How to Train Your Cat Not to Kill Things

For most cat owners, expecting to find dead animals on their front step is all part of cat ownership. However, for many this can be extremely upsetting and they could find that their cat is bringing back dead animals more frequently than is acceptable. Now whilst you do unfortunately have to expect this behavior, it is sometimes possible to limit the amount of animals that your cat does actually bring home.

Understanding Your Cats Instinct

Before you can successfully stop your cat from acting a certain way, you need to first understand why they act in that way in the first place. Now with killing things, it is in a cat’s instinct to hunt, chase and kill smaller animals. They cannot control it and it is not a behavior that can be controlled. So in that sense, it is impossible for you to teach a cat not to hunt.

However, a cat will spend more time hunting if they have nothing better to do and so getting rid of their excess energy may help to control their hunting a little.

Getting Rid of Your Cats Excess Energy

In order to get rid of any extra energy that your cat may have, you will have to spend more time with them than you usually do. Playing games with them and allowing them to chase things in a controlled environment can really help to cut the chances of them bringing home a dead animal.

You can purchase a number of different toys from all pet stores that will allow you to exercise your cats hunting abilities. There are balls that you can roll away from you that your cat can chase. There are even small soft toy mice on the end of a string that allow you to pull the mouse along the floor and again your cat can chase them. Spending at least half an hour playing with your cat in this manner will really help them to get rid of any excess energy.

Overall you will unfortunately have to understand that hunting and killing is part of your cat’s personality. However, to limit the amount of dead animals found on your doorstep, you can try and get rid of your cat’s excess energy.

Spraying in the Home: How to successfully eliminate it

If you happen to own a male cat then you may have come across the problem of spraying in the home. It is a particularly unpleasant problem and it can be extremely frustrating at times. So just how do you stop your cat from spraying in the home?

Understanding Your Cats Spraying Problem

A male cat will spray around the home for two main reasons. Either he is marking his territory, or he has simply not gotten used to the litter tray yet. Now mainly the problem is likely to be territorial marking and many owners think that by getting their cat neutered, it will automatically stop this behavior. However it doesn’t and there is every chance that your cat will still spray once they are neutered.

The main reason a cat marks their territory indoors is because they feel insecure about their surroundings. Perhaps something has changed recently, such as a new pet in the home or a new baby? If you have moved recently that could also cause a problem. So once you have figured out why your cat could feel insecure, you can then work to make them feel at ease again.

Increasing Your Cats Confidence

The best way to increase your cat’s confidence is to give them plenty of attention. Spend more time playing games and cuddling the cat when they let you! By talking to him constantly and giving him regular treats, he will soon start to feel more comfortable where he is and that should, in theory, stop him from marking his territory. Now it may not work overnight, but given time he should really come around and the problem should eventually stop.

Of course the problem could also be that the cat does not like their litter tray. Many cats will only use a litter tray if it is completely clean. So make sure that you clean their litter tray daily in order to give your cat somewhere clean to relieve themselves.

Overall cat spray in the home can be a frustrating and disgusting problem to have to deal with. However, with a little time, love and affection your cat can be taught not to spray in the home. It is just usually a matter of boosting their confidence and you should notice that once you do that the problem will start to disappear.

For more tips and article please visit the Cat Training Expert blog.

How to Successfully Litter Train Your Cat

Litter training your cat is perhaps one of the most important things to train your cat as early as possible. This helps to stop any unnecessary accidents in the home and makes your life a lot simpler at the same time. So just how do you litter train a cat? Well luckily it is usually fairly easy to do.

Litter Training Your New Cat

Providing your new cat or kitten with a litter box is vital if you want them to become housetrained. However, simply just providing the litter tray is not enough to show your cat or kitten that it is their special place to relieve themselves. Litter training a cat or kitten is the same as housetraining a puppy or a new dog – you have to pay attention to their needs.

Usually before your cat or kitten relieves themselves, they first sniff the ground and look for a suitable place to do what they need to do. Cats are not like dogs in the fact that when cats do relieve themselves, they like to cover it up and do it privately. So there should be some amount of walking around sniffing the ground before any mess is made. As soon as you notice this behavior, you should place them in the litter tray and they should do whatever they need to do in that litter tray. However, it is not always that simple.

