Tips on Cat Training

The main aim to cat training is to ensure that whatever you want your cat to do should be exceedingly rewarding and pleasurable. Whatever you don’t want your cat to indulge in must never be rewarding or fun, in fact, it must be unpleasant.

Reprimands simply do not work when training your cat. If you catch kitty in the act, he will only misbehave when you are not around. If you punish the cat later, he will not associate the reprimand with the crime. In either case, the misbehavior continues. Some cats misbehave just to get attention and the attention is enough of a reward to cause kitty to continue his ways. So what can be done?

To avoid problems from occurring, or to reform kitty of his bad habits, the answers are the same. Here are few methods to help you.

• Stop all reprimands and punishment, no matter what your cat is doing.
• Set kitty up to succeed in performing those behaviors you want her to learn so she can be rewarded.
• Set up kitty’s environment so that those behaviors you don’t want him to learn are not rewarding.

Let’s look at these at little more closely.

1. Stop all reprimands. Concentrate on making your relationship fun, rewarding, playful and interesting. Cat furniture and cat trees are a great way to deter cat scratching as your kitty will be otherwise occupied. Sometimes this change alone will solve your problem. Cats are known to become overly active and destructive when bored. Daily play sessions on cat furniture or cat trees and relaxing massages help calm kitty down. Cats that feel neglected will often stop using their litter box. By providing cats with cat furniture and cat trees, the behavior of the cat can drastically change. If you schedule regular sessions to give kitty your undivided attention and to play games with him, even litter box problems can disappear almost overnight.
2. The most effective method of cat training is through rewards. So the second step would be to set up the cat’s environment so he can succeed. This will give you the opportunity to reward and praise him for good behavior.
3. The third step is to set up the cat’s environment so that his misbehavior is not a rewarding experience. Scratching is important, biologically, for your cat. So you can’t really punish her for clawing thefurniture, unless you have provided her with an alternative like ascratching post. If cat scratching has already occurred then cover the item with plastic and she will likely turn to the post instead. When you catch your cat scratching furniture, try squirting her with water from a squirt bottle and use a firm “no.” When she scratches herscratching post, reward her with praise.

When you own a custom built cat tree or other piece of cat furnitureyou will not only own a fun piece for your cat but you will own a handcrafted work of sculptural art. This will prove to be a great home decoration and also a play station for the cat. There are indoor and outdoor cat trees. There are cat tree houses, cat town houses with one or two levels, there are cat tree house duplexes for multiple cats or even a cat and dog.