Clicker Training A Kitten

[kunoichi9280]

So I'd like to give clicker training Itachi a try. He already responds to his name, usually responds to "no", and will follow my finger to an object often (I can point and say "There's your food" or "There's your toy" and he'll go to what I'm pointing a lot of the time. Not with any sort of consistency I would want to bet on, however. ) He's very smart and curious and I think he'd respond well to clicker training. Does anyone who has done it have any hints for me?

 

[Mamanyt1953]

While I've never clicker-trained a cat, you might find some helpful hints here:

Clicker Training For Cats

Let us know how he does with it!

 

[danteshuman]

There are lots of YouTube videos that tell you how to clicker train cats. I have heard that chicken baby food (onion and garlic free) on a spoon works great to clicker train them.

I trained my kittens using hand signals and treat and I’m thinking about training my teen some new tricks using a clicker. I want to teach him to roll over. In my experience keep it short, reward any small step to your goal at first, make the same sound/noise when they do something right (or a clicker) so they learn what gives them the treat, make the sound during the action you want and use hand signals. (I have found cats learn hand signals/body language long before they learn the words. They learn the word months later.)

 

[maggie101]

I cut one treat in 4 pieces with a pill cutter, put it in a sandwich bag, in a fanny pack take her to my bedroom, close the door.(have 2 other cats). Say the command click,and give her a treat. I mostly wanted her to come when called. Eventually you won't need treats. I kept treats in different areas in dwarves and had 3 clickers

 

[1 bruce 1]

What are you aiming to train? Anything specific, or just "learn as we go" things?
What you want to do is make sure she understands the click or sound you use is a "mark", a signal to her that whatever she was doing the moment you mark it is what you are going to reward. The good thing about marker training is that the reward (treat, toy, whatever) doesn't have to be delivered at the exact time she does what you're asking. Once she understands this, the sky's the limit.
I'd start teaching her to offer new behavior. Dog people play a game called 101 things to do with a box with dogs new to this. There's no expectations or nothing you're trying to train, the goal is to teach her that trying new things might get her a reward. Just set a box on the ground, have your marker and food ready and anytime she interacts with the box (sniffing, looking at it), mark and reward. The goal is she starts doing other things, like pawing it, climbing in it, climbing on it, and looking to you. Mark and reward any way she interacts with the box. The goal is teaching her the game, and teaching her how to learn this way, and once she gets what a click and that your expectations are for her to offer new things, it will be a lot of fun for you both.

 

[1 bruce 1]

Something else I thought I'd add.
Everyone does things differently, but I don't say the word I'm going to use as the command or cue or whatever until they are offering on their own, almost perfectly, for the click and reward.
Say you want to teach her to sit. Once she understands a sit earns a reward and is routinely sitting without you saying a word, this is where the reliance on food starts to drop off. When she sits, don't use your clicker or marker, replace it with your word, sit. Then reward as normal. After she's good at this, you up the ante a bit and only reward the sit when you ask for it first. Once she's mastered that, you only reward the fastest sits, or the cutest or whatever.
This is where a lot of things can fall apart. If she is good at sitting when you ask, but gets discouraged when you start only rewarding the best, back off a little and reward her a little bit more.

Pretend for a second I wanted to teach you to do something. You walk in the room, I say "schnadlenup", and then wait, staring at you. You don't know what to do. You don't know what this word means. I start pointing, and saying louder (as if this makes us understand a word we don't know, but hey we all do it ) "schnadlenup"! I'm pointing, jumping up and down, and you might look where I'm pointing and maybe move a step that way, while thinking "what the hell is this guys problem". Given the choice, you'd probably walk away and leave the room.
If you walked in the room, and I said nothing and waited until you moved, pretend I toss you a buck. You think this over, move again (probably watching me closely wondering what will happen), I toss you another buck. You think "moving earns a buck. I wonder what happens if I jog?" You move a little faster, I toss you a $5 bill. Something clicks in your mind, so you break into a run, and I chuck a $50 at your feet. Once you're doing this, I say "schnadlenup", you understand this means "run", and hand you a 50.
The difference is the behavior is learned before the verbal cue is even introduced. It doesn't muddy the waters of the brain this way. You also don't run the risk of training something really sloppy that you're not happy with and having to re-teach it, and re-word it to avoid bad muscle memory.
All our dogs know "stand", it means stand with all fours in a natural position and stay there. I rushed this with a dog years ago, and the result was a dog who would stop in a stand, then lie down and creep about 3 paces before standing back up. I wasn't clear in what I wanted and let the drop and creep slide, and that's what I got. Oops