At first your cat may not want to go in the litter tray, but if you are positive that the cat definitely needs to go to the toilet then just keep persisting and placing them in the litter tray. They will eventually learn that the litter tray is the place where they need to relieve themselves. It does not take long for the cat or kitten to learn and as long as you place the litter tray in a private place where they know where it is, they should go to it every time that they need to relieve themselves.

One problem which you may notice is that when the litter tray is dirty, your cat will not want to relieve itself in the actual tray. Cats are really clean animals and so their litter tray does need to be kept as clean as possible. Every time that your cat has used their litter tray for any other purpose other than urinating, it is advisable to clear it up as soon as possible.

Overall litter training a cat or kitten is fairly easy, just as long as you take notice of when your cat wants to relieve themselves.

For more tips and article please visit the Cat Training Expert blog

How to Successfully Litter Train Your Cat

Litter training your cat is perhaps one of the most important things to train your cat as early as possible. This helps to stop any unnecessary accidents in the home and makes your life a lot simpler at the same time. So just how do you litter train a cat? Well luckily it is usually fairly easy to do.

Litter Training Your New Cat

Providing your new cat or kitten with a litter box is vital if you want them to become housetrained. However, simply just providing the litter tray is not enough to show your cat or kitten that it is their special place to relieve themselves. Litter training a cat or kitten is the same as housetraining a puppy or a new dog – you have to pay attention to their needs.

Usually before your cat or kitten relieves themselves, they first sniff the ground and look for a suitable place to do what they need to do. Cats are not like dogs in the fact that when cats do relieve themselves, they like to cover it up and do it privately. So there should be some amount of walking around sniffing the ground before any mess is made. As soon as you notice this behavior, you should place them in the litter tray and they should do whatever they need to do in that litter tray. However, it is not always that simple.

At first your cat may not want to go in the litter tray, but if you are positive that the cat definitely needs to go to the toilet then just keep persisting and placing them in the litter tray. They will eventually learn that the litter tray is the place where they need to relieve themselves. It does not take long for the cat or kitten to learn and as long as you place the litter tray in a private place where they know where it is, they should go to it every time that they need to relieve themselves.

One problem which you may notice is that when the litter tray is dirty, your cat will not want to relieve itself in the actual tray. Cats are really clean animals and so their litter tray does need to be kept as clean as possible. Every time that your cat has used their litter tray for any other purpose other than urinating, it is advisable to clear it up as soon as possible.

Overall litter training a cat or kitten is fairly easy, just as long as you take notice of when your cat wants to relieve themselves.

For more tips and article please visit the Cat Training Expert blog

How to Successfully Litter Train Your Cat

Litter training your cat is perhaps one of the most important things to train your cat as early as possible. This helps to stop any unnecessary accidents in the home and makes your life a lot simpler at the same time. So just how do you litter train a cat? Well luckily it is usually fairly easy to do.

Litter Training Your New Cat

Providing your new cat or kitten with a litter box is vital if you want them to become housetrained. However, simply just providing the litter tray is not enough to show your cat or kitten that it is their special place to relieve themselves. Litter training a cat or kitten is the same as housetraining a puppy or a new dog – you have to pay attention to their needs.

Usually before your cat or kitten relieves themselves, they first sniff the ground and look for a suitable place to do what they need to do. Cats are not like dogs in the fact that when cats do relieve themselves, they like to cover it up and do it privately. So there should be some amount of walking around sniffing the ground before any mess is made. As soon as you notice this behavior, you should place them in the litter tray and they should do whatever they need to do in that litter tray. However, it is not always that simple.

At first your cat may not want to go in the litter tray, but if you are positive that the cat definitely needs to go to the toilet then just keep persisting and placing them in the litter tray. They will eventually learn that the litter tray is the place where they need to relieve themselves. It does not take long for the cat or kitten to learn and as long as you place the litter tray in a private place where they know where it is, they should go to it every time that they need to relieve themselves.

