will teach the cats to come when I click the clicker (several of them know this already) and teach at least one cat to sit when given the hand signal. I think Kona can learn this quickly since she loves food.

If I can teach several of them to sit on command that would be great. And if I can teach one of them to shake (paw) on command, then I will be really happy.

It’s a sight to see when I click the clicker! The first part is working now I have to move on to step two. Teach them to sit on command. This could prove interesting…