Cats tend to take to one person and ignore everyone else. My cat usually has a 7-10 day period where she rejects people and then eventually gets over it if we’re moving in somewhere, staying somewhere for an extended amount of time or if someone is moving in with us for a while or visit.

For a long time, Ninja didn’t really care for Dave. She wasn’t sure if he was around to stay or not and figured since I loved her it didn’t matter what she did or if she bothered giving him the time of day. But it kind of bothered my husband Dave. Once he saw the great things cats have to offer as companion pets, he became a bit jealous of her sleeping on me at night and never him.

So he started taking part care of her too. Originally I was doing everything… feeding, watering, treating, training, cuddling, playing, litterbox cleaning (which he still has never done… apparently that does nothing for bonds, haha, kidding) and more.

He began treating her, training her and had so much fun with it that when I went out town for a while, I came back to the new BFF’s of the house!

So if your spouse is having a hard time getting in on all the fun of your relationship with your cat, let them in on it by taking part. Of course, training them something it the ultimate bond building experience. It’s incorporating treats with praise, along with mental stimulation which every living creature needs.

Everyone around the circus is so amazed with my cat, Ninja. We let her out at almost every city we travel to and she always comes back to our RV. The picture above shows how we normally find her; sitting on the front step of our RV waiting for us to come home from wherever we happen to be.

Of course, we have certain rules for her, such as she isn’t allowed outside on show days or if we’re by high traffic areas, or if there are any obvious dangers from stray animals, etc. but most of the time we’re able to estimate the risk and eliminate most of them and allow her the freedom.

One of my top secrets with getting her to come back when I call her, is randomly rewarding her with treats. She never knows what kind of treat or how much she’s going to get which makes it as addicting as gambling at the casino!

My other secret is the strong bond I have with her, where I offer her my trust, companionship and try to avoid ever forcing her to do anything. I try to manipulate every situation into making it HER decision so she never feels like I force her to come, cuddle, stay, or anything else. This has done wonders for her respect for me and the boundaries I set, as well as coming when I call her, trusting I have a better reason than she does to stay out longer.

Photo by Carlos Yepez
Featuring myself and my kitty, Ninja

I did a photoshoot (circus themed) with my cat Ninja in the month of June. It was shot by photographer Carlos Yepez. It wasn’t planned to actually use her in it, but she was around and she hadn’t been in a shoot with me before so I thought we’d use her for it. She did really good, she didn’t take treats that we offered but she listened to me and was so intrigued with the set that she didn’t need any rewards for being there. Cats seem to love new environments that it’s enough reward for them!

I was super proud of her though, and she wasn’t bothered by anything except for the stomping of my heels on the props. So I tried not to step so hard so not to alarm her while she was scoping the place out.

Hope you like her posing, I personally think she’s a natural!

The next tricks I taught her were:

1. Jump up (onto objects I point to)
2. Jump from point A to point B
3. Jump through a hoop
4. Spin on command
5. Jump into my lap on command

Making it a total of 11 tricks she has learned in 1.5 months. I gave her an entire month off training because I was traveling with her so it has been over a span of 2.5 months if you get real specific.

Teaching any jumping behaviors came very quickly to her. Once she learned the “jump”, the other jumping behaviors were a piece of cake for her to master.

The toughest one which I assumed would be the easiest was the “spin” which I think was so basic it bored her. So I had to make sure to mix up her training sessions a lot and make things more random for her in an effort to make the training more fun and less predictable on her end.

I actually had the best time teaching her to jump into my lap on command. It happened in just two days and it was a lot of fun. I hadn’t done any training where she had to do something on me so that changed it up a lot for her and took her a little bit to figure out that I was actually part of the behavior. Once she figured that out, it went super fast!

The other day I was able to really test out some of her training. I had a friend over and she performed every trick she knew in front of my friend which I was very impressed about. She hasn’t had to perform in front of anyone yet and she acted like nothing was different.

I was also outside earlier the next day and I heard a cat fight behind my fence. I kept climbing it and looking over, expecting to see Ninja and some other cat but hoping it wasn’t her. Finally, I called her and she came running and jumped over the fence into the yard… untouched. She looked like she had either done the butt-kicking or was watching it all happen… or clueless, who knows! But I was very happy she came on command from outdoors and out of sight.

Her training has really been useful for every day life with her. I recommend everyone train their cat, it makes a world of difference and really just makes your life easier, too.

Her weakest trick is probably the “stay” which is why I didn’t click nor reward for it in this video. Instead I asked something else of her and ignored the behavior I didn’t like.

More to come soon! She just finished up learning how to jump into my lap and I am excited to get video footage of it to share.

When starting to trick train my cat, I didn’t really know what to expect out of her. She’s only 4 years old, so she’s still pretty young and peppy and her and I already had a fairly good bond to where I could hold her attention. I made sure to give her some days off, since that is very important in training (everyone’s brains need a break!)

But I don’t think I ever expected to be able to teach my cat NINE TRICKS in just ONE MONTH! Some tricks took one day, others took maybe two days and some I worked on for longer just to make sure she had it right and maybe even to progress it further and get it better.

I also made sure to go back and cue tricks she already knew well while training a new one so that it would help build her confidence in learning – that way she would try new things and progress even FASTER.