One problem which you may notice is that when the litter tray is dirty, your cat will not want to relieve itself in the actual tray. Cats are really clean animals and so their litter tray does need to be kept as clean as possible. Every time that your cat has used their litter tray for any other purpose other than urinating, it is advisable to clear it up as soon as possible.
Overall litter training a cat or kitten is fairly easy, just as long as you take notice of when your cat wants to relieve themselves.

For more tips and article please visit the Cat Training Expert blog

Stopping Your Cat from Meowing Constantly

Cats tend to meow at you for a number of reasons. While some cats meow more than others, no matter which breed of cat you do have it is likely to drive you mad at some point if it is constantly meowing.

Understanding Why Your Cat is Meowing

One reason why a cat may meow more than usual is the fact that they may have realized that by meowing they will get exactly what they want. Due to this, they then start to use it to their advantage all of the time.

It could just start off with the cat wanting some attention and affection, but after the cat gets exactly what they want they start to meow more often to get other things that they want also. This is when they start to meow just because they want to. Something that can aggravate the situation, could be the fact that they are feeling bored or they are kept on their own a lot of the time. So if your cat does spend a large number of hours on their own, you may want to look at changing that by getting them a companion.

Controlling Your Cats Constant Meowing

Something that may help when you think that your cat is bored is to play some games with them and this should be done daily. Playing games with your cat will ensure that they get exercise, as well as keeping them preoccupied. To help with the demands of your cat, only attend to them when they are not meowing and when they are calm and collected. Do not let the cat intimidate you, or make you feel guilty as this is basically just giving into their demands. If you do give in you will only make the situation worse and the cat will use this against you. Your cat will need to learn that if they are quiet they will then get rewarded with what they require, whether it is food or whether it is to be stroked and played with.

Some owners enjoy nothing more than talking to their cats and they enjoy it even more when the cats respond to them. However, you may want to teach them to be quiet when you say so. To train them in this, start off by asking them to shush. This method may not work, so be a bit more forceful and tell them to be quiet. Once again this may not work, so if it doesn’t you can always squirt them with a little water and that should do the trick. However, the emphasis is on a ‘little’ water – do not soak your cat through as they tend to get the message with just a little squirt.

Overall the above tips should help you to train your cat not to meow all of the time. It may take a while but if you persist with the training it will be worthwhile.

For more tips and article please visit the Cat Training Expert blog.

How to Control Cat Aggression

Cats are notoriously known for their bad moods, self importance and arrogant behavior. However, sometimes cats can be a little too aggressive, especially if they have not been socialized properly. An aggressive cat is a potentially dangerous cat and so it is important to train them to lose part of that aggression whenever possible. So just how do you train a cat to be less aggressive?

Understanding Your Cats Aggression

Most cat aggression problems stem from a traumatic experience that the cat has previously had. For example, perhaps as a kitten your cat was hurt by another person? Or perhaps they were abandoned and that has taught them to be more wary of things around them?

Most of the time the aggression that your cat is showing you, is fear based aggression. So by understanding what your cats fear is, it is then easier to know how to train them and teach them that everything is ok. However, there are other causes of cat aggression and they include over excitement and illness. If your cat is ill for example, if you touch them in a certain place they may feel pain and they will strike out at you. Also, if you stroke your cat for long periods of time, it could become irritable and once again strike out at you.

By understanding what it is that makes your cat aggressive, you can then work on changing that behavior as best as you can.

Changing Aggressive Behavior

Changing a cat’s aggressive behavior can be hard but it is done similar to how you would train a dog not to bite or nip you.

Firstly it is always better to avoid the situation where possible. So if you know that certain things set your cat off, then make sure that you avoid doing it whenever possible. This could include playing with the cat where they become too excited within a certain time limit. If you know that the cat is going to get irritable after a few minutes, stop playing with them before that time and you will have successfully avoided the cat’s aggressive behavior.

