Training your kitten/cat?

Hello all,

    I'm new here and my name is Nary. ( not sure if this is the right forum place for this question. or should i put it in the (care one). 

     My husband and I recently got a kitten (Ragdoll) 3weeks - Almost (4 weeks now) and his name is Rascal. He is 4 month old kitten. How long should i start training him? I want him to be able to sleep next to us on the bed. But instead he sleeps under the bed most of the time ;/. I mean i know that was the first place he went when we got him and ended up sleeping there( For safe and comfort). But we want to show him that we care and love him and not to be afraid to sleep with us.  Those two weeks was hard to get him near us and play with him, but so far the 3rd week he has been getting close to us, but he still has not been able to sleep next to us. ( Goes back right under the bed again, But for some reason when i get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom he wakes up and follows me. lol, and i can see it in his eyes that he just woke up, and after i'm done doing my business he follows me back to our bedroom and goes back to sleep under the bed.)

     is it bad that i want my kitten to sleep with us on our bed or next to me for that matter?  Another thing that kind of bugs me a bit, i dont know if it's normal, but when I'm in  bed  being on my phone or whatever and hes on the bed, I try to put him next to me, pet him and play with him. Then not even a minute, but a second he just goes to the other side of the bed, and i'm here thinking, " Oh does he not like me?"  When should i start training him to stay with us on the bed ? Or should i just let him sleep under the bed ? I hope he knows we care and love him. Every time he goes under there, it makes me think hes still afraid of us and what not. Even though he still comes to us and follows us around when we do things and play with him as well. I know it's only been three weeks ( almost 4 weeks now). But i guess it would take longer?  ( I over worry about these things ahaha. Wont hurt for a kitten to sleep next to me for one night. lol 

Any advice/suggestions would be nice . I'm new here so please go easy. And again sorry if i posted it on the wrong forum.

 Thank you.!! 

A couple of things:

-training can begin right now if you so wish. Though I do suggest first looking into training methods and coming up with a plan. Cats don't respond to the same training methods as dogs.

-I'm not the expert some others here are, but I believe that him following you at night is a good sign. He's sleeping in a protected area, but counting on you to watch over it.

-A bed can be a scary place for a kitten to sleep. It is open to attack from predators, and occupied by huge beings that can easily crush him by accident.

-I wouldn't focus too much on the bed for now. Instead, begin by getting him to associate you with safety and comfort to the point that he's always relaxed in your presence. Among the more effective training tools is a small amount of tasty stuff that the cat in question goes nuts for (little bits of tuna meat served this purpose for the old cat I grew up with). Simply give them a tiny amount whenever the cat is doing something you wish to encourage, such as laying quietly in your arms. You may wish to look into clicker training, which is a bit more involved, but quite effective.

-Does the kitten have a playmate of some kind? If not, you're likely to start having behavioral problems due to the kitten's high energy and drive to playhunt with everything in sight. Few humans have the energy to keep up (unless they're children themselves, but a child is likely to end up hurting a kitten)

Hi, and welcome to TCS

This is the perfect forum to have posted in, so don't worry! Even if you get iy wrong, all that would happen is that one of our lovely Mods would come and move it to the right place for you.

It sounds like Rascal is just a very shy boy and it'll take hime a little while to settle in and warm up to you both. There are a few things you can do to help him. First off, block of under the bed, and under/behind anywhere that he could hide from you. You need to encourage him to come out and up. Make sure he has plenty of things to 'own' and vantage points where he can get up and observe you from 'safety'. Under = fear and up = confidence. Just by forcing him to make the choice to look down on the world you will help build his confidence. Don't get too hung up on petting him, sleeping with him on the bed etc at the moment. Let him come to you...he will, I promise.

Interactive play is a wonderful way to build confidence - both in himself and in the territory. A nice bonus is that its a fantastic bonding tool too. Hand feeding is always a great confidence builder as well. The more he sees you as the source of great things, the quicker he'll get confident and learn to trust you.

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Thank all for welcoming me and helping me. He has many toys. We spoil our ragdoll lol. We have ordered a bed recently that looks like under my bed. It's a cat bed cave? I also notice he likes dark areas. When you had a kitten/cat did you train him with anything else? Also should we tire our kitten after having a long play time with him? Just this morning when I got up to use the bathroom he followed me again. As for the training. What kind of training tips should I start off with?. He does have a favorite treat he likes. But we just give it to him instead of training him. That's bad at my part. Should I have a set schedule of some sort for him?

Oh another thing. He is a one hyper playful kitten. He's way more playful at night and sometimes before we sleep then he is during the day.

We have a ragdoll, and sometimes I think about locking her OUT of my bedroom.  LOL.  I wanted a cat to sleep with, bu this kitty has so much energy, she doesn't sleep much.  What generally happens is I have restles leg syndrom and everytime my legs start twitching, she thinks they are geat fun to attack.  I am glad she wants to play wtih me, but I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is...

