Tag: cats

Can Cats be Trained?

August 1, 2016

Apparently, it is possible to train a cat, according an article in The Guardian. And of course, I know it’s possible, having seen enough movies and tv shows with cats who do what they’re supposed to (or is it all ad libbed, once the cat is in front of the camera?). So I read the article. And spotted several problems, at least in the application of the techniques to our two moggies.

Use food – especially pure protein – as a reward, the article suggests. Problem #1. Our two cats haven’t the slightest interest in pure protein. I can leave salmon thawing on the kitchen counter, and they won’t even glance at it. Cooked chicken? Noses turned. How do humans eat that? you can almost hear them thinking. We have seen Cat # 1 – Pye – eat perhaps half-a-dozen times in the six years she’s lived with us. And then it’s one or two pieces of kibble, and she’s done. Obviously she eats….she’s healthy and the proper weight – but she does it in secret. Cat with an eating disorder.

Except for….wait for it….raw vegetables. Pye loves raw vegetables. Lettuce. Red pepper. Green beans. Zucchini. It’s not for the water content – they have a good supply of fresh water – but she’s loved these things since kittenhood. The last ‘living lettuce’ I bought gave me lettuce for one sandwich and then the cat ate the rest of it. Should I carry around chopped up veggies in my pocket as a training reward for Pye?

Cat # 2, Pyxel, doesn’t have an eating disorder…she’ll eat publicly, at least, but again she has no interest in anything except Purina Cat Chow and Greenies cat treats. So she’s a bit more promising. So what could I train her to do? Number one on the wish list would be to let us clip her claws. The last time anyone tried this, it was at the vets, and Pyxel was wearing a Hannibel-Lecter like leather and wire bite mask, and had two adults holding her, not including the vet. She bit the vet anyway. I’m not convinced all the paw-handling in the world, even with Greenies as a reward, is going to change this behaviour.

The second reward the article suggest is stroking. Now this is Pye’s idea of heaven. And to be fair, it is what we basically used to get her to learn to stay on a box on the kitchen counter, instead of wandering all over it while we were preparing meals. Until BD took it one step further, and started to pick her up instead (truly heaven, to be picked up by BD, and get to lick his beard)…and then the cat learned that all she had to do was fuss around in the kitchen, and bingo, she was picked up by her beloved. Cat trained human, in this case.

Pyxel, on the other hand, hates to be picked up. Or fussed, really, unless it’s her idea. I’ve trained her nicely to come to sit with me on the couch – all I have to do is pick up a book or my iPAD. No, wait…that isn’t what I wanted her to do, it’s what she wants to do. I want to read. She wants my attention to be on her, not that thing I’m looking at. Another training failure, from the human’s viewpoint, at least.

She does respond to aural cues. She gets her Greenies treat (for her teeth and gums) every night when we sit down to watch tv before bed. Usually this is about 8 p.m., but the other night we were watching a game a bit earlier in the evening. All the cues were there for her: we were sitting in the living room, the tv was on – so it had to be treat time. I agreed with her logic, and gave her her treat. Later on, after the game, we watched a recorded Jeopardy, the usual first show of the evening – and as soon as the Jeopardy theme song came on, there Pyxel was, at my side, asking for her treat. Jeopardy theme music = treat. She got two more pieces.

But really, they’re good cats. They don’t walk on keyboards too often, and in the new house the kitchen counters – actually the kitchen entirely – isn’t a place they gravitate to. The wall-to-wall carpet is taking a beating: it’s a lot more rewarding than the scratching post, at least for Pyxel, but they leave the walls alone. And the greenhouse window in BD’s study was just meant for cats. So I don’t think I’m really going to try out the techniques from the article. Maybe down the road, with the next kitten.

The Moving Diaries: What the Cats Think

May 14, 2016

Today we culled and boxed the books from the library, a herculean task that took hours and has left us with boxes to be moved, boxes to be donated, boxes to be recycled, and empty shelves. And one very unsure cat. (Mind you, we have two cats, but more about that in a bit.)

She is sitting in boxes, sitting in empty shelves, watching every move, stalking around investigating everything. The last time we boxed up all these books, we were renovating…and then half-way through that summer I had major surgery, and returned to be in bed much of each day for a few weeks – something she thought was the ideal way to spend time. Is she remembering that? Or is she remembering being cloistered in the attic for most of each day while we wall-papered and panelled and painted? Whatever is going on in her little black and white head, she knows something is different, and she’s not sure she likes it.

