An impassioned argument for training
Why training isn’t taming
I’m an upper-case Cat Person, but I’m also a lower-case dog person. Until 2 months ago, I have never not had a dog. I love dogs so much. I think over my life I’ve cumulatively spent more time with dogs than cats. Having lived in both worlds, I have observed two widely accepted ideas:
Dogs must be trained, and to not train them is irresponsible.
Cats are incapable of being trained, and attempting to train them is an exercise in futility.
The truth is that cats are just as trainable as dogs are. They require different strategies, but they can learn a ton. So why do people care so much about training dogs, but believe cats can’t be trained at all?
The most obvious, understandable reason why dog training is so important is that dogs are more public facing than cats. They are brought out into the world, in spaces with strange objects and people and noises, and they are expected to be able to handle those strange things without reacting or overstepping boundaries. People bring their dogs to public places, and those dogs are expected to follow social conventions and respond to commands, because when they don’t, it’s disruptive at best and dangerous at worst. So training becomes really important - it’s a way to communicate expectations and build skills with a dog to help them be safe.
People don’t usually bring their cats to functions, or on walks. Indoor cats live in homes, where they usually aren’t going to bother strangers. And most cats aren’t really predisposed to bother people at all - they’ve got other, more important business to attend to, like stalking bugs and finding cool hiding spots. Cats are also less likely to cause grievous injury than dogs are. Don’t get me wrong, cat bites are extremely dangerous and a cat can do some real damage, but a cat is probably not going to be able to tear a kid’s face off. Why bother training a cat, when their behavior isn’t going to cause major injury? (Why bother training a chihuahua? Many people don’t.) It certainly feels a lot less pressing than training the mastiff you want to take to a brewery.
Some people also think of training as taming. The idea is, when you train an animal, you are subjugating them to your will, curbing their natural instincts and shaping their behavior to fit your needs and desires. With apologies to many Dog People, I have to blame certain, extremely creepy pockets of Dog Culture for this. There are also many dog owners who fantasize about having a dog who will attack on command, or who will obey unconditionally.1 If you are like me, you think that’s super weird, and maybe that concept puts you off training all together. And if you don’t think that’s weird, training a cat might seem like a waste of time, because “dominating” or getting unconditional obedience from a cat is a total non-starter.
But training is not taming. Training is communicating.
When we start to train a skill, we very quickly run up against the communication chasm between ourselves and an animal. None of the tactics we might use with another human translate. If you’re training a cat to sit, you can’t explain the importance of sitting, and why they should do it when requested. You can’t theatrically sit in a chair, demonstrating what you want them to do, and then indicate that they should mimic it. You can’t push them into a sitting position, say “sit”, and expect that to click. We are faced with a few questions:
How can we show the cat that we want them to sit? (Or set them up to figure out how to do it on their own? Or capture that behavior organically?)
How can we indicate to them that they’ve done it correctly? (Spoiler: saying “good job” isn’t going to work.)
What’s in it for them? Why should they sit just because you asked them to?
Engaging with these questions is an exercise in getting into the mind of an animal. To figure out the answers, we are forced to drop our projections and our assumptions of how our cats feel and really work through how they process the world. We will get a very concrete answer from the cat to tell us if we’ve successfully figured them out: they’ll either do the behavior, or they won’t. This is one of few contexts where we are actively asking our cats for their feedback. This is not taming - it’s listening. It’s also collaborative. Depending on the cat’s responses, we have to adjust our strategy. They’re learning a skill, and we’re learning how to teach it. How many other things do you get to do with your cat that you both are equally challenged by?
Bill and I also do Sudoku, but we’re built different
And from a cat’s perspective - training is fun! Do you like puzzles? So do cats. Training, at its best, is a fun puzzle to solve. How do I get the treat? Do I paw your leg? Do I sniff your hand? Do I sit? I sit! Yum! I’m gonna do it again! But training is also something deeper - it’s an interaction that they can understand and control. If you find cats confusing, guess what! They probably find you confusing too. You are enormous and fleshy and you’re always staring at brightly lit rectangles and you make SO many noises. What do those noises even mean?? Sometimes you move all the furniture and change the entire shape of their world, sometimes you leave for the whole day and they are alone, and they can’t control any of that.
But when you’re training, they can figure out the answers. You become scrutable. They learn what to expect. Cats have so little agency over their world, but they have total agency over a training session. Agency is precious.
