- originally posted by me on June 7th, 2011. Edited today.
When I started training my cats I did it
for 2 reasons. For fun, and to try and deal with some problem behaviors.
At that time I had 3 cats, and had been training dogs at PetSmart for
about 4 months; because of this the method of training I chose was
clicker training.
I did lots of looking online and found a few YouTube videos and Karen Pryor’s Clicker Training website.
There’s a bit of background inf you need to know to understand how to teach an animal something.
Generally speaking there are two ways that animals, and people, learn; classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
Classical Conditioning: Basically classical conditioning means that one thing happens before a second thing often enough that when the first thing happens you anticipate the second thing.
The most common example is Pavlov’s Dogs. Pavlov developed a study in which he rang a bell before offering food to each dog. Over time he found that ringing the bell caused the dogs to salivate. To the dogs the bell ringing meant food.
Operant Conditioning: Operant conditioning is a bit trickier. It uses four quadrants of response to either enourage or eliminate a behavior.
In the brackets I put the way I think about it, for simplicity’s sake.
Positive reinforcement (adding good things)
Negative reinforcement (taking away good things)
Positive punishment (adding bad things)
Negative punishment (taking away bad things)
Everytime you interact with your pet you are using one of the quadrants, maybe without realizing it.
A. Your cat jumps on your lap and you pet it. Positive reinforcement.
B. Your cat jumps on the counter and you squirt them with a water bottle. Positive punishment.
C. You are petting your cat and they bite you. You stop petting them. Negative reinforcement.
D. Your cat meets a new dog and hisses in fear, you remove the dog from the room. Negative punishment.
These interactions teach your cat something each time.
A. If I jump on my persons lap they will pet me.
B. If I jump on the counter and they see me they will squirt me.
C. If I bite my human they will stop petting me.
D. If I hiss bad things go away.
Make a careful note that what they learn may not be what you expected, or something you like. They can also teach themselves:
A cat knocks over the garbage can and gets a yummy snack! Positive reinforcement.
A cat knocks over the garbage can and it makes a huge scarey noise. Positive punishment.
A cat jumps on the counter when no one is watching and finds a snack. Positive reinforcement.
When you clicker train your cat you are using mostly positive reinforcement, and generally some negative reinforcement.
You also need three other things to help them learn as fast as possible. Cues, markers, and release words.
Cues tell your pet what you want. We use these everyday. Come, sit, off, down, any words you use that your cat always reacts to the same way. When I say “Dinner time!” or “feed the cats” my cats know that is my cue that they are about to be fed. The best cues are short and simple.
Markers tell your cat about what they did in response. Was their response to the cue right or wrong? If I said “Doran, off.” and he jumped off the counter I would say “Good!” as a marker to let him know that was the right choice and I would probably either pet him or praise him in a happy voice as the consequence for making the right choice.
If I said “Doran, off.” and he squinted his eyes and hunkered down that tells me he has learned (through classical conditioning) that the word “off” will be followed by a squirt from the water bottle. I would then say “Uh uh.” to mark that choice as wrong and he would get the consequence.
When you’re training you need to be very obvious. remember they don’t know English, they can’t read your mind, and they might have a harder time picking things up than you expect.
Pick a word to use as your positive marker. Pick a word to use as a negative marker. Most of us do have a sound our cats are used to as a negative marker, but we frequently use many words to express both positive and negative responses. Pick one for each, this will help reduce your pets confusion.
To ‘load’ your positive reinforcer you have to link it to a positive thing in your cat’s mind. Find things they like; treats, toys, a certain game, head or tummy rubs…but whatever you pick has to be rewarding for your cat. This is the most important thing.
Consider this: Your friend asks you to help them move and they offer to buy you pizza in exchange. If you like pizza you think “Awesome! I’ll do it!”
The next time a friend asks you to help them move they offer you a dollar, or the food you can’t stand. You might still help them, but you’re thinking “Well I won’t do this again! I’m only getting (blank).”
Make sure the positive reinforcer you pick is something your cat likes or they won’t want to work for you!
Now comes the fun bit, linking that word with the good thing. It’s really easy. I used a clicker, but a word will work too if you can’t get a clicker. (clicker pens make good replacement clickers
)
Click, reward. Click, reward. Click reward. Repeat over and over. At least 20 times. Then wait until your cat is looking at something else. Click and wait. If they look at you expecting good things, give them the good thing and stop. They get the point.
As an example, Doran’s favorite toy is a bottle cap. For him I might click, then let him play with the bottle cap for 3 minutes or so. I repeat that until when he hears the click noise he is expecting to get the bottle cap.
For the negative this is a bit trickier. While you can reward your cat for nothing, or for not doing anything bad, you can’t punish them for nothing.
Wait until your cat is doing something inappropriate, then use your negative marker and follow it up with a consequence. If you cat has never heard this marker before please be fair and don’t expect them to respond.
