The truth about training animals, as anyone who has ever owned pets will tell you, is that it is far easier to train a dog than a cat. While many people think that cats are the smarter of the two, they’re also very stubborn and finicky in many cases, having almost a ‘holier than thou’ attitude. So, if you’re going to start training your cat so that it will do more than just eat and use a litter box, you’ll have to work with them and be willing to spend more time with them to get the desired results. There are many different ways to train animals, but cats seem to best respond when you actually reward them for doing what you want them to do.
If, for example, you want your cat to do a specific action, trick, or to just behave in a certain way, you should show them what you want them to do, and then reward them for doing it. Progress with this until they do it on their own, and continue to reward them until they produce the desired result regularly. This can, of course, be a tedious and time consuming process, but it is not something that you should just give up on. If you are truly committed to getting results, you can as long as you are willing to stick with the whole course of action.
There are also alternative methods of cat training, specifically when it comes to curbing their bad behaviors. One of the most popular and effective ways to keep cats from doing things that you don’t want them to do is with a water squirt gun. You shouldn’t go out and buy a heavy duty artillery-style super soaker number 75, but you can get a simple one dollar squirt gun and fill it with water (or vinegar and water for a more stubborn cat).
If you don’t want the cat on the counters, or perhaps you want to keep them out of the Christmas tree, you squirt them once when they are where they shouldn’t be. They should respond by stopping whatever they’re doing, and you can keep using this technique until they get the hint.
Cat training is not an easy task, and there are many more effective ways that you can train your cats to do what you want them to or to avoid doing things that you don’t want them doing. As long as you take the time to find what works for your cat, though, cat training can be less stressful than you might think. Just stick with it and try different things until you find what works.
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