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Does anyone here have thoughts they would be willing to share about clicker training? I always thought it seemed like a hassle to have to have extra tools for training (esp. with my dogs) but one of our new cats seems like she might respond well. I wonder if animals like it or if it seems demeaning. I suspect it depends on the specific animal. I am not very good at communicating with my own animals, yet. So I have to go with research and my own gut instinct. I am interested in doing this to bring us closer, have a shared activity, and for mental stimulation (for both of us! Haha!). Also, cats doing tricks seems like fun for all.
Thoughts?
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That’s a great question, Dakota!
I have a fair bit of experience with clicker training. I taught my horse to fetch using the technique, for instance. 😉
This would be a good question for our next Live Q&A Coaching Call on April 13th.
AND, anyone else like to comment or share your experience with clicker training, especially with cats?
BIG hugs,
Val-
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We had a blast doing it! My horse Taylor LOVED the clicker games. He would follow me around all day wanting to play ignoring his buddies and 10 acre pasture playground. I started with fetch because my ultimate goal was to ask him to pick certain things up and hand them to me in the saddle. I tended to be pretty clumsy and often dropped things when I was riding. He was 16.2 hands so it was a big deal for little short me to have to dismount, pick it up, and remount at any given time. How much easier if I could just say Taylor, please pick that up and hand it to me! I also wanted him to help me rearrange our riding pattern cones in our practice games. The idea was that he would pick up an orange cone, carry it where I wanted it, then drop it in place. It was a great deal of fun. I always say that good training is fun for you and fun for them. If it’s not, then you’re doing something wrong.
Love,
Val -
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I absolutely adore clicker training. As do my dogs. If you watched any of their tricks or our training sessions, it would be obvious that they definitely don’t find it demeaning. Training tricks is their favorite part of the day. Not sure if it will work, but here is Dexter putting away his toys – https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/8jK4WABwQqyOEbOHu2VWnQ.7SClzgyDOzaSKfO-iyI_ki
But that said, I’ll admit that seeing as the dogs can understand us, I have long wondered about doing step by step training w/ the clicker (or any other method) when in theory you should be able to send them a picture of what you want and just ask them to do it. If the video does indeed come up, feel free to ask Dexter what he thinks about it. I’ve seen guinea pigs and even rats trained to do tricks w/ a clicker, so I’m certain cats could learn tricks that way. If they wanted to! That may be the big if. (Really good treats help!) I love to watch them think!It’s kind of like a puzzle game. The more they do it, the faster they figure it out. It is definitely outstanding mental stimulation, for animal and human alike! Give it a go!
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Hi Dakota. I love the clicker training.I have trained various dogs and quite a number of cats (before I had so many that it became difficult to train single ones, as it does definitely not work to train 30 or 40 cats together at the same time). At present I live with 32 cats and 2 dogs. There is no space and time left to separate single ones for training. My first cats had regular training. Especially Tiger responded very well, because he was very food driven. But they were all trainable. For example I had them all sit on their designated places while I was preparing their food. That was great for everybody. They could see what I was doing and I would not get tripped or disturbed in any other way. Also Kitty used to love her training sessions. Whenever I asked her, if she comes to school, she stood at the door to get into my bedroom for training. With her I used additional to the clicker also a target, which worked like magic.
As for your concern having to carry around additional tools, you can make a specific sound with your tongue instead of the clicker, as long as the animal is conditioned to understand this sound as replacement for the clicker. I did that with Pascal, my Beagle mix, when he was new here and I had to make sure he got used to have cats as friends and not as prey and food, as he did , when he was still living in ste street. It was simply not feasible to carry the clicker while I was cleaning the litter boxes in the kennel.
In short, yes, I think clicker training is absolutely wonderful and there is no animal you can’t train. You simply have to take their species specific characteristics into account.
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