Pye, a.k.a. Fur-for-Brains, on the other hand, is oblivious. Completely and utterly oblivious. As long as her favourite chair is there, and she can sit on BD’s lap while he watches football (soccer), or on my ankles when I sit on the couch in the evening, she’s happy.

As I write Pyxel is sitting in the lid of one box with her head inside another, wondering whatever cat brains wonder. I know she’s upset, because she’s given up on almost all her routines, and this is a cat who lived by routines. She’ll be the one at the new house who will hide, and come out tentatively, creeping out to peek around corners and plaintively meow at us. Pye will be unhappy, but her need for human companionship and contact will outweigh the scariness of a new place. At least, that’s my guess. I’ll let you know in mid June.

Meanwhile, we’ll keep filling boxes, and living in almost-controlled chaos. The new house has had the electrician in to move services (are all electricians garrulous? I was there with him over six hours and I swear I heard his entire life story and much more…a nice man, but could he talk!), and the broken baseboards and the horribly-installed quarter-round replaced by the renovation crew. The painter starts Monday. We move on June 8th. I haven’t started screaming, yet. Bets on when I start?

My Aspie Cat

December 24, 2015

Kathy Hooperman wrote a book a few years ago entitled All Cats have Asperger’s Syndrome. Now, I’ve lived with a lot of cats over my life, and for the last thirty-seven years I’ve lived with a man with Asperger’s. I’ve never agreed with Hooperman’s (playful) take on cats…until our newest one.

Pyxel came to us as an eight-week old kitten getting on for five years ago. I picked her up at our local humane society; she was the last of a litter that had come in for adoption. I was looking for an independent, well-adjusted, playful female kitten, a companion for our year-old Pye. (Pye was unplanned, a gift from someone who left her, twelve weeks old, on our doorstep in the middle of the night.) Pye came into a household with two elderly cats, and she wasn’t getting the exercise she needed, so we figured she needed a kitten.

Pyxel – she’s a tuxedo cat – settled in quite well. (Pye was terrified of her for the first month, but got over it eventually.) I don’t remember when I first began to notice the ‘Aspie’ qualities. But I have never been owned by a cat with such a need for routine. Not (mostly) around food: they have food on demand and eat when they want, and don’t even bother to tell us if the bowl is empty. And during the day – when we used not to be home – there are no routines. But between 7 p.m and 7 a.m., every single day, this is what Pyxel requires:

7:30 p.m. Humans have finished dinner. Time for treat, yes? (Dental treat, but she doesn’t know that.) Paws on table. Paws on couch. Up on footstool, stare at female human. Nothing happens until male human picks up tv remote. Now it’s really time! Treat given, eaten. Go away to sleep on the stairs.

10 p.m. Human bedtime. Run up the stairs. Jump into the electric-blanket box female human left on the bedroom floor last year (which is sooooo neat because it has a side opening and top opening). Look up expectantly. Female human scratches head. More looking up expectantly. Male human comes in and scratches head, leaves again. Jump out of the electric-blanket box and drink some water.

11 p.m. Humans are asleep. Bring a toy up the stairs and announce the gift loudly, until female human talks to you.

6-7 a.m. Humans are still asleep. Meow. No effect? Jump on windowsill and play with the blind cord so it rattles. Still no effect? Jump on dresser and knock something off.

7 a.m. Female human gets up. Run part-way down the stairs and look up expectantly. Female human throws the toy brought in the night down the stairs. Pounce on it. Wait for the female human to get downstairs. Run to the step between the living room and the sunroom. Jump to catch the toy as its thrown into the sunroom.

OK, that’s done with, now I can do what I want (play with toys, move rugs around, watch birds, chase Pye, and sleep a bit) until 7 p.m.

Every day. If we go away – and we’ve left them for over a month (with a cat-sitter daily, of course) – the routines begin immediately we’re home. I have never known a cat like this. As well, she hates being picked up, doesn’t purr, sleeps less than any cat we’ve ever had, and has just recently begun to initiate sitting on laps – but generally only if we have either an iPad or a book.

As I said, I’ve been partnered with an Aspie for thirty-seven years. I swear the diagnosis fits this cat: she’s got almost as many daily routines as he does. (Pye, on the other hand, is just a typical cat, except for her pathological need to be picked up, but she was abandoned…so maybe that makes sense. Our other abandoned cat had the same need.)

Does anyone else have a cat with this need for routine?