QUICK TRICKS
5 Fun and Easy Behaviors to Teach Your Cat
Pat Miller
© 2000, Pat Miller/Peaceable Paws, LLC All Rights Reserved
It’s common knowledge that you can’t teach a cat to do tricks. Cats are free-thinkers. They are far too independent and self-aware to perform cutesy behaviors for us on cue, right? Wrong! It is certainly true that it doesn’t work very well to use force to make cats do things the way some trainers do with dogs, but if we use positive training methods and let Reginald and Victoria think they are training us, you will be amazed at the repertoire of behaviors they will perform, on cue.
Teaching An Old (Or
Young!) Cat New Tricks
You will want to begin by teaching your cat a reward marker. A reward marker is any consistently used signal that tells your cat that the behavior she is doing when the marker happens has just earned her a treat reward. One commonly used reward marker is the clicker. You can also use a verbal marker – such as the word “Yes!”, a mouth click, or even the flash of a tiny laser flashlight. Because we like the clicker best, we will use the term Click! throughout this article to mean whichever reward marker you choose to use.
You “charge the clicker,” or, in scientific terms, condition the cat to the reward marker, by giving the signal, the Click!, and then immediately feeding her a treat. Use her most desirable, tastiest, all-time favorite yummies, so she will think the reward marker is something really terrific. By the time you have repeated this a couple of dozen times, Victoria understands that the Click! -- or “Yes!” or laser flash -- means Absolutely Wonderful Treat is Coming!!! Now you’re ready to train.
We’ll get you started by explaining how to teach your cat to do five simple tricks. After that, you’re on your own. Here’s our list:
1. Sit
2. Sit Up
3. Shake
4. Stand Tall
5. Spin
Here’s how to teach them:
Sit Happens
We start our trick training with something simple, like sit. Cats sit all the time on their own anyway, so this behavior is an easy one to capture, Click! and reward. Just hang out with your cat, with a handy supply of her favorite kitty treats. Cut or break the treats into tiny pieces so she can eat one quickly and then promptly get back to training. This will also prevent her from getting too full too fast. Show her a treat, then just wait. Chances are good that she will gaze up at you adoringly (well, actually she’s gazing at the treat adoringly, but we can pretend!), waiting for the treat to drop. Chances are that she will shortly get tired of cranking her neck up at you, and will sit so she can keep her eye comfortably on the treat. The instant her fur-covered bottom touches the carpet, Click! and give her the tasty morsel. Then move a step or two away, invite her to follow you, and wait for the next sit. Important Note: Please notice that you are not verbally asking her to sit yet. With positive training, we get the behavior first, then we add the word.
Because all living things repeat behaviors that are rewarding to them, Victoria will soon start sitting deliberately in order to get you to give her the next treat. (See – she thinks she is training you!) Once she is offering the behavior, you can start using your verbal “Sit!” cue as she does it, in order to give her the opportunity to associate the word with the behavior. When she is sitting for you easily, start using the verbal cue when she is about to sit. With lots of repetitions, you will eventually be able to use the cue to get her to sit.
Sit Up
This one is not quite as easy as sit. While we can usually capture the sit (just wait for her to do it, Click! and reward), we will need to lure and shape more complex behaviors like the Sit Up. Luring means that we use the treat show Victoria what we want her to do. Shaping means that we Click! and reward small pieces of the behavior, building gradually to the final goal. Here’s how it works:
Once Victoria is sitting for you easily, you can lure her into the Sit Up position by holding a tasty treat just above her nose when she is in the Sit position. She may immediately Sit Up, in which case we Click! and reward the final behavior without having to shape. Just keep repeating this until she does it easily, then add the word and gradually fade (minimize, then eliminate) the use of the lure, so she will do the Sit Up trick on just a verbal or hand cue, without the treat. (You will still Click! the behavior when she sits up, and follow the Click! with a treat reward.)
If she doesn’t do the Sit Up right off, you’ll shape it. Victoria will get bored and discouraged if she doesn’t get rewarded pretty quickly for something, so we need to find a way to reward her for trying. As you lift the treat over her head, watch for one or both paws to lift slightly off the ground. Click! and treat. Repeat this step many times, clicking and rewarding just the paw lift until she is doing that part with ease and confidence. If you watch closely during this process, you’ll see that some of the paw lifts just barely come off the ground, and some raise up much farther. Now watch the paws carefully, move the treat over her head, and only Click! and give her a treat when the paws come a little higher off the ground. By gradually increasing the height that you require her to lift her paws before she gets a Click! and treat, you will eventually shape a complete Sit Up. Once she can do the complete behavior easily you add the verbal cue and fade the use of the lure.
