Can Cats Learn Tricks? You Bet!

Get this! I’ve just been high-fived by a rag doll cat, had my hand shaken by it, and watched it roll over on command. This fancy feline will also fetch its toy mouse when it’s thrown, and jump up on a chair when asked to. I suspect there are a few other tricks up its fluffy sleeve too.

Yes, cats can be taught to follow instructions – performing isn’t just for dogs! What’s more, it’s actually good for your cat to learn tricks. It’s stimulating, enriching, and it ensures you and your pet have some one on one, bonding time.

If you think teaching a cat tricks is the stuff of fairy tales, consider the present situation with your feline, and you’ll soon realise puss already displays some learned behaviours. Chances are, just before you head off to bed, your cat will take itself there, too, and be sleeping on the covers by the time you arrive. They’ll be waiting at their food dish, ready for a pat, before you dish out the goodies, and they almost certainly (perhaps to your annoyance), know to scratch on the door to be let into the room. So if you think you’d like to teach your cat some tricks, you can be assured you have a sound base to start from.

To get training off to the best start, purchase a clicker (these little gadgets are available from most pet stores for just a few dollars). The clicker will be used to signal to your cat it has done what’s been asked of it. Next, read up on training techniques by going to any one of a multitude of sites (we recommend this one), or check out this video (it gives the background to clicker training as well as step-by-step instructions on how to start teaching).

As you train, remember (especially if you’re already a dog-owner), your cat will be learning in an entirely different way to a dog. For starters, cats appear to have less of an attention span to dogs, but even more importantly, they’re not so interested in performing a trick to please you. That’s a dog thing. Cats have their own reasons for obeying, and it’s usually to do with food. This means your cat reward treats should be super-tiny (you don’t want puss to gain more weight than is good for them) and utterly delicious. Cats are also ‘solo’ beings rather than cravers of human company (except when they choose to interact), so limit your training to a max of just 5-10 minutes at at time, allowing at least an hour or two between sessions.

Like most animals, cats react badly to stress, so there’s no advantage in scolding your cat when it doesn’t perform on command. On the contrary, the stress this causes may bring on unwanted behaviours such as neurotic grooming or toileting outside the usual setting of the litter box or garden. There’s also little point in using words to praise your cat for its behaviour. Words take time, but a clicker captures the exact moment the cat carries out an action (be it the trick itself or an action on the way to performing the trick).

Perhaps one of the best uses of clicker training is to get your cat used to wearing a harness (and, step by step, it can be done). With the increasing awareness of the need to protect birdlife, more and more restrictions will be placed on cat owners to keep their pet under control in the out side of the house. Teaching your cat to go for a walk on a harness can be one way to ensure puss can still enjoy a stroll in the big outdoors – and best of all, they’ll have you for company when they do. Enjoy training your feline, knowing your cat will enjoy it, too!