r/CatTraining

I need help. I am seriously on the verge of rehoming my cat. I have had so many animals in my life and have never had problems like this.
I have multiple cats, three siblings and their mom. We took in pregnant mom and fell in love with all of them.
The littlest one, Zelda, is so destructive. She has been since the beginning but I just thought I would put up with it since I loved her so much. But it has gotten worse and worse, she destroyed two breast pump chargers in a month, chews laces and the rubber on anything she can find. I have lost so much stuff to this cat. Wires, cloth, furniture corners, sandals and boot pulls, controllers and headphones, toys.
Yesterday she got into my son’s room and chewed off the rubber handle on a brand new pair of boots I had just gotten him for his birthday and I just snapped. I feel like I hate this cat, I have been suppressing it and sticking up for her to my husband for three years and I am just so tired. I have hid the evidence of her destruction on multiple occasions because he is understandably sick of it and would gladly get rid of her.

We keep all the bedroom and bathroom doors shut. Anything valuable is tucked away. I can’t relax at all. I’m always on the lookout. The second I think I have everything on lockdown she gets creative and finds something new to destroy or sneaks into a bedroom.
The cats have their own room, lots of toys, huge cat tree, lots of scratching posts, and a screened in front porch with cat trees we leave open to them in the summer with bird feeders to watch. We sit in the couch and pet them allllll the time.
They go up in their room at night or when we are gone but I am a stay at home mom so they are out all day most days.
All the cats get along. No litter box issues.

TLDR: my cat chews everything she can find and I’m going to have a mental breakdown.

A lot of people think cats are completely untrainable and will just ignore you forever. That is actually a myth. Training your cat is not only going to turn them into a star when people visit your house, but it also takes your bond and communication to a level you did not think was possible.

I started clicker training my cat a few months ago and it has been a total game changer. Basically, clicker training is just operant conditioning. It leverages the fact that behaviors that get rewarded are more likely to get repeated. The clicker is just a tool to mark the exact microsecond your cat does the behavior you want so they know exactly why they are getting a treat.

To start, you just need a cheap physical clicker, some high value treats like freeze dried chicken, and your cat. Before you do anything fancy, I highly encourage you to teach them come and finger targeting first so they learn to follow your hand gestures.

Once they know those basics, here is how you teach them 5 simple but cool tricks: sit, down, stay, sit pretty, and spin.

First is sit. It is super useful when you want to put their harness on or keep them still outdoors. Put a treat in your right hand and hold the clicker in your left. Hold the treat between your thumb and middle finger with your index finger pointing up. Hover the treat over your cats head. Eventually, they will sit down to try to reach the treat with their mouth. As soon as their butt touches the floor, click and give them the treat. Repeat this 5 to 10 times. Once they get it, do the same hand gesture without the treat in your hand. If they sit, click and reward from your other hand. Once they react quickly to the gesture on its own, add the verbal command sit right before the gesture. Over a few days, they will start doing it to the verbal command alone.

Second is down. This is the first step towards other tricks like rollover or playing dead. Your cat needs to master sit first. Start with them in a sit. Hide a treat under your fingers and place your hand flat on the floor. Drag your hand along the floor so they try to reach it. When their belly touches the floor, click and reward. Once they react instantly to the gesture, remove the treat from under your fingers and just do the flat hand gesture.

Third is stay. This helps so much when you want to serve food without them climbing all over you or if you want to take pictures of them. Start with your cat sitting. Say stay, and immediately click and reward. The goal here is literally rewarding them for doing nothing. Next, say stay and take one step back. If they do not move, click and reward. If they do move, put them back in the starting spot and try again. Slowly increase how far you walk back and how long you make them wait before you click.

Fourth is sit pretty. This is the cute trick where they stand up on their hind legs. I highly recommend trimming your cats nails first so they do not accidentally scratch you if they try to grab your hand. From a sit, put a treat between your ring finger and middle finger. Hover your hand over their head just out of reach. As soon as their front legs leave the floor, click and reward. Once they get the behavior, remove the treat from between your fingers and do the hand gesture on its own.

Fifth is spin. Hold a treat in your right hand and lead them in a full circle. Click and reward when they face you at the end. Once they master it, put the treat in your left hand. Do the circle with your empty right hand, then feed them from your left hand at the end of the spin. Slowly make the hand circle smaller until it is just a quick finger swirl gesture.

Keep your training sessions really short, like 2 to 5 minutes at a time, because cats lose focus fast.

