Cat Behavior Training Made Simple

Cat behavior training can be a lot of a fun

You really just need to educate yourself a bit so you can effectively communicate to your cat the behavior pattern you're looking for. The most basic element of cat behavior training is similar to all training - reward or punishment, good or bad. When you think about it all we want to do is somehow communicate to our cat what is OK with us and what is not OK behavior. Molding your cats behavior requires you to be persistent. You can't give your cat mixed messages. In other words, if there is something you never want your cat to do, NEVER let it be OK to do it.

Sometimes just hissing at your cat is enough to get her off that counter, but if you let her roam the counter even once in a while, it will become harder and harder for her to understand what NO means.

If your cat is acting up, your main goal needs to be - NO ATTENTION, good or bad. Primarily if it's play aggression you are dealing with... Just walk away until your cat calms down. For behavior patterns you really want to sink in, and cat behavior problems that are repeating themselves you need a more consistent approach. For example, when I let my cats outside, they know to come back when I call their names. At first, when they only got to know the backyard, it was OK, but after they built some confidence they started leaving the yard and wandering the neighborhood.

Even though they knew it was wrong for them to hide when they heard me yelling their name for an hour, they still decided to be brats. The way I handled it was, when the brat finally came back, I took him straight to a dark room and pretty much gave him a time out after a little pep talk. Even with this kind of treatment, it took about a half-dozen times of persistent 15 minute dark room time outs for him to understand that if he doesn't come home after hearing his name being yelled, he's going to be in the dark. This might seem cruel to some people, but we all know on our own flesh that to be brought up right, you need to be served some discipline for your own safety.

So.. to put this in a memorable list:

• Persistence plays a major role in all cat behavior training.
• Many unwanted cat behavior problems and cat aggression are due to:
  • Boredom.
  • Not enough attention.
  • Not enough exercise or activity.
  
  
• If you don't have time to play with your cat, leave her/him plenty of toys and things to do while you're gone.
• When your cat vends aggression during playtime, leave him/her alone until they calm down.

I really hoped this helped a little bit.

For more information don't hesitate to visit us at Sammi and Isla's love story and everything CATS [http://www.cat-love-story.com/index.html].

If you think you're ready to start training, and want a complete guide that I personally still use and recommend I'll tell you about it here.

Happy Cat Training and God bless your cats [http://www.cat-love-story.com/cat-training.html]!

Eyal Barta

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