I thought I had a good relationship with my cat, but now that her and I have discovered the world of training, our bond is SO much stronger than before. I can’t wait to keep going with her training. Since I’m traveling extensively and have been all month, she has had a month off of training (at least when it comes to learning new tricks) which I am hoping will help her motivation when we get home and start some more new things!

It has also been really fun to show her videos off to friends and family.

So don’t under estimate YOUR cat and what he/she can do! Even if your cat doesn’t even like you, you can use food at first as your cat’s main motivation to come to you and begin training with that. Eventually, your cat is going to enjoy training so much (and the treats, praise and pets that come along with it) that it will LOVE being with you, too! And you won’t believe the bond you’ll have.

She learned the whole thing in no time at all and was doing a short “skip” so to speak through it on the first day. When I would make the training session go a little too long for her liking, she would begin rubbing up against the hula hoop as if to make it pet her instead so I would have to step back and make the hula hoop at a shorter distance for her again before moving on.

It’s a really cute trick though and one of my favorites because it’s so different. This one was just trained for fun but one I am glad I took the time to train! I hope you enjoy watching her in the video.

When your cat is too hungry, it’s not a good thing. And when your cat isn’t hungry enough, it’s not a good thing either. Both result in your cat refusing to train.

When your cat is too hungry, it’s way too focused on the food and whatever it needs to do to get to it rather than the behavior you are asking. It’s just a pure lack of focus that you really don’t want.

When your cat isn’t hungry enough, it has the same focus problems but for the opposite reason: it really doesn’t care whether or not it gets the food and will do the minimum it has to, to get the reward. For example, if you are working on something new that the cat is having a harder time with; it will probably offer tricks it already knows instead as an easy way of earning the treat rather than the hard way of really working it out in its head.

If you are noticing your cat is too hungry during a training session, you can simply cue a really easy behavior it already knows and give a large reward in an effort to fill your cat up faster to its neutral training weight where it will work well for you. Or you can always give your cat a small meal and come back a little later to train. I often let my cat come to me as she will stand at my office door quietly and when I turn to see her she will run as fast as she can to the training room entrance letting me know she wants in to train. I usually will then get up and do a couple repetitions and then go back to work.

If your cat seems to be unfocused and uninterested in the training often, you may need to wait longer between when your cat eats and when you train so that it digests more and is more willing to work for food. There is a healthy motivation balance; you just have to find it.

So far I’ve trained my cat to:

1. Learn what a clicker is
2. Touch train (also known as target training)
3. Come on command
4. Sit on command
5. Stay on command
6. Sit up/sit pretty

All those in 3.5 weeks! My cat loves training so much she keeps beating me to the “training room”. I set up everything for her in there, which is where this video was taken… I used a little coffee table we weren’t using and she trains on that. It acts as her “station” for training which is really nice. You don’t have to use a station, or a “platform” to train your cat but I chose to.

Here is sort of my training chart of how fast Ninja was able to learn each behavior (this won’t be everyone’s cat’s chart, but it is nice for me to look back and see how long each trick took. Your cat may learn faster or slower):

• In a single training session she learned what the clicker meant. She had had experience with it prior, though, so your cat may need longer.
• A single training session and she understood touch training/target training.
• 1 day of 2-3 training sessions to learn come on command (short distance).
• 3 days to learn sitting on command.
• 5 days to teach her sit up/sit pretty.
• 2 days to learn stay on command.

All these behaviors were super basic. The touch training can be done with her at any length but the come command was trained at short distances (though it worked outside from our backyard as well as within our house)

The stay command I only asked from the distance of a room and for the length of a few seconds, not a lot of minutes or hours. I don’t have a need for her to sit in one place for an hour but ALL these behaviors can be expanded upon once it’s basis is learned.

And the training doesn’t stop here! I plan on working on some fun jumping behaviors next so stay tuned with our progress!

A crying and constantly meowing cat will drive anyone nuts if they aren’t TRYING to hold a conversation with said cat. And many cats cry for breakfast and dinner mainly so a feeding schedule works well that is designed around when the cat would normally cry so it has nothing to beg for. However, other cat crying may not be so obvious.

Just some of the reasons I’ve found that my cat is crying to get my attention is:

• She brought something lovely in the house for me to see and be proud of.
• She is dragging socks from the laundry that is done ALL over the house.
• She’s hungry or out of water.
• She hasn’t had enough quality time in the past few days.
• She thinks her litter box should be cleaned immediately.
• She’s thinking it might be fun to go elsewhere to play, like outside or in the garage.
• She’d like you to give her a second and pet her for coming into the room.

Obviously, she gets rewarded for these which is why she cries in the first place. If your cat cries for a need not being met, then you meet the need, you’ve told the cat that is the way to get what it wants.

Make sense?

If your cat is in the habit of crying for attention… here’s what to do.

Put it on cue. Seriously, encourage your cat to cry and click with a training clicker and reward. Put it on cue and then never cue it except for every once in a while so the cat knows it’s still a cued behavior. It will be a bummer during the “begging phase” of training where the animal does the behavior it is learning over and over again to get the treat, but after that phase and after it’s REALLY on cue, you will be good to go with your quiet cat!