How To Teach Your Cat Tricks
Cats can learn tricks as long as you follow certain rules. It is of course easier to train them when they are young. You can build a close relationship from a young age by training her to teach your cat tricks.
How to teach your cat tricks
Shake hands
We’ll start with a trick that all pet owners want to teach their pet. Giving your paw, so to speak, shaking your pet’s hand, can give you a lot of joy. We have seen dogs that can, but can cats do it too? Yes!
- Choose the right time and place. Avoid distractions or loud noises that distract or even make the animal nervous.
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Choose a command or use a clicker (see below for more information). Decide which word should be your command: it can be, for example, “paw”, “hello” or “hand”.
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Pick a reward the animal likes. Positive affirmation is the best way to train a pet. A reward is the best motivator for your cat to obey.
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Shake her paw. While teaching your cat this trick, use the word you picked or the clicker to make the animal combine the two.
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Show her the reward. When you say the magic word, take her paw and show the reward. She will associate them with all of this and soon learn to obey.
Practice these steps for a few days, and sometimes do so without the reward in your hand. Over time, the cat will learn to do it instinctively and understand what you want.
Let her come when you call for her
- Pick a treat as a reward.
- Show the cat the treat when you call, as you would otherwise. But this time she will hear.
- Always use the same “command” when calling your cat. But don’t always give her the reward right away. Let her smell her, then you congratulate her on coming and give her the reward.
- Don’t repeat this too often. Animals get tired and bored, they cannot concentrate for so long. Therefore, the training sessions should be short and include breaks that are twice as long as the sessions. You will see that it works.
Retrieve
Teach your cat to retrieve with these simple steps. It’s one of the best tricks you can teach a cat.
- Pick a toy for your cat to fetch and show her. Let them smell it and see it.
- Throw it as far as you can. Few cats can resist the hunting instinct.
- She probably won’t catch it, so you’ll have to go get it. If she has it, carefully remove it from her.
- Go back to the starting point with the cat and the toy. The cat should know you have the toy.
- Repeat this a few times, and in time your cat should understand what you want from her.
Use a clicker
We already mentioned how convenient this utensil is. It is used to aid in positive reinforcement. This associates a certain behavior with the noise it makes and so you can get closer to your goal.
