Posted: 9/9/2005 12:57:08 PM EDT
| What is the extent that you can train a cat? I understand they don't learn as well as a dog would but can you teach a cat anything at all (other than to use the litter box to crap into)? Can I teach a cat to stay or to sit? Just wondering as I now have a cat in my house. |
You're kidding! How did you do that? What kind of reinforcement schedules? |
There is a training kit you can get online. Its a cat box that looks like a toliet seat and in the middle is cat litter. You put it on the toliet...then after they get use to it, you take the litter out...then after they get used to it, you take the center out so that they are then going in the toliet...but still standing on their fake toliet seat..then after they get used to it, remove the fake seat. and wholla, after about 2 months of training, the cat is going in the toilet. It really depends on the cat though. We had 3 cats we tried it with. One got it really quick with no problems. One took twice as long to train, but finnaly got it...only had a few mishaps after training. The other was dumb as a post and we gave up. |
I got a book on this I read years ago, but basically it's a matter of little by little remove the litter box from on top of the toilet type scenario. Cat's are instictively programmed to shit in cat litter, except for some nutball cases. Gradually move the litterbox closer and closer to the toilet, then eventually on the toilet, then they get used to shitting on the litterbox on the toilet. Then make a small hole in bottom of litter box, then each week remove a bit more litter and make the hole larger, then they get used to crapping in a litter box with no litter and a big hole in the litter box. Then remove the litter box. |
That's amazing, I ought to look into that. Before you replied to this thread, I tried to get my cat to balance on the little seat ring in the toilet. Her paws are little enough, but that thing is slick. She almost fell in 
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One of mine did fall in. It was funny as heck. Poor kitty though. She was not happy. She was even more unhappy that we were laughing at her. |
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To reinforce the using the toilet, I heard about 20 some years ago. Pretty much how mjohn described. And there is a way to train them to flush too. But I don't remember how that was done. Most cats are very smart. All cats are also very independent. That's why it can be so hard to train them. They find it's easier to train the human, then to learn something new. 
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what do you *need* to be able to train him to do? All you need is: 1)poop/pee in the litter box 2)use the scratching post not the furniture It's very easy to accomplish these. Both you and your cat will be a lot happier if you don't expect too much more than this .
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Skateboard tape. |
I really need to try the toilet training thing with our two cats. To date all we have been using the toilet for when it comes to our cats is a CAT WASH. That's right, two teaspoonfulls of laundry detergent, insert cat, close lid, 4 flushes...washed!!! Seriously, one of ours fetches, but only certain things, and we can't teach him to fetch other things, like the winning lottery tickets or the keys to a new sportfisherman. Our other cat just doesn't get the whole fetching thing. She'll run and go pick up the item, but never bring it back. Oh well. They also were taught (by an ex girlfriend) to open up cabinets. Now I have those stupid child locks on all my cabinets (but have no kids), which is kind of hard to explain to new people.  SnF |
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OMG. LOL. last night when my G/F went to work, I put a sock on her cat's head to see what it would do. It would crawl around real low to the ground and navigate it's self by smell, alot like a dog. It sniffed its way all around the appartment. I would pick it up and put it someplace different but, it still seemed to know wear it was going. It only bumped into something once. It made it's way under our futon, (the place it usually goes) This is where I got in trouble. I decided not to get the cat and take off the sock, (figuring it would do it on it's own, not unlike a ferrett, or when you throw a blanket over a dog, (my dogs loved that game,)) Well, my G/F came home and apperentlly she found the cat had made its way out from under the futon and perched its self on top of the futon (the futon was in couch form.) The cat was meowing at all corners of the room when my G/F found her. Of course I had been on my computer for the last 4 hours, and did'nt hear anything. Boy was my G/F pissed. And when I told her that, "The stupid cat did'nt take off the sock after 4 hours, it was it's own damned fault, and every dog on the plantet would have taken off the sock, so either dogs are smarter then cats, or your cat is a retard." Saying that really got her pissed at me, and she told me I will have to pay for counseling if the cat has psychological damage. (Where you get psychological treatment for a cat? I don't know. So I said I'll pay. (I hope I didnt shoot myself in the foot.)) Anyways, the cat is not scarred, and it treats me just the same as it did before. No big deal. I can tell you that cats have a high instinctual intellegence, but for high intellegence (as far as animals are concerned,) not so much. |
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Had a siamese growing up that taught herself how to pee on the toilet. She did it for several years, and my Mom kept bitching at my Dad and I for not flushing...  We just thought she was  , but she insisted it was us - until she was fixing her makeup and heard a "squirt" behind her... looked over her shoulder in the mirror and there was Mabel with a WTF expression, doing her business.Dad & I got "I'm sorry" dinners for a week.
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