The other thing about our ragdoll is that she always brings her favorite toys to me in the middle of the night and wants to excange them for treats.  I was thinking at first that whoever had her must have been teaching her to fetch... but I have since discarded that thought. She just think the toy has value and she should be able to get something of value for it.   It worked at first, but I a on to her now!  Everynow and then she will come and throw herself into the crook of my arm and nap for a bit, but she always wakes me up when she does it.  She also throws herself blly upon my feet when I use the ladies room, any time of day or night.

Our other cat is deaf.  She will get on the corner of my bed to sleep, but she doesn't want to be touched.  Often, she waits until she thinks I am asleep to jump up to avoid being cuddled.

I don't know if your kitty is crate trained or not, but do want to interject that cats like sleeping enclosed places because it makes them feel safe.  This was especially pronounced in our deaf kitty... she can't hear danger, so she is more susceptible to it.  At first it was odd that she would  keep going in her crate, and we thought "poor thing, still thinks she's at the shelter"...  but its actually a good thing that she likes being in the crate!   I would, at this time, put her crate out and make a nice bed in it.  You can even play with her in and around it.  If she learns to be comfortable in her crate, it will make it much easier for you in the future when you need to take her to the vet, or if you travel with her because she will be abe to take her comfort spot with her... and its better than under bed.

Sorry for the misspell words , because i was on my phone at the time.  My Ragdoll has so much energy at night he runs around like crazy and goes on our bed and runs around it like crazy , but wont sleep with us. Ive always wanted a sleepy cat next to me , but i know that won't happen. The owner who had him i dont think he was crate trained from the other owner. But he does know where is cage is and even uses it just for fun. So when we travel with him, i know it wont' be a problem. We try to tire him out so he can lay with us, but hes so hyper and still wants to play when we are awake. When everything is shut off, lights and computer and when we are ready for bed, he goes back under the bed to sleep, because he knows when we are going to sleep. But we sleep super late, not early ahha.  Do you train your ragdoll by any chance? 

Not really with much luck... Tatiana is much better at training us.  We have been working on training her to walk on a harness and she does really good.  Helps her burn off some of that energy if I take her for a walk before going to bed.  She loves to climb trees!  She walks on a harness better than my other cats in that I can actually give a little tug on the harness and she will often (not always) go in the direction I want to go.

What all do you want to train your kitty to do?  I talked to a lady at Petsmart and she trained hers to high five, and to speak and to sit...

i wish i can teach him to walk like that and speak/ sit . aha. we are getting a bed for him soon, that looks like he could hide under my bed, I want to teach him his name kind of? and have defintly to teach him how to sit and maybe sleep same schedule as us. which i know that part would be hard. He knows what treats are but, the owner never gave him treats, so he has no idea what treats are accept for the ones we gave him , which is called *pounce* he loves those but he doesn't really know if that's treat, he thinks it's more of a desert after dinner lol. I hope your one cat that is deaf is doing okie, how do you treat him if he cant hear? but i guess the seeing part , he knows how to respond with? I want to also train him with much love and stuff. but he still afraid of us in a way lo. 

Clicker training is the best way to train cats to do tricks. The key is little and often, and find a treat he goes absolutely CRAZY for, and only feed it during training sessions.

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The deaf cat is 2 and was born deaf.  You don't really know it most of the time.  When we first brought her home, we had adjustments to make and avoid doing things like walking up behind her and just start petting her and stuff.  She would be intent on something out the window and we would scare her half to death.  When we first brought her home, she would randomly for no apparent reason start running widly through all the rooms, but it was just so she could see what was going on in them. I think she smelled remnamts of our old cat who just passed away a month before we got her, and she was trying to find her.  A hearing cat, or dog, you will see it laying there with its ears perked up, and it listens to the noises in the other rooms and only responds if the sounds sound like something they want a piece of.  Poor deaf Snowy had to get up and make her rounds all the time to try and figure out the routines of the house... but she knows them now and doesn't hardly run around like a maniac anymore.  She knows some signs like when I wiggle my fingers because I want to pet her, or if I point she knows it means up or down.  If I wave my finger it means no (like I ever tell my cats no...) she knows when she gets fed because we are on a schedule for that otherwise, between my daughter and myself if we were not on a schedule, we would feed them constantly!  Snowy is pretty good at predicting my actions and sometimes it seems like she does listen.  Even though she is deaf, we still talk to her, like c'mon Snow, lets go eat.  She knows she is going to get fed because its the first thing I do when I wake up and she is usally sitting on the end of my bed waiting for me.  Crazy cat.

