Most people don’t believe that cats can be trained. In fact, some of those people
even own cats, and will quickly tell you that you don’t train cats, but cats do train
you, which jives with the old stand-by ‘you don’t own a cat, the cat owns you.’
Cats are not dogs. Dogs aim to please...cat’s seek to ignore. A dog will protect
you, even at the cost of his own life. A cat will silently watch you, and it even
appears that they are enjoying any distress you may be experiencing.
Dogs will greet you at the door at the end of the day, fetch your paper, and fetch
your slippers. A cat will eventually allow you to find him, after an hour of
searching, and will then expect you to feed him, clean his litter box, and pet him
at his leisure.
Cats and dogs are two separate species, obviously, but there are those who
enjoy dogs, and those who prefer the snooty attitude of cats. I happen to enjoy
the snooty attitude, and although I am a well trained house human, I know that
cats can be trained.
Cat training is just a matter of training them what they are willing to learn, in a
way that they can learn it. Just realize that while you are training your cat, if your
cat has not already completed his course of house human training, such training
will be in progress as he is also being trained.
If you don’t believe that cats can be trained, spend some time watching your cat.
Feed him at a specific time each and every day for a week. Then, after seven
days, don’t feed him at that time. It will only be a matter of minutes before he
seeks you out, verbally demanding to know what your problem is...in cat speak
of course...and naturally, being a cat, he won’t really care what your problem is.
He will simply be there to remind you, in the haughtiest of fashions, that you’ve
forgotten something important.
You’ve trained him to expect something in just seven short days. Not only did you
train him to expect it, you’ve trained him to expect it at a certain time of the day.
Now, again, cats are not dogs. There are some things that a cat can do, but will
absolutely refuse to do.
Once a dog learns tricks, he will perform on command. You can’t teach a cat to
sit or stay...they have a mind, and an agenda, of their very own, and it usually
includes not doing anything that you want them to do, and especially not on
command. They have way too much self respect for that. But cats can sit and
stay if they want to.
