Top Cat Training Tips

It’s Danielle again, with some more tips and techniques covering a variety of situations that most cat owners will come across.
The most important factor in effective training is consistency. Whatever training discipline you adopt, be sure to perform it regularly. Cat’s love routine, so he will quickly adapt to the schedule, but if you frequently change the timing or format of the exercises, you’ll be sending your cat mixed signals. This will only make it that much harder to train her. So put the effort in.
Cat training in 10 minutes? – In your dreams!

The key to effective training is consistency. Whatever you choose, be sure to do it on regularly, otherwise, you’ll be sending your cat mixed signals. And that will only make it that much harder to train her. Forget about cat training in 10 minutes!

Below are ten useful tips that will get you through your initial phase of cat ownership.

1. Ideally, when he is indoors, your cat should have something to occupy his thoughts and energies. If there is a window sill or ledge where he can sit, and watch out over the garden for birds or other creatures, then you will have a happy cat. Cats are known for their curiosity, so if he has a good vantage point he will feel much better, and be less likely to burn off his excess energies in destructive behavior. If your sill is not wide enough to accommodate him for long periods, either have one made or buy one from your local the pet store.

2. If your cat breaks the house rules, you’ll quickly learn that punishment does not really serve to change the cat’s behavior. In this way, cats are quite different to dogs. Even if you were tempted to smack him, he’ll just sit there purring at you and go on to repeat that same behavior again. So don’t waste your time trying to correct him this way – you have to find a better way.


3. A cat’s body is not as strong as a dog’s, so you can’t “spank” a cat the way you do a dog to correct his behavior. When you’re training your cat, you have to match wits with it. And hopefully you have more wit than your cat! There are products out there like cat clicker training, but I don't think this is the correct approach.


4. As you spend more time with your cat, you’ll discover that it’s difficult to catch your cat in the actual misdeed. So rather than attempting to punish him when he has erred, it is far more profitable, and far easier, to reward him when you see him performing a right behavior.



5. You should have a good selection of cat toys around the house, either home made or bought from the local pet store. Remember that the cat is by nature a predatory animal, and needs to exercise these primitive instincts in some form. Much of the so-called bad behavior of cats is down to the fact that they get bored if they cannot follow their natural instincts from time to time. Always remember that cats are predatory animals, and it is their nature to hone these skills wherever possible.


6. One of my favorite tips for cat owners is to keep handy a spray bottle of water.
Often spraying a cat with a harmless water bottle is enough to get their attention and bring to a rapid end the bad behavior. You don’t need to buy a special spray bottle - a simple spray bottle that you use for misting plants is really all you need.
You will find that when you have sprayed him a few times in a particular situation, he will soon associate the behavior with the undesirable water spray, and modify his behavior.

7. Sometimes your cat can become over-loving, to the extent that he insists on being as physically close to you as possible. To show him that humans need their own space, blow gently into his face. This will usually surprise and puzzle him, but if you repeat the exercise he will soon learn to back off a little.


8. As you and your cat spend more time together, you will develop a mutual understanding . . . and then the task of teaching your cat what she needs to know will be much easier.

9. Practise a form of positive reinforcement. Keep some cat “treats” on hand, and feed one to your cat whenever he does something positive or correct – like using the litter box or using the scratching post.

10. So, what do you think now about cat training in 10 minutes? Think you could master it? I’ve just outlined some practical points, but these are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to training your cat.

So my final tip is to get a copy of my book - Cat Care and Training. Remember I wrote it specifically for you, and other new owners like you. If you order it now, you can be reading it - and discovering a host of interesting and revealing things about cats - in less than 5 minutes!