Shake Paw
Some cats are naturally “pawsy.” Pawsy cats are easy to teach to shake. If you hold a treat in front of Reginald, he immediately reaches out with a paw to grab it. Click! and treat. Keep repeating this step until he moves his paw every time you hold the treat out. Now hide the goodie in your hand so he is reaching just for your hand without seeing the treat. Then Click! and reward. Once you know he will reach with his paw you can add the verbal cue, “Shake!” as he does it. Finally, you can precede the Shake behavior with the verbal cue, then offer the hand so he reaches. Ultimately he will reach out his paw to Shake for just the verbal cue.
Once Reginald will do “Shake” for you, you can add some variety by shaping for a “High Five” or a “Wave.” In each case, look for paw reaches that are higher in the air, and gradually start clicking only the higher ones.
If your cat is not particularly pawsy you have several choices. You can try tempting him with various other toys and treats to try to get a paw reach. You can shape the shake by clicking small paw lifts until one foot lifts easily, then shape for the forward movement of the paw. Or you can forget this trick entirely and focus on the ones that are easy for him. After all, this is supposed to be fun for both of you – no point in the two of you getting frustrated and beating your heads against a wall!
Stand Tall
You’re probably getting the idea by now. To train a “Stand Tall,” where Victoria stands on her hind legs, we go back to the Sit Up that we already taught her. Now, though, we keep luring so she rises up from her haunches and stands straight up. Click! and treat. If she doesn’t rise up to full height all at once, shape the Stand Up by clicking and rewarding her for gradually increasing attempts to rise up. Repeat this until she does it easily for you, then add the verbal cue and gradually fade the lure.
Spin
A spin is simply a turn in a full circle. Once again, this is easiest if we start by luring the behavior. Put a treat in front of Reginald’s nose, then move it, at nose level, so he follows it around in a small circle. Click! and treat. If he is reluctant to turn in a complete circle, you can shape the Spin. If he will easily turn a quarter of a circle, put the treat in front of his nose and turn him just slightly less than that. Click! and treat. Repeat this 90 degree quarter-turn until he does it very easily. Then lure him to 95 or maybe 100 degrees. Keep clicking and treating each repetition. When he does that much easily, add another five or ten degrees, until he is going all the way around. Now you can add the verbal cue and start to work on fading the lure. Once he’s really good in one direction, you can teach him to circle the other direction, and call it Twirl!
The Training Formula
It should be obvious by now that there is a distinct pattern in the way we teach each new trick. We figure out how to get the behavior, either by capturing, luring or shaping, or a combination of those. Each time we get the behavior (or a part of it, in the case of shaping), we Click! and reward, so the cat is motivated to try the behavior again. Once the cat is offering the behavior easily we add the verbal cue, first as she does it, then preceding the behavior. We also begin to fade the use of the lure so our cat will eventually do the behavior on just a verbal cue or hand signal, and we continue to Click! and reward.
When our feline friend is very good at a particular behavior, we can also reduce the number of Clicks! and treats she gets for that trick. This is called using a “variable schedule of reinforcement.” Be careful!! Many owners try to do this too soon or too fast, and the cat gives up and stops working completely. Once you know that Victoria will respond to her “Sit!” cue very reliably – that is, she does it at least 90% of the time when you ask her to, you can very occasionally ask her for two Sits in a row, and only Click! the second one. Every once in a while try for three in a row, Then go back to one, and sometimes two. Or ask for a Sit, then a Sit Up, and only Click! and treat the Sit Up.
Bonus Behaviors
Now you’re on your own. You can take the training formula that you’ve learned here, and use it to teach your cat anything you want – within reason. Look for entertaining behaviors that your cat does naturally, and use your clicker to put them on cue. Does Felix like to do head butts? Click! and reward him when he does, and put it on a verbal cue. Does he give you hugs, sit on your shoulder and nibble your earlobe? Put them on cue. Teach him to jump through a hoop, run an obstacle course, or go to his favorite spot on the top of his scratching post. Cats can learn to fetch, hide in paper bags, weave through your legs, roll over, and play dead, all on cue. The list is endless, limited only by the bounds of your imagination and your ability to communicate your ideas to Felix. The sooner you start the better –a kitten’s energy and enthusiasm give you lots of opportunities to capture a wide range of flamboyant behaviors. But if Felix is already a grownup cat that’s okay too – remember, you can teach an old cat new tricks!
Resources:
Clickers, clicker books and videos are available from Dogwise at www.dogwise.com or 1-800-776-2665. Although the majority of clicker material focuses on dog training, the concepts and application are much the same. We recommend Karen Pryor’s book, Don’t Shoot The Dog and her Clicker Magic video, which includes footage of a cat being clicker-trained to perfom a complex obstacle course.
Pat Miller is a Certified Pet Dog Trainer, freelance author and a professional dog trainer and pet behavior counselor (yes, she “does” cats!) in Hagerstown, Maryland. She can be reached at Rafiki500@aol.com.