When my boys were babies it would go like this. Doran would scratch at a speaker. I would say “Doran, uh uh.” Then I would remove him from the speaker (negative reinforcement, since cat’s like scratching) and place him on his cat post (positive reinforcement). I replaced the negative behavior with a positive one. If he scratched the post I would reward him. (more positive reinforcement).
As he grew I began expecting him to understand and change his behavior on his own. So the pattern changed slightly. He would go to scratch the speakers and I would say “Doran, uh uh.” Then I would pause. If he stopped scratching the speaker I would praise and pet him, sometimes giving him a bottle cap, to let him know that was the right choice.
When he usually (19/20 times) reacted correctly I knew that he understood the behavior, so the consequence changed.
He would scratch the speaker and I would say “Doran, uh uh.” Then pause, it is really important at this stage to give them a chance to react correctly by changing their behavior. If he continued scratching or didn’t remove his paws I would follow up with a squirt from the water bottle. He came to learn that if he didn’t change his behavior when he heard the correction he would receive a positive punishment (adding something bad).
Now we’ve gone further, to prevent the behavior from occurring at all. As he approaches an object I know he is tempted to scratch (currently my new yoga pad that is rolled up and leaning against a corner) I watch carefully. As he gets to scratching range and gives the rolled up mat the ‘eye’ I say “Doran, uh uh.” And he backs off. Now he is being corrected for thinking about scratching something he shouldn’t be scratching.
It will take time to get to this stage, at least 6 months, with any cat. If you rush it they will never understand what you want, so make sure you take your time.
To use a clicker to teach a different behavior I could also watch for every time he did something I like. For example every time he chooses to scratch his post rather than my yoga mat. When I see him scratching his post I say “Doran, good boy!” Or I could use the clicker, and I pet him and ruffle his fur the way he likes. Sometimes I start a game of chase, sometimes I give him a treat. Varying the rewards is also important.
There’s a bit of background inf you need to know to understand how to teach an animal something.
Generally speaking there are two ways that animals, and people, learn; classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
Classical Conditioning: Basically classical conditioning means that one thing happens before a second thing often enough that when the first thing happens you anticipate the second thing.
The most common example is Pavlov’s Dogs. Pavlov developed a study in which he rang a bell before offering food to each dog. Over time he found that ringing the bell caused the dogs to salivate. To the dogs the bell ringing meant food.
Operant Conditioning: Operant conditioning is a bit trickier. It uses four quadrants of response to either enourage or eliminate a behavior.
In the brackets I put the way I think about it, for simplicity’s sake.
Positive reinforcement (adding good things)
Negative reinforcement (taking away good things)
Positive punishment (adding bad things)
Negative punishment (taking away bad things)
Everytime you interact with your pet you are using one of the quadrants, maybe without realizing it.
A. Your cat jumps on your lap and you pet it. Positive reinforcement.
B. Your cat jumps on the counter and you squirt them with a water bottle. Positive punishment.
C. You are petting your cat and they bite you. You stop petting them. Negative reinforcement.
D. Your cat meets a new dog and hisses in fear, you remove the dog from the room. Negative punishment.
These interactions teach your cat something each time.
A. If I jump on my persons lap they will pet me.
B. If I jump on the counter and they see me they will squirt me.
C. If I bite my human they will stop petting me.
D. If I hiss bad things go away.
Make a careful note that what they learn may not be what you expected, or something you like. They can also teach themselves:
A cat knocks over the garbage can and gets a yummy snack! Positive reinforcement.
A cat knocks over the garbage can and it makes a huge scarey noise. Positive punishment.
A cat jumps on the counter when no one is watching and finds a snack. Positive reinforcement.
When you clicker train your cat you are using mostly positive reinforcement, and generally some negative reinforcement.
You also need three other things to help them learn as fast as possible. Cues, markers, and release words.
Cues tell your pet what you want. We use these everyday. Come, sit, off, down, any words you use that your cat always reacts to the same way. When I say “Dinner time!” or “feed the cats” my cats know that is my cue that they are about to be fed. The best cues are short and simple.
Markers tell your cat about what they did in response. Was their response to the cue right or wrong? If I said “Doran, off.” and he jumped off the counter I would say “Good!” as a marker to let him know that was the right choice and I would probably either pet him or praise him in a happy voice as the consequence for making the right choice.
If I said “Doran, off.” and he squinted his eyes and hunkered down that tells me he has learned (through classical conditioning) that the word “off” will be followed by a squirt from the water bottle. I would then say “Uh uh.” to mark that choice as wrong and he would get the consequence.
When you’re training you need to be very obvious. remember they don’t know English, they can’t read your mind, and they might have a harder time picking things up than you expect.
