I adopted a 3 year old cat named Penny about 3 months ago. My adoption agent had mentioned that clicker-training can be real rewarding for a cat. She doesn’t have any behavioral problems but thought it might be a fun bonding experience! I’ve been looking up books, starter kits, etc. Any advice or experiences you could share would be great.
Oh, please no comments on how cats are ‘independent’ and not trainable. She already comes when called by name and follows direction pretty easily.
This type of training is generally referred to as ‘positive reenforcement training’. There’s not much to it, just give her a treat and love (petting and telling her what a good cat she is) every time you click the clicker. Then start cutting back on the treats, and just giving her love with a click. She’ll learn that the click means you are happy with her. A fully trained cat will won’t expect anything with a click, but they will want to do things to get a click, because they know you are happy with them. Make sure you carry the clicker around, so you can give her clicks for absolutely anything she does right.
When you want to train her, say, to sit on the toilet, give her a click when she makes the slightest move in the right direction. So click when she enters the bathroom, click when she approaches the toilet, etc. Then back off the clicks until she learns exactly what you want.
To train against behavior, so to train her not to do something, don’t ever hit her or yell at her or do anything that she won’t like. You want her to love you (obviously) so that she’ll want to do things for you. Just quietly correct her (take her down from the table, for example) and ignore her for a bit. The ‘silent treatment’ so to speak. She knows when you are happy by the clicks, and she’ll figure out fast that no clicks means you are unhappy.
I trained my cat the same way, but I make a sound with my mouth instead of a clicker. He knows not to go out the front door and not to leave the porch in the back, and that he’s allowed the bed, but not to sleep on the pillows or sheets. Many people toilet train their cats this way (so they will use the people toilet). Don’t listen to anyone who says it can’t be done, they just haven’t put the time into it. It’s even been done with snakes and lizards, so it can defiantly be done with a cat. Good luck!
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