 

[danteshuman]

I just patiently stand there with the saucer of food in one hand and signal him to sit with the other ..... ignoring his meows and half sits until he completely sits then I do my ‘ooooooooo you’re such a good boy, such a good boy, yes you are!’ As I put the plate down and pet him. When I first started training him he got soft pounce treats cut into fourths. The sit works and it is what I trained all my cats to do. To start you just hold the plate slightly over their heads and slowly move it backwards. As they follow the plate with their heads they start to sit automatically, then you put the plate down.

Jackie now knows up/high ten, sit and to get on the footstool so I can put his harness on (no treats for that one, going outside is the treat.)

 

[1 bruce 1]

I just patiently stand there with the saucer of food in one hand and signal him to sit with the other ..... ignoring his meows and half sits until he completely sits then I do my ‘ooooooooo you’re such a good boy, such a good boy, yes you are!’ As I put the plate down and pet him. When I first started training him he got soft pounce treats cut into fourths. The sit works and it is what I trained all my cats to do. To start you just hold the plate slightly over their heads and slowly move it backwards. As they follow the plate with their heads they start to sit automatically, then you put the plate down.

Jackie now knows up/high ten, sit and to get on the footstool so I can put his harness on (no treats for that one, going outside is the treat.)

On the bolded part, police acadamies have used this type of method to train some really good patrol dogs. No treats required, getting to beat the crap out of the (fake) bad guy is the reward. Good stock dogs will spit a treat out if there's stock in sight, the reward is always the opportunity to work stock. A good hunting dog doesn't want the squeak toy you're offering, they want to flush or retrieve that bird.
Not me, though. I have no interest in chasing cows or bad guys or retrieving a dead bird in my mouth, but a good grilled cheese sandwich is always a good reward. Or bribe
All the methods out there won't help anyone until they find out what their animal likes and sees as rewarding. Baby Girl loves food. Computer cat likes food, but would go to the ends of the earth for a good patting and lots of praise. If I took food out of the picture for BG and gave her a pet, she might like this but it's not motivating to her.

 

[basscat]

The best I can tell, clicker training may be more for you than the cat. Or else I just don't understand the "click" part of the whole thing.
My experience.
Day 1) I put treats in my pocket. Have a wand clicker with a yellow dot on end, clicker on the other. Get cat to touch nose to yellow dot, click, then treat.
Says to do this a few days to teach the cat what touching nose to yellow dot means.
Took cat three times to figure that out.
Day 2) Can't keep cat away from yellow dot. Finally shove clicker all back together (it's like an extendable antenna) and put in pocket on hoodie sweatshirt.
Pocket gets mauled for clicker. Finds treats in same pocket.
Day 3) Now knows treats are in shirt pocket. Mauled on sight.
Day 4)....I have been trained

 

[danteshuman]

They say to ‘activate’ the clicker first. Basically click, treat, click, treat until every time your cat here’s that noise they look for a treat. Once you have them associating the click with a treat, you can reward their behavior with a click then a treat.

 

[basscat]

They say to ‘activate’ the clicker first. Basically click, treat, click, treat until every time your cat here’s that noise they look for a treat. Once you have them associating the click with a treat, you can reward their behavior with a click then a treat.

I think there was a warehouse in China with 100 billion clickers, that were made for something that failed.... And somebody figured out a brilliant way to sell them.
(Kind of like Play-Doh)