How to Train my Easily Distracted Cat

Question

My cute little fur ball, named Butterscotch, is quite food motivated, and I would like to train him to do cool things like roll over and shake a paw. He has a very sensitive stomach (as you may already know) and I can only feed him about 5-6 treats a day, sometimes more if I'm lucky.

I have heard of clicker training, but have absolutely no clue how to do it. I also don't know if that would even work for him. Does anyone know of a good way to train him?

Also, does anyone know of some really epic tricks I could teach him? Even things such as: hoing to a certain location when asked: coming when called by name, hrabbing something for you, playing dead, I would really like to teach him to do these things and if someone knows of another great trick, let me know! I would love to teach him all the tricks I can!

Answer 1

Clicker training a cat takes great patience, but it can be a great bonding experience for you and your kitty.

CLICKER TRAINING: For clicker training you need treats and a small clicker you can find at any pet store. The idea is - as soon as your cat does the wanted behavior, you click and give the kitty a treat. The click has to come immediately after the wanted behavior, and the treat has to immediately follow the click. After time, you will be able to give the cat a treat every other behavior, but still click immediately after each behavior. You will slowly be able to reduce the treats and only click.

CAT TRICKS: When you read the articles/books keshlam mentioned, they will tell you that cat "tricks" have to come from behaviors they already instinctively do. Often, the first things you teach your cat is to recognize the click means a treat is coming and to look at you after he eats it. After this is mastered, the next thing is usually having your cat jump on a carpeted surface and touch his nose to a wand or a pen, which is used only for training. This is a natural behavior for a cat. When the nose touches, you click and give the treat. This is the beginning stages of getting your cat to go to a location you point to.

SHORT SESSIONS: It's ok that your cat can only have a few treats a day. The training sessions must be kept short or your cat will lose interest.

Here are a couple basic articles that will get you started:

How to Clicker Train a Cat

3 Tricks to Teach your Cat with a Clicker

Answer 2

You don't need treats to train a food motivated cat. If he can tolerate any dry food, you can use that in place of "treats". I've been clicker training one of my cats using kibble for several weeks now.

Answer 3

Cats are creatures which won’t go with discipline. Any kind of training to teach your cat requires patience and positive reinforcement. Getting your to listen requires basic training which builds strong and useful communication links between you and your cat. It just needs to follow certain things like:

1. Never hit him
2. Be aware how to talk to him. Try to call his name without word “no”
3. To come to you, always take a pleasure for him. Next slowly and gradually you can go with training. Follow below listed steps:
4. Get ready with treat, then align yourself to the same level as your cat
5. Tap your cat’s paw while saying “shake” and use clicker when it moves its paw.
6. Go ahead and repeat with the training until your cat offers its paw in response to the “shake” command without tapping. With these certain steps you can move for more training like come on command and with how to toilet train your cat.