Our clicker training adventure!

[burretje]

Today we have taken the first steps in our clicker training adventure. I've been training my cats before and learned them to sit by holding a treat above their head and moving it towards their tail a little as they look at it. Noortje can now sit when I say "sit". Even if she does not know I have a treat for her. The others (Mya, Zeya and Lara) only sit when they know I have treats but won't give it to them right away. I can tell that Noortje really loves the training. She purrs all along when we practice. 

So I decided to take it one step further and got myself a target stick with an integrated clicker and a Karen Pryor book to get me started. She advices to keep track of how the training goes. This makes it easier to notice progress. So that's what this topic is for. I plan to write about how things go. 

So today was their first experience with the clicker. I first took Mya upstarts and showed her I had treats. She started whining right away 

. She got the hang of it quite quickly and would follow me around and jump on things to get to the target stick. Karen Pryer says cats normally will do about five clicks or so before they loose interest. Well, not Mya... She did about twenty and still wanted more! 

Zeya was next. She understood quite quickly as well. The little rascall started to cut corners right away though. She'd reach for the target stick, but before she touched it, she'd already turn her head towards my hand to collect the treat.  

. She didn't even wait for the click. 

Noortje had a little more trouble understanding what I wanted her to do. I had to make sure the target stick was right in front of her, otherwise she did not know what to do to get the desired treat. She even got a little frustrated. Poor thing! 

Lara is a natural. She understood at the first try! She followed me al around the house as well. 

So I guess we're off to a good start!  

 

[callista]

The cats sound like they are having a lot of fun!

Say--have you ever tried to teach them how to do something by imitating each other? I was wondering, because a friend of mine recently told me that her cat learned to meow and paw at a door to get it opened when she demonstrated the behavior for the cat, and the cat copied. I wonder if your cats would learn tricks from each other? Maybe you could teach one cat something, and then have that cat demonstrate it to the others, and see if they copied her.

 

[burretje]

I've never deliberately tried to make them teach each other. They do learn each other things though. Noortje taught Lara to catch flies for example. She uses the exact same technique to catch them. The strange thing is that it does not always work that way. Lara never understood how to use the cat flap, even though she saw the others use it. I ended up teaching her. Now the does it the way I taught her.

I also taught Noortje how to use a treat ball. The others taught themselves, but Noortje never learned from their example. So I taught her how to use it. I pushed the ball using her paw. Now she is the only one who uses her paw to toss the ball around. The others use their nose. 

 

[burretje]

We practiced again today. They had eaten not long before, so they weren't as persistent as last time. 

I taught Lara to sit using the target stick. She seems to be the best student so far.

Zeya is too hurried to get a treat. She doesn't pay attention to anything else but the treats. I guess I need to find a less attractive reward to be able to train her properly. 

Noortje and Mya did ok. They were not as interested as last time. I guess they were not hungry enough!