I'd just like to take a minute to share with all of you the magic of training your cat. If you set aside a few minutes every day to work with your cat, several very awesome things will happen: the cat will learn more about your body language and gestures after succeeding in learning a few tricks, your bond will get stronger, your understanding of cat psychology improves, and your cat will be challenged to think cognitively.
Cats aren't like dogs and won't work out of love (who's the smarter species now?), but can be enticed to work for special treats.
Some taught behaviors aren't tricks at all, but cool safety procedures. For example, you can teach your cat to run into a carrier by whistling! I just read a thread about a fire earlier; if it were in my building, all I'd have to do is set my two carriers in the middle of my living room and whistle sharply...then grab 'em and go!
Its true that some cats may or may not pick up the behavior you want to introduce - after training circus cats for half a decade, I couldn't get mine to use the toilet (well, I could have, but they strongly preferred the box and I gave in). And one of my girls prefers "roll over" while the other likes hoop jumping and never rolls over. You can have a lot of fun figuring out what your little genius is capable of and running with it!
My Pandora knows around 20 hand signals and five or so verbal commands, and little Z excels at fetch, roll over and come here. What about you guys?
Cats aren't like dogs and won't work out of love (who's the smarter species now?), but can be enticed to work for special treats.
Some taught behaviors aren't tricks at all, but cool safety procedures. For example, you can teach your cat to run into a carrier by whistling! I just read a thread about a fire earlier; if it were in my building, all I'd have to do is set my two carriers in the middle of my living room and whistle sharply...then grab 'em and go!
Its true that some cats may or may not pick up the behavior you want to introduce - after training circus cats for half a decade, I couldn't get mine to use the toilet (well, I could have, but they strongly preferred the box and I gave in). And one of my girls prefers "roll over" while the other likes hoop jumping and never rolls over. You can have a lot of fun figuring out what your little genius is capable of and running with it!
My Pandora knows around 20 hand signals and five or so verbal commands, and little Z excels at fetch, roll over and come here. What about you guys?