Cat Urine Smell

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Before deciding what to train your cat to do, you need to consider what activities come naturally to cats.

You may have heard someone liken a nearly impossible task to the challenge of “herding cats”. Imagine how difficult it would be to gather a number of cats into a herd and drive them down the road like cattle!

For thousands of years cattle have instinctively gathered into herds for their own protection. Predators try to separate off weak beasts from the herd, or watch for stragglers, but will rarely attack a herd for fear of being charged down by a stampede. Cattle readily form into a herd and are amenable to being driven along by their cowboy herders because it is a natural behavior.

Cats have no such natural history, and are instead fiercely independent and solitary hunters. Forming into a herd to move around is just simply not part of their natural behavior.

A successful cat training project begins with the selection of a desired behavior that is consistent with a cat’s natural and instinctive behavior patterns. It will be a dispiriting uphill battle for both you and the cat if you set out to train it to do things that don’t come naturally.

A big mistake that many people make is to try and impose the behavior patterns of a dog on their cat. For example, games like fetching thrown sticks or balls are enjoyed by most dogs, but appear to be a total mystery and a pointless activity to most cats. In particular, cats rarely respond instantly to a command as is often the case with a dog. Cats prefer to first take a few minutes to assess the situation each time, and decide whether it suits them to do what you ask or not. They are very aware of their environment and easily distracted, but they are also creatures of habit.

Good training projects to begin with are those that build desirable habits. How, when and where your cat does its toiletries is often the first training project. Feeding patterns, including how to use self or automatic feeders if you use them, are popular habits to teach. Other desirable habits to be developed include using a cat door, coming in at night, coming when called, sleeping where you want, using a scratching pole and respecting the furniture. Though mundane, these are the important habits of domestication.

There is a lot more fun to be had teaching your cat some tricks. Cats love to play games to do with stealth, pouncing and catching, which reflect how they hunt. A daily habit of a short play session each evening, when they are more alert, is often popular with cats, and is an opportunity to develop some unique skills or party tricks.

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