Clicker training for cats and dogs
As I’ve mentioned before, I clicker train both my cats and Chester. I started clicker training the boys when they were 1 year old; we started with Chester pretty much as soon as we decided we were definitely keeping him.
Every day I thank God that I chose to start clicker training my cats. It’s made such a difference in their integration with Chester. The beauty of clicker training is that your animals get so focused on getting their reward (in our case, treats), that they forget one another.
Clicker training has come in handy so many times. Cats fighting? Get out the clicker. They’ll become so focused on you they’ll forget to fight, and the real beauty is that they’ll forget all about whatever got them upset in the first place once you’re done training.
Your cat doesn’t like the carrier? It will probably take a while, but clicker training can definitely help you. And if you have a new kitten, you can easily train them to go into their carrier on command — although this works best if you make sure to practice it every week. Once again, it doesn’t take long. Most animals do much better with short bursts of training than with long training sessions.
Training doesn’t have to take long, either. It does take more time in the beginning. Chester gets trained all day long. I’ve recently taken to doing tiny, mini-training sessions on our walks: stop & sit, puppy pushup, sit-stay, down-stay, shake. It’s a great time to train, because there are so many distractions around.
The boys usually get trained once a day, before dinner. It’s a great way to make sure they burn off some energy. All it takes is five minutes. But they often hone in on Chester’s training sessions, too, as you can see from the photos in this post. In fact, I often have all three arraigned around me in downs.
Want to get started with clicker training? Here are a few sites that can help:
- Karen Pryor’s clickertraining.com
- Clicker Solutions
- Cat Clicker mailing list
- Two kittens training articles
Technorati Tags: clicker training my cats, clicker training, reward, Cats fighting, training sessions, photos
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March 31st, 2008 at 10:16 am
Hi — I found this very enjoyable page of yours while working on an article on clicker training cats for my dog training website. Why write about cats on a dog site? I give two reasons in the article. I’ve linked to this post near the end of the article, which will be posted in the next few days. (Not sure how trackbacks work, maybe you would see the link anyway, but thought I’d let you know.)
Hmm, maybe I can clicker train my tiny street cat Misty to stop terrorizing my Rottweiler Lola! OTOH, I do agree with Misty that it’s a good survival mechanism, so maybe I will leave that alone.
Rosana Hart