Pick a word to use as your positive marker. Pick a word to use as a negative marker. Most of us do have a sound our cats are used to as a negative marker, but we frequently use many words to express both positive and negative responses. Pick one for each, this will help reduce your pets confusion.
To ‘load’ your positive reinforcer you have to link it to a positive thing in your cat’s mind. Find things they like; treats, toys, a certain game, head or tummy rubs…but whatever you pick has to be rewarding for your cat. This is the most important thing.
Consider this: Your friend asks you to help them move and they offer to buy you pizza in exchange. If you like pizza you think “Awesome! I’ll do it!”
The next time a friend asks you to help them move they offer you a dollar, or the food you can’t stand. You might still help them, but you’re thinking “Well I won’t do this again! I’m only getting (blank).”
Make sure the positive reinforcer you pick is something your cat likes or they won’t want to work for you!
Now comes the fun bit, linking that word with the good thing. It’s really easy. I used a clicker, but a word will work too if you can’t get a clicker. (clicker pens make good replacement clickers
)Click, reward. Click, reward. Click reward. Repeat over and over. At least 20 times. Then wait until your cat is looking at something else. Click and wait. If they look at you expecting good things, give them the good thing and stop. They get the point.
As an example, Doran’s favorite toy is a bottle cap. For him I might click, then let him play with the bottle cap for 3 minutes or so. I repeat that until when he hears the click noise he is expecting to get the bottle cap.
For the negative this is a bit trickier. While you can reward your cat for nothing, or for not doing anything bad, you can’t punish them for nothing.
Wait until your cat is doing something inappropriate, then use your negative marker and follow it up with a consequence. If you cat has never heard this marker before please be fair and don’t expect them to respond.
When my boys were babies it would go like this. Doran would scratch at a speaker. I would say “Doran, uh uh.” Then I would remove him from the speaker (negative reinforcement, since cat’s like scratching) and place him on his cat post (positive reinforcement). I replaced the negative behavior with a positive one. If he scratched the post I would reward him. (more positive reinforcement).
As he grew I began expecting him to understand and change his behavior on his own. So the pattern changed slightly. He would go to scratch the speakers and I would say “Doran, uh uh.” Then I would pause. If he stopped scratching the speaker I would praise and pet him, sometimes giving him a bottle cap, to let him know that was the right choice.
When he usually (19/20 times) reacted correctly I knew that he understood the behavior, so the consequence changed.
He would scratch the speaker and I would say “Doran, uh uh.” Then pause, it is really important at this stage to give them a chance to react correctly by changing their behavior. If he continued scratching or didn’t remove his paws I would follow up with a squirt from the water bottle. He came to learn that if he didn’t change his behavior when he heard the correction he would receive a positive punishment (adding something bad).
Now we’ve gone further, to prevent the behavior from occurring at all. As he approaches an object I know he is tempted to scratch (currently my new yoga pad that is rolled up and leaning against a corner) I watch carefully. As he gets to scratching range and gives the rolled up mat the ‘eye’ I say “Doran, uh uh.” And he backs off. Now he is being corrected for thinking about scratching something he shouldn’t be scratching.
It will take time to get to this stage, at least 6 months, with any cat. If you rush it they will never understand what you want, so make sure you take your time.
To use a clicker to teach a different behavior I could also watch for every time he did something I like. For example every time he chooses to scratch his post rather than my yoga mat. When I see him scratching his post I say “Doran, good boy!” Or I could use the clicker, and I pet him and ruffle his fur the way he likes. Sometimes I start a game of chase, sometimes I give him a treat. Varying the rewards is also important.
Clicker training isn’t just to teach tricks. When you use it properly you can teach your pet anything, good behavior included!
*added*
A little update and some comments on this already epic-ly sized post.
One thing I neglected to mention here is prevention as a way of...preventing bad behaviors from becoming habits.
Our cats all currently enjoy spending time on our counters, something which drives my BF up the wall. They all know we don't want them on the counters, but they have all periodically been reinforced for getting up there. Enough so that the only way to really break the behavior would be to never allow them in the kitchen unsupervised.
It only takes one stolen shrimp, plate licked clean of sauce in the sink, or warm spot to lie in the chillier days of winter to ruin the training you have done up to a point.
When you own pets you have to have a certain level of understanding. They do get off the counters; when I'm in the room and tell them to. But they also push the boundaries to see if they are still the same. The fact is that, just like us, cats are living beings and are fully capable of learning all their lives. Just because you teach your cat good manners when they're little doesn't mean that they will always have good manners. Ditto for dogs.
To me, it doesn't matter all that much if they're on the counters. I just make sure to wipe the counters before I bake/cook. For me that solves the problem. I'm fine with them being up there when I'm not home, in another room, not cooking, ect. But not everyone is.
You need to decide what training goals are the most important for your home, and act (and react) accordingly.
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