Cat Training

[The Green Adam]

I was wondering if anyone out there can help me out...I love dogs and know a great deal about them and how to train them but cats...not so much. My new cat is a terror. He has small intervals, roughly 3 minutes or less in length, where he's cute and cuddly and the rest of the time he is scratching and biting at our ankles and knocking over any object the stands vertical (bottles, cans, shampoo, medicine bottles, etc.). Can anyone recommend a good book or website or anything else that might help? I'm being good natured here but its really getting to be a problem.

Thanks,
AD

 

[freyar]

How old is the cat? If he's a kitten, you can really mold his personality, but it might be harder if he's older. I don't have great insights in terms of books or websites, but I remember reading one book called "Caressing the Tiger" that seemed at least somewhat useful many years ago when I first got cats.

Here's my own training advice, from experience (some handed down from vets):

• If he's scratching or biting you, grab the scruff of his neck (right behind the head) and shake. This won't actually hurt, but it will distract him and show him you're in charge, like mommy was. Learned this from a vet who used it to great effect when taking their temperature. It's also a nice distraction from unpleasant things like rectal thermometers.
• Consider keeping the cat in a smaller area for a while. Don't know how long you've had him, but cats need time to get used to new spaces, and they can handle smaller spaces better.
• Not much of an idea with knocking things over. If he's a kitten, which it sounds like, try getting some cat toys and playing with him. A lot. It may seem nearly impossible to wear him out, but anything you can do will help. It's a time commitment, though.

If you're looking for good cat toys, the one of my cats who likes to play really loves the wire toy called a "cat dancer" which is available at many major and smaller pet stores. There's a version where you play with the cat (the one my wife and I use) and one that attaches to the wall that your cat can theoretically use himself, though I don't know how fascinating that is. Another idea is little cat toy balls, either with bells inside or feathers attached or really just little balls. Sometimes kittens will love to chase these (a few even learn to fetch!), and that can really help use up their energy.

Good luck! Let us know some more info, and I'll see if I think of anything else.

 

[Jesus_marley]

invest in a laser pointer. one of those cheap red light ones. cats will chase that little red dot until they fall over from exhaustion.

 

[Piratecat]

If you're serious, buy and read this book. It's possibly the best book on training anything - dog, cat, boss, spouse - out there!

Don't Shoot The Dog, by Karen Pryor.

This will teach you how to use positive reinforcement to clicker train your cat. And clicker training is a thing of beauty.

 

[freyar]

invest in a laser pointer. one of those cheap red light ones. cats will chase that little red dot until they fall over from exhaustion.

Absolutely true! Can't believe I forgot that one!

 

[The Green Adam]

Thanks so much gang. Yes, he's a kitten, about 5 months old right now. I've had a few cats in my life but never one as problematic as this guy. I'll see if I can combine a few techniques to at least get him to settle down a little with the biting and scratching.

I miss my first cat who we trained and treated like a dog since we'd only had dogs before him. He was so cute, so smart and eventually learned to beg, given paw, roll-over, fetch and feed himself (he could open the pantry door, pull out his food and eat from the bag only when hungry).

AD

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I'll see if I can combine a few techniques to at least get him to settle down a little with the biting and scratching.

My parents have a cat that, when a kitten, was big on gnawing peoples' fingers and using his claws in a not-terribly-friendly manner.

After he was spayed AND neutered*, though, he got much, much calmer.

Brad


* - His name is Fluffy, and he's got long fur. Mom thought he was a she, and told the vet such. The vet, sure that my mother could tell the difference between boy cats and girl cats, made the incision for girl cats, didn't find the appropriate organs, and then noticed "Oh, tomcat."

To be fair to Mom, Fluffy did live in a garage with a presumably non-related tomcat for at least six months, so survival was a strong argument for Fluffy being female. Though I did try and point out the, ahem, primary characteristics.

 

[freyar]

My parents have a cat that, when a kitten, was big on gnawing peoples' fingers and using his claws in a not-terribly-friendly manner.

After he was spayed AND neutered*, though, he got much, much calmer.

Brad


* - His name is Fluffy, and he's got long fur. Mom thought he was a she, and told the vet such. The vet, sure that my mother could tell the difference between boy cats and girl cats, made the incision for girl cats, didn't find the appropriate organs, and then noticed "Oh, tomcat."

To be fair to Mom, Fluffy did live in a garage with a presumably non-related tomcat for at least six months, so survival was a strong argument for Fluffy being female. Though I did try and point out the, ahem, primary characteristics.

Interesting story. Neutering would probably help. Mine were already "fixed" when I adopted them, so I don't know the age requirements, but, at 5 months,he should almost be old enough if not old enough already.

 

[Jeysie]

I'll echo the neuter thing. I'll also ask if you've taken the kitten to the vet and know that he's healthy?

When I first got my current cat, he was an absolute unholy terror of a kitten... until he started spitting up and having trouble eating, and we took him to the vet and found out he had an intestinal blockage. One operation and 10 years of cat ownership later, he's still a bit nosy and playful but much quieter and lovey and cuddly. It was almost certainly the tummy troubles that were making him such a hyper little pest.

Peace & Luv, Liz

 

[John Morrow]

I was wondering if anyone out there can help me out...I love dogs and know a great deal about them and how to train them but cats...not so much.

There is a lot of advice on training cats out there if you do some Google searches. We had a cat with an inappropriate peeing problem and rather than turn him in to a shelter (nobody wants to adopt a cat with that problem, so it probably would have been a death sentence), I figured out how to get him to stop, which has been largely successful (and, in the process, I became something of an expert on removing cat smells from things).

The key to remember about cats is that they are not really socially aware like dogs are. They don't really grasp the idea that the things they do upset you and they do what they want because it's what they want to do. As such, conventional punishments that work for dogs do not work for cats. If you punish them, except immediately while they are actually doing something wrong, there is a good change that they'll interpret it not as punishment for doing something wrong but as a reason to fear you. They just don't make that connection between what they did and you being upset with them. ADDED: And even if you do punish them while they are doing something wrong, they may simply learn not to do it while you are around, because the focus to them is you punishing them, not the thing they are doing wrong triggering it.

The way to train a cat is to convince the cat that it wants to do what you want it to do and doesn't want it to do what you don't want it to do. That means rewarding the cat for what you want it to do and either making what you don't want it to do unpleasant or making the cat forget about it. This can require a lot of patience but the patience can pay off.

One thing that helped a bit is to isolate the cat for a period (as long as two weeks). While I was skeptical of this advice, it does seem to have a sort of "reset" effect on the cat and can help them unlearn some bad behavior. Basically, you take them away from the opportunity to do the thing you don't want them to do and they forget that they like doing it.

They sell "happy cat" pherimone sprays which can help relax a cat. I also agree that fixing the cat (which some vets will do and even recommend as young as 4 months), as well as simply letting the cat get older, can help. But also bear in mind that different cats have different personalties. Only one of our cats decides to go after the toilet paper rolls but only every now and then. Some cats just don't want to be held or touched in certain places, and so on. But even that can change over time. One of our cats was semi-feral for a long time but has, over time, become a lot more friendly and even affectionate at times.

As for biting and clawing, I recommend claw trimmers for the claws. Cats have very good control over how much pressure they are putting on their teeth and if the cat isn't breaking the skin, that means that they think they are playing, even if it hurts you. If they are breaking the skin, that means that they are scared or angry.