Because I choose to let Ninja outside on occasion, I have to put a collar on her so that people don’t assume she’s a stray and take her to the nearest pound.

I had really bad experiences with cat collars growing up, and my mom always told me not to use them because the cat could get caught on something and choke to death. I once put a gold necklace wrapped twice around my cat Tommy’s neck. He was found on our roof trying to get it off, and it was in his mouth holding his head back severely. My dad climbed up and rescued him and I felt awful. I was just trying to decorate him at the time… and let people know he was taken… instead I created a really serious problem that could have ended much worse.

Now I use things actually meant to be around a cat’s neck (I was a kid, I didn’t know any better and learned the hard way) and the ones I’ve found that work best are the kitty safe collars that are actually recommended to use by vets. Now, if your cat is inside all the time it’s not really necessary to collar him/her unless they were to dart out and not come back on command.

Accidents happen. More often then we like them to.

Here is a link to some kitty safe collars I found by doing a quick search.

Why these collars are safe to use:

1. If caught, they’re designed to snap apart and fall right off your cat’s neck.
2. You can customize them to state your pet’s info on the outside so it’s nice and legible for people to read. For example, if your cat is diabetic or has special needs.
3. They come in bright, and very reflective colors so they can be seen in the dark by cars and people at night.

I had to share this video, it’s pretty funny. A great reason to teach your cat to “speak” on cue!

3-0.

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.

I went back and forth on trying to decide whether or not to take my cat, Ninja, along with me on my month long road trip from Florida to Utah to California, to Texas and back to Florida. It was going to be a long month and my options were to take her along or to leave her at home alone with the neighbors checking in on her… but I knew she would be bored out of her mind!

So I decided to bring her along with, as much as she LOVES hotels and isn’t too bad about getting car sick. I actually do not give her any drugs or anything when she travels; she is very used to it and does great. She has a certain meow for needing to go to the bathroom, and a certain one for feeling sick. She also has one she does for when she’s bluffing, hehe…

I keep her litter box in the back of the truck behind the passenger seat and she eats the night before we leave but not again until we get to our location the next night. This is by her choice, not me “starving” her… she knows she will puke it up if she eats in the morning or during the trip so she waits until we stop for the night.

She loved the hotels like usual, and we only stayed at pet friendly places like Best Western and La Quinta.

For the first time I took her out with us on drives into the desert and I let her roam around on isolate roads where I knew cars wouldn’t be coming fast. I walked along with her and she LOVED rolling in the hot desert sand. She loved it so much that on this trip when she made her car sick cry, I would take her out and she would roll in the dirt and then jump back into the truck as if to tell me that the layer of dirt would keep her from getting car sick – and somehow, it did!

She had such a good time on this trip and in the desert that I am completely confident that she will be a great traveler and companion on the road with my starting this December when I tour around the east coast for a year. I’m excited to have her along. I’m sure there will be many “Cat Travel Tips” from me in the future.

These two are the very best of friends, and I had a few giggles while watching this. Enjoy and thanks to Kathee for sharing this with me!

For those of you that haven’t already seen this amazing story of the crow and kitten, here is a clip to give you a look at what animals are capable of… even when it comes to natural predator and prey. Thank you, Sandy, for reminding me of this story with your kind comments!