How can you apply this to your own cats?
I run up against resistance to training from cat owners all the time. I think this is because people don’t ever expect to have to train their cats - many of us choose cats as pets because they’re supposed to be low maintenance, and we think of training as being a lot of work. It doesn’t have to be - the ideal length of a training session is 2-3 minutes, and you don’t have to do it every day.
I also think people are resistant because they have no idea how to begin. This is fair, it’s objectively very intimidating on paper.
So let’s break it down into small steps. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find a reinforcer. In other words, we’re finding an answer to one of the questions I posed above - what’s in it for the cat? How are you going to pay them for all their fantastic work?
A reinforcer is anything that encourages or incentivizes an animal to repeat a behavior. This can be a treat, or it can be play, or it can be physical touch. It can also be leaving an animal alone, or removing something that they find threatening or annoying. (That - removing an unpleasant thing - is negative reinforcement.) For training, we’re going to use positive reinforcement - we’re going to add (positive) something that the cat likes (reinforcer).
So your first step, before you start training, is identifying what your cat will work for. Some reinforcers are more powerful than others. For example, if I ask you to do a sink full of dishes in exchange for a dollar, you might say no thanks. But if I ask you to do those dishes for a hundred dollars, you might be a lot more enthusiastic. Both are reinforcers, but a hundred dollars is a far stronger reinforcer than one dollar.
The most common reinforcers for training are - you guessed it - treats. The treats I’ve found to be most successful are:
Party Mix, Temptations, or Meow Mix - the cheap stuff (it’s like candy)
Boiled or baked chicken (unseasoned of course)
Canned fish (tuna, sardines, etc. - only packed in water, no oil)
Churu or another kind of squeeze-up
Chicken baby food (just get a kind without any extra flavors or seasoning - Beech-Nut is a great brand)
Regular kibble (can work well for cats who otherwise only get wet food)
Freeze dried meats
Really though, you could use anything. As long as it won’t cause gastric distress or other health issues, you’re good! My first choice for most behaviors is something that can be broken into pieces and dropped or tossed, rather than a squeeze-up - it’s far more convenient, and you’ll see why when you start training a skill for the first time. But if all your cat will work for is pureed meat goo, then we can make it work.
I sometimes get pushback around treats as reinforcers - here are the most common things I hear:
“My cat doesn’t care about treats”: My first question when that comes up is - are you free feeding? If the cat is eating 24/7, it’s not a surprise that they’re not interested in treats. I usually suggest switching to mealtimes (for most cats, it’s a stress-reliever and generally healthier anyway).
Also, some cats are selective and it might take some work to find something they like. For example, my cat Frankie is very skeptical of new foods - she hates Churu & all squeeze-up treats, anything with fish, and she needs 3-4 exposures to new treats to be willing to do anything other than bat them around the floor. After trying ten million different options multiple times, we discovered that she likes Party Mix, and Wellness indoor recipe kibble. It took some trial and error, but once we found this, we were off and running! So finding a reinforcer might require some experimentation. (My other cat, Bill, will work for literally anything, so he got to eat all the treats that Frankie wouldn’t touch - lucky guy.)“My cat is on a prescription diet and can’t have treats”: Ask your vet about that chicken baby food, or about single-ingredient freeze dried meat! Those are often good options for cats with delicate tummies or other medical issues. You can also ask your vet if they have other suggestions, or you could retain part of your cat’s meals for training purposes and use it for a session before giving them their full meal (assuming it’s safe to do so given their medical condition).
“I’m not free feeding” / “The vet said no” / “There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING available to me Julia all your ideas suck”: What else does the cat like? And I mean REALLY like? It’s possible to turn a play session into a reinforcer, or to reinforce certain behaviors with petting. There may also be some secret third thing that your cat loves that I am not aware of. You can get creative! It just has to be appealing for the cat ($100 vs. $1) or else it won’t work.
So before you start training: you can do a little reinforcer buffet. Get a bunch of different treats, give them to your cat, and see what excites them. Are there any that they get especially amped about? Those are your high-value reinforcers, and they’ll be useful for training more challenging behaviors. Are there any that they completely ignore? Those are not reinforcers at all. Figure out what they’re into, and that will help you figure out what will keep them working when it’s time to train.
This post originally appeared on my Substack, Cat People. To subscribe, click here.
