AAszira
You can definitely train recall into a cat! Magnus has excellent recall, better than a lot of dogs I know. He will even stop chasing a squirrel to return to me. (We do leashed walks outside). Magnus is 3.
It takes some time, but patience and persistence is key.
Apparently greed wins out over his stubborn nature. He's not supposed to leave the yard. Somehow he manages to find the sneakiest places to escape so he can go sit under a bush out front. Usually we have to climb under a pine tree and yank him out. It takes like ten minutes and results in him avoiding everyone all day.
Since I've been working on building some kind of bond with him I didn't want to yank him out. We got the sardines out again and within thirty seconds we coaxed him out from the bush. Of course he still had to go out back. I really didn't want to pick him up, so we bribed him the entire way. His owner opened the back gate for me and cleared the path. I kept calling him and going "kitty kitty kitty" with the sardines. Once he got near the carport he hesitated. That's where the door to his house is. He REALLY didn't want to go in. In the end the sardines won and we lured him into the back yard. I gave him the can to lick as a way of really praising him. Unfortunately once he was in the yard he got cranky and left to go sulk. He seems to think the back yard is a punishment and the front yard is where he can play. It doesn't help that he's found grasshoppers in the front yard and decided to practice his hunting skills ...
Another thing with the sardines. As long as he munches on them he will allow me to pet him a little. He even flicks his tail ever so slightly. When I approach him now he instantly goes to sniff my fingers instead of running. I have absolutely no idea if we're making progress with him or if he's just greedy. Apparently he hasn't had any treats ever except Temptations. I'm betting he's enjoying having new tastes.
We tried four other kinds of fish today. He's interested, but he can leave them easily enough. Tuna is okay, so is chicken. He's not a fan of mackerels or salmon. Turkey is meh. The drawer of various cat treats I have are boring. Spaghetti seems to interest him, which is weird. And bread. He also seems to like butter. Not enough to be lured around though. He's incredibly picky.
I'm really, really hoping he understands what's going on and isn't just like 'hey, food, tastes good!' if anyone does anything slightly different he gets nervous. He has absolutely no idea how to find the fish it I toss it six inches away. He doesn't understand to follow it with his eyes. I'm really hoping the grasshoppers are teaching him how to pounce a bit. Maybe if he learns to play with bugs we can translate that into toys.
It only took $60 in various treats and fish to figure it out. Sigh.
Also he's figured out how to use my cat door from watching my cats. He now comes into my place to chase them. So I guess he CAN learn, at least from my cats. He has no shame about it and doesn't seem to understand that it's not his home. There's non of the sniffing and getting used to the territory. Weirdo.
I saw a film of one of the large animal protection/ rescue organizations going in to rescue animals near a volcano. They used sardines to lure animals to them. They said that sardines worked better to lure dogs and cats than other fish. They didn't say why.
