Posted on 06/16/2016 11:16:31 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows
In anticipation, I’d already positioned a tall, sturdy scratching post in a prominent location next to where the couch would go, and Josh had already used it. Now, I walked over to the scratching post and tapped and lightly scratched the top of it. Josh responded by prancing over, tail up and giving the post a full-extension, deep, hard, scratch, really getting his nails in there. When he was done, I plopped down a big wad of his favorite wet food. Oh look! Scratching the post (not the couch) not only feels good, but it also results in what you consider to be some of the best stuff on earth. We continued to work the program. Knowing that cats like to scratch just after a nap or a snack, I made sure to be there to dole out the goodies. Whether he ever considered scratching the couch, I’ll never know. Months later, I still keep it up, intermittently giving him food when he scratches the post.
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If you'll just get with the program.
What do the cats want to train us to do?
I tried this with our cat Shadow.
She looked at me and said, “You’re not doing it right”, and walked away.
I had success when I got new chairs with this method:
1) Buy cat-repellent spray
2) Spray it on multiple paper towels and let the towels dry
3) Safety-pin the sprayed towels all over the new piece of furniture.
This worked like a charm. I removed the paper towels one at a time after about a week, which is like a couple of months in cat time.
Excellent! They CAN be trained. I had one that would fetch a small ball and bring it back for no more that a scritch behind his ears. And he would then treat me to his name’s sake purr: Evinrude!
LOL at the spray bottle with ‘BAD CAT’ penned on it. :-)
Heavens to Betsy! Why would you leave any reading material out
where a cat could get to it? ;-)
Depends on the personality of the cat.
I can’t stop laughing at that. The look on the dog’s face is too funny.
I have a Manx Point Siamese that pees in the toilet.
I got her at the shelter, she was estimated to be a couple years old and had kittens that were all adopted out already, someone had declawed her. She is now about 14 years old.
Somebody trained her I guess, it was not me. How does one do that? (She doesn’t flush though)
So he has you trained to give him food when he scratches the post?
(I am CERTAIN that’s how the cat sees it)
We have a black tom that I taught to shake hands.
Really.
I have to most times tap him the back of the leg before he will extend his paw to shake.
Sometimes when he doesn’t want to shake hands, he’ll nip at my hand when I go to tap him on the leg, but will still extend his paw to shake.
When he was young he would retrieve a rolled up ball of paper or something and bring it back to me, but as he grew older he stopped doing that. :)
We also have one that will use the commode.
Cats CAN be trained.
My clever friend uses a toy water gun. All he has to do is mention it or look at the shelf where he keeps it, and the cat desists from its criminal behavior.
True.
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