I think teaching him his name should be pretty easy... just say it to him alot and he will begin to know who he is.  Doesn't mean he will come when you call it... but he might. Trying to get your cat to sleep on the same schedule as you, well, good luck.  They are called cat naps for a reason!  I find it is helpful to take Tati for a walk in the evenings and its seems to tire her out and she sleeps a little better, or least have a good hard play session in the living room, but she still likes to go hide behind the couch or who knows where when she wants to sleep. She is just under a year and we have only had her since spring - it  will be interesting to see if how she turns out once she is full grown.

I think if spend time hanging out with your fur-baby, sleeping with you will come in time.  I think cats just tend to resent being told when or where to do anything... if you make an issue of him sleeping on the bed, I think he willl make a bigger issue  of not sleeping there.  I haven't really tried to get my cats to sit, stay or high five... we like to do acrobatic tricks with the toys and stuff and make them jump up and down and stuff like that, but we considering it just playing and not really training.  I guess if I wanted to get into training, I would be more of a dog person.

Good luck on training your ragdoll though!  You will have to keep us posted and let us know how it goes!

aww i'm glad Snowy seems to doing fine and i guess training a ragdoll is like training a dog ,may as well get a dog? lol , but i'm more of a cat person then a dog person really, and ive been doing a lot of reading and researching that some people who have ragdoll specifically do train them, so i'd thought it would be fun. I think i realized, that he does like to sleep under the bed at night or any time during the day when it's his naptime, i guess i'll ahve to deal with it. still would be awesome to have a kitten sleep with you. I hear ragdolls can be a good lap cat? Does your ragdoll sit on your lap whenever youre sitting or doing something ? I guess for the training part, i will do it's name or maybe give him a treat once a day when he is doing something good. Not too long ago, he was very hyper and running around like crazy with his crazy toy he has. ahaha. I want to tire him out so he can get on a sleep schedule and sleep in our room or somewhere, but i guess that takes time. It sucks we sleep late and so does he cause everything is shut off that time. He does like to jump around with his string toys a lot , and i still don't know how he does not get tired from that, since hes doing it so much. and my kitten recently likes to sleep in a weird place during the day, but at night , maybe he is next to us , but under the bed , because he knows we are asleep. I should probably start feeding him in the morning. I do feed him once i wake up though and before i go to bed, 

 We feed Rascal wet food 3 times a day, and leave the dry food out and every few days we refile it for him.  I can't wait to send you updates, i use instagram to update my kitten if you want to follow that. ahah. I can't wait till he actually grows and see how he acts differently. Can ragdoll tell if we love him and care for him in some ways? he does love it when we pet him under his shin  and he purr's so much  , like he's about to fall asleep , but then gets up and does something else lol. Hopefully the training would enjoy him more then me enjoying training him. I get what you mean by training a cat , may as well get a dog, since dogs can be easier to train lol.

I read the article on clicker training that Columbine posted, and if you really want to have a trained cat, then I think you shoudl try this method.  I have never had a ragdoll before the one we have now, and I am not even certain if she is full ragdoll or what she is.  We "rescued" her from an individual who didnt want her anymore - okay as she said couldn't keep her, but I think meant couldn't handle her.  From what I have read ragdolls are kittens fro a long time.  As she gets older, she may be more lap kitty, but right now she is little miss independent.  Though she does come more now wanting attention than she used to I would NOT call her a lap cat.  The feral calico we are caring for comes closer to being a lap cat than Tati does!  That cat is funny because she likes to squeeze in real close to us, but if you make any move to pick her up, she freaks out.  She will even climb up and sit on my daughters shoulder... Just give it time.  she is still getting used to you.

If you do want to train your cat using food as a reward, I don't know about feeding wet three times a day - if his food desires are all satisified, he won't be as cooperative.  I will let others weigh in on that.  Food is a big motivator though.

Feeding 3 times a day shouldn't be an issue. If the training treat is what we term 'high value' or 'jackpot' and sessions are kept short (and I mean really short - 2 mins tops) then you should still have a more than willing pupil. Having said that, training straight after meal isn't likely to be very successful :lol3: Picking your cat's most active times is another key to success. Just remember that training takes time and don't expect it to be instant.

Interactive playtime really is the key to resetting sleep patterns. I did this with my (1 year old) girl, and she now enjoys regular lie ins - sometimes I even have to get HER up for breakfast :lol3:
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We try to feed him as much as we can, we want a healthy kitten . i think ill use the treats before we feed him so things could be easier that way. Cause youre right if we feed him dinner then treat hes not going to want to listen and thinks it's just a desert.  and i'm surprised you wouldn't call her lap cat. I guess that is insulting for some cats? I never knew that. I didnt mean it like that. i like it when a cat would be on my lap and know hes safe with me, he would at least let me hold him for 2 minutes, then afterwards would want to get down and roam around. I might try some new things and see how it goes. And post an update on here. I hope the bed we got him , would change, Because it's coming tomorrow, and it literately looks like  under my bed soft and dark.