Tuesday 7 February 2017

Training cats



Yes, cats can be trained just like dogs can. People have been so shocked when I've told them  that my cats can sit and give the paw.
They are all desperate to know how I taught them, the answer is pretty boring.... 'Just like dogs'.
In truth you can teach pretty much any animal using the same techniques I talked about in my Training Basics post


Hodor the cat window gazing


It's no well kept secret or anything you just need to know a few basics like what motivates them  to work/learn. I've taught other animals like goats, donkeys, guanaco and even a turkey and chickens to do tricks. Believe it or not even goldfish can be taught to do tricks( and remember them lol).



So why do people think cats can't be taught?
Well because we had dogs. Dogs have a much longer history with us and nearly every breed originally had a job, which involved some degree of training/teaching.
Cats on the other hand starting hanging around us to kill rats and mice for food, which we appreciated so we kept them around, now we keep cats for companionship for the most part. Things are slowly changing for cats, and we are even starting to see them as service animals. This is something I'm excited about as it does wonders for changing peoples conceptions of cats as 'disloyal' or 'sneaky' etc.



Hodor the cat all snuggled up





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Can your cat do any tricks? Leave me a comment down below.

2 comments:

  1. Nice to meet you, and thank you for visiting my blog. Yes, we cats can be trained. I stand on my back legs for my two treats every night, and I can stand nice and tall too. But that is all my humans have taught me to do so far.

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    1. You are very welcome :) thanks for stopping by here too, I'm sure you look super cute doing your trick <3

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