Trainable cat thread...

Not quite like the article but a workmate of my daughter trained her kitties to use the toilet. Problem was her water bill skyrocketed as the cats would repeatedly flush the toilet.

Cheers
Warwick

 

The writer missed the ENTIRE point, we DON'T train our cats, THEY TRAIN US!!!!

Think about it!!!

 

I trained our cat to do several little tricks, such as standing up and touching the door knob to indicate that she wants the door opened. She does this when prompted with the command "Show me what you want."

It's not hard to train cats, but it's mostly a matter of reinforcing something they want to do naturally. I suspect it would be very frustrating to try and introduce completely novel behavior.

Tom

 

Of course it's possible for a cat to train you.

Just this morning my cat jumped atop the bed and started administering kitty CPR to me and that was the signal for me to get up and out of my warm comfortable bed and to proceed to the kitchen to put fresh food down for her. Then, she made a sound that indicated she was ready for her medicine, so I took half a dramamine and put it into a pill pocket and then set that on a dish and squeezed some hairball remedy medicine in a neat roll around it- it was quite the presentation. Afterward she moved to the door, the one WITHOUT her kitty door, and gave me the signal to open the door for her and wait a few minutes while she did her business and would shortly return to the door upon when I would open it for her...all of which happened exactly as she planned...and all the result of a persistent cat and training.

 

I read Reaching the Animal Mind by Karen Pryor recently. She has trained lots of different animals, including cats, humans, fish, and hermit crabs.

Here are step by step instructions for training your cat to high five:
http://reachingtheanimalmind.com/pdfs/try_01.pdf

For photos and video of trained cats, look at this page:
Reaching The Animal Mind

 

Our cat has trained me to feed her whenever I am in the kitchen. :madgrin:

 

We did manage to 'train' our cat to stop sleeping on top of us at night.
Cat jumps up - push off. Cat jumps up - push off. Cat jumps up - put cat out of room, shut door. After a couple of weeks, she finally got the message.

 

Oh I forgot, the cat has also trained me to vacuum up her cat hair and pickup dead mice off of the kitchen floor. :madgrin:

 

Our cat is 14 and knows an amazing amount of "human" speak. He knows "go see Mommy" to see my wife, "lay down" to stop standing on us in bed, and many other things. Most of the time he responds with the appropriate action. When he doesn't, it's pretty clear it's not because he doesn't understand but because he's exerting his will and really has no interest in complying. I've had many cats in my life and this is the first one that actually seems to understand some basic commands. In return, he has us trained to let him in, get his snacks, and other activities through verbal commands (however, we can't tell the difference in his voice commands the way he can with ours - one meow sounds just like any other, which makes me wonder which one of us is the smarter).

 

My, you are VERY well trained.
VERY GOOD you get a treat!!!

 

OT: I had a coworker a few years ago that was really a waste of space. One of my other coworkers raised and trained horses as a side business. He started to train the worthless coworker (wc) by pulling out a small piece of candy whenever the wc did anything that could be considered part of his job. I don't think that the wc ever caught on, but a few of us who knew what was going on thought it was hilarious.

 

Have you seen the Big Bang Theory episode where Sheldon trains Penny by using chocolate? It's unbelievably funny.

Tom

 

I spend too much time on the internet to watch much TV. :madgrin:

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA96Fba-WHk"]YouTube - Positive Reinforcement - The Big Bang Theory[/ame]

And the home page:

The Big Bang Theory: Watch Episodes and Video and Join the Ultimate Fan Community - CBS.com

Now you can waste more time on the Internet.

Tom

 

That's nothing. I had a cat once who trained me to scoop its feces out of a box full of sand-like material. Utterly disgusting.

 

Roomba Pussy to the Rescue...

 

Re: Roomba Pussy to the Rescue...

They should start breeding this cat exclusively. Our cat would be ok if she could learn to run the vacuum, but she leaves the room whenever I turn it on. The dogs are no help either.