Another thing that you can do to train your cat or kitten not to bite you is playing with them gently at first and keeping an eye on their behavior. As long as they are gentle with you, praise them. Eventually start making the game a little more excitable and look out for signs of claws being retracted and any signs of the cat going to bite you. If they do, stop playing and act dead and this should calm them down. If it doesn’t say ‘ouch’ as loud as you can.

Overall avoiding the behavior is always the best way to stop cat aggression, but if that isn’t possible then ignore the cat and do not give them any attention for a while.

All of your cat training secrets and tips at my blog entitled Cat Training.

How Exactly Does Training a Cat Work?

When it comes to our pets, it would be fantastic if we could train them how to do exactly what we want them to do. Training is only usually associated with dogs, but the fact is that all animals can be trained in some way and cats are certainly no exception.

The Basics of Cat Training

Cats can be trained to do a number of things. So, whether you want them to stop bringing mice back to your front door, to use their litter tray correctly, or even to just use the toilet instead, cats can be taught how to behave; you just need to know the basics.

Training a cat is obviously very different to training a dog. With a dog you teach them things such as ‘stay’, ‘fetch’, and ‘heel’. However, with a cat you are generally just training them to change their behavior slightly. You do not want them to do anything spectacular (though some trainers have been able to teach their cats to perform); you mainly just want to teach them how to behave in a more appropriate manner.

Generally you need to understand your cat before you begin to train them and usually you should find that the following applies:

·Cats Will Continue to Misbehave as Long as There is Reward

Firstly you need to understand that your cat does not know right from wrong. They do things because it is a joy for them to do them. An example would be scratching their claws on the sofa. They continue to do it because it feels good when they do it. They will only not do something if it is unpleasant to do.

So this means that if you want to train your cat, you have to make the preferred behavior rewarding and any behavior you want to put a stop to, will need to be a negative experience.

·Knowing When to Reprimand the Cat

A very common mistake which many cat owners make when it comes to disciplining their cat, is reprimanding them once the crime has already been committed. More often than not we are not with our cats when they actual misbehave and so we try to reprimand them by showing them the problem. The trouble with this is that the cat has absolutely no idea what you are reprimanding them for and so the punishment is not doing any good.

Overall training a cat to change its behavior can be hard work but it can be done as long as you have persistence and understanding.

All of your cat training secrets and tips at my blog entitled Cat Training.

3 Cat Training Basics by Julia Camden

Cat training is not always easy, but it is possible. Though your cat may seem too independent and stubborn to change its behavior, you can get the job done if you make a commitment to the right strategies.

There are a few basic tents of successful training about whichever cat owner should be aware. Let us look at three of those cat training fundamentals:

The Need for Immediacy

Cats are incredibly smart animals, but they do not necessarily make the same kind of connections people do with respect to cause and effect. That is why it is essential to take action immediately when you observe inappropriate behavior. If your response is delayed by even a few seconds, it will lose a great deal of its effectiveness.

Never assume that your cat will remember what it did earlier in a day or that the cat will make any connection between your discipline and past behavior. Rarely, if ever, will that happen. If you correct your pet for something it did earlier, it will have no idea of why it is being corrected and may incorrectly link your actions to the behavior displayed immediately before you took action.

Encouraging Alternative Behaviors

One of the best ways to teach your cat not to engage in an undesirable behavior is to encourage the animal to do something else instead. This strategy works even better when the encouraged behavior is completely incompatible with the undesired action. This technique works because cats, like all animals, are more responsive to positive reinforcement.

You will have greater success encouraging and rewarding what you would like to see than you will by trying to stop what you do not. Instead of discouraging your cat from scratching a table leg, encourage your pet to exercise that instinct on its scratching post!

Avoiding Physical Discipline

Physical punishment will not contribute to successful cat training. Negative reinforcements do not work well for cats and hitting or otherwise physically reprimanding your pet will only make your relationship more difficult while inspiring unnecessary fear in the animal.

If you encounter a situation where you must physically discourage a behavior in progress, like biting, you should merely place your hand's palm on the cat's face and gently push him or her back while verbally reprimanding the animal in a non-aggressive manner.

Cats are not always the easiest animals to train, but if one approaches the project with the right attitude and strategies, it is possible to direct a cat's behavior. The three elements of cat training we've discussed all share features common to all successful techniques--they are all based on the understanding that positive reinforcement offers the greatest chance of success and that cat owners should always use the least aggressive means of correcting behavior.

Those two rules of thumb are at the very core of smart cat training.

About the Author

Have a cat behavior problem that needs solving? If so, you'll want to visit www.secretsofcats.com today to get expert information on how to train your cat and eliminate cat problems quickly.

Cat Training

CATS ARE SMART PEOPLE TOO!


If the definition of “Intelligence” is “the ability to acquire and remember information and the capability to use them while solving different problems”, then the cat is definitely one of the most intelligent animals on this planet.

Just put a cat in a room in which they have never been in before and just watch how they inspect every nook and cranny of the room. This detailed search gives them a multitude of valuable information about their surroundings, information that can even save their life in some cases. In fact, this specific curiosity has never caused them any harm, if truth be told it gave them the reputation of having nine lives by knowing where a safe place was nearby.

We all know that the ability cats have to scrutinize their surroundings is well-known, but, at the same time it has been proven that this characteristic is more advanced than that of any other domesticated animal. The intellectual capacity of the cat is demonstrated by their skill at using this information when they have to pass safely through dangerous conditions. Cats are competent at developing methods by which to learn new things, an attribute that was formerly thought to belong only to primates.

Cats learn through observation, imitation, trying and of course, just screwing up like we all do. The stories you hear with cats being able to open drawers and doors are true and there are also cats that can turn on the lights, use the toilet, and wipe their feet, this is achievable only by carefully scrutinizing the ones that know how to do these things, you, the owner.

Considering the fact that the cat is the most intelligent domesticated animal, it is very important that the owner knows very the limits of their cats use of reasoning, intuition, and perception, because believing your the pet has human motives can behavioral problems. For instance, a cat cannot reflect upon the past or think in perspective, so punishing them for something that they have done even just a few minutes earlier is ineffective, because the cat is not capable of connecting the punishment with their previous actions. In that same light a cat can not seek vengeance for a former punishment either.

Don’t take the intellect of your cat too lightly! Try and get to know your pet better and live in harmony and it will be a rewarding experience for both you and your cat!

Toilet Training Your Cat

Toilet Training Cat The Easy Way by Luke Blaise

By using incremental training it is easy to train your cat to use a human toilet. Why? Imagine if you never had to worry about cleaning the litter box again or lugging large boxes of litter home from the grocery store.

Lots of people have already trained their cats to use a human toilet saving them lots of time and money. One of the best part of all of this is you no longer need to have space for regular litter box, giving you extra space in small apartments and condos.

The easiest way to train your cat to use a human toilet is to use incremental training. What is incremental training? Incremental training is slowly molding your cat's behavior into the actions that you want. This can be done over the course of a couple of weeks. The most important thing to remember when doing this is to take the process really slowly and do not rush your cat at all.
To train your cat to use a human toilet start by slowly moving the litter box closer and closer to your toilet. You need to move it slowly over the course of a week or two to help your cat get used to using the litter box next to the toilet.

Once your cat has been using the litter box next to the toilet for a couple of weeks, slowly start to raise the litter box up, a little each week until the height is the same as the toilet seat.
After a couple of weeks of this you can move the litter box on top of the toilet and then insert a litter box that sits into the rim of the toilet. Once your cat gets used to using the sunken litter box in the toilet, remove it and your job should be done.

The most important thing to remember when toilet training your cat is to take it slowly and by slowly that means weeks, and two days.

About the Author
Visit my cat behavior blog for great easy tips to help you with your cat behavior problem. Or just sign up for my newsletter: The Cat Behavior Specialist

I also like to help people struggling with the cat behavior problems. Please email me if you need help, I have helped dozens already.

Cat Training

Welcome to my new cat training blog.

I'll be posting articles and tips on training your cat very soon, so be sure to check back soon and be sure to visit the Cat Training Expert blog often!

Thanks,
Dennis