For the toolkit and troubleshooting: For treats, freeze dried chicken or minnows work best. You can get a basic physical clicker on amazon for like three dollars. Also, if you get stuck or struggle to figure out why your cat is frustrated, gets stubborn, or walks away, check out an app called meowlyzer. It has an ai cat translator where you record a short video of your cat and it analyzes their body language and meows to tell you what they are feeling. It also has a petcare ai chat that acts like a 24/7 cat behaviorist. It really helped me figure out what I was doing wrong when my cat kept standing up instead of sitting pretty.

Let me know if you have any questions or get stuck on any of these!

We have two 10 month olds. One is incredibly food motivated and will attack me and my partners feet until we wake, purring while he does it. I would normally not feed them until they’re breakfast time regardless (6:30), but it’s been getting really fucking bad. They’re cuts that bleed, so my partner, understandable, has been feeding them to appease them.

Today, 3:50 AM. Yesterday when she feed them at 4:30, he still attacked my feet at normal breakfast time as well.

I’ve tried wearing 2 pairs of socks. Im thinking of getting a nail trimmer but not sure that it will truly make a difference, a scratch is a scratch. We’ve tried removing him from our bedroom but he just scratches and cries at the door.

I know the best option is to just not feed them until we are both up and out of bed for a while so they don’t associate waking up with eating. I’m just worried that’s it will be a long battle. Has anyone had to deal with something similar?

As most cats do, mine gets the zoomies but sometimes he can get a little destructive or will run across me while I am sleeping. He mostly does this when I haven't played with him enough (I work 12 hr shifts, it gets difficult sometimes) and I always make sure to play with him more when hes been doing this, but I've found one of the most helpful things I can do in the moment is grab him and put him in a position that doesnt squeeze him but that he also cant escape from and just pet him until the zoomies energy wears off. He usually tries to make and escape a few times at first but accepts it and starts purring when he chills out and then I let him go. I just want to make sure that I'm not doing anything wrong by kinda trapping him like that because I know sometimes when cats get anxious they purr to comfort themselves.

Hello!

I’m still introducing my 3 year old female and 3 month old female cats to each other.

Today, the kitten came over to the resident cat while she was napping next to me.

RC cat was the grooming the new cat, and then proceeded to bite her, followed by a hiss and growl.

I’ve had the new cat for a month now. We’ve done site and scent swapping (no reaction) and supervised face to face sessions.

She’s never groomed her before today.

Our 2 year old British Short Hair rescue has been living with us in a two bedroom apartment for almost a full year.

Before adopting her, she spent 100% of her time outdoors as a stray. She has adapted well to indoor life. We play with her often, she has a small dog brother who she loves (the feeling is mutual), and she is a sweet lap cat who loves to explore and parkour off of our furniture. She spends A LOT of the day in her window perch “hunting birds” that come to the window. She also likes hunting animals on the TV.

For the last week or so, when I return from walking the dog, our cat will make a break for the door to explore the hallway of our apartment. Nothing in our routine is different or new. We got a harness and leash and are gently introducing this to her so she can explore safely. I am hoping this helps, but I also want to know what those of you in an apartment do to help satisfy your cat’s desire to explore outside safely.

I can’t build a “catio” and can’t make any major changes to our space since we rent. I don’t want her to feel cooped up in the apartment all day, but also want to keep her safe since this is a shared living space and there are people with untrained dogs around.

Any advice? And why is she having this urge to run out the door after a year of being here?

TLDR: After a year of living indoors, our previously outdoor cat suddenly wants to go outside again. Why now, and what positive changes besides a harness and leash can we make in a rental space to help satisfy her desire to go outside?

I recently got a new cat (1F) to be a companion to my 3M. She’s still very kitteny and high energy. She’s also very food focused, unlike my older cat, who has never had the slightest food motivation.
The 1M insists on eating out of the OC’s bowl, even though I’m feeding them the same food. She tends to chomp down on the wet food first, while he grazes on both wet and dry food. I keep an eye on her but I’m wondering why or why not it’s necessary at all, that they eat from separate bowls, when they seem to be okay eating from each other’s bowls.
I’d appreciate any advice!

I have an older cat and a younger cat. The older cat has always kind of pinned the younger cat down and nipped at her. Never seriously drawn blood or done damage as far as I can tell. Now she's obviously not that scared cause she comes at him, smacks him, and nips at him. But then he comes over the top rope, chases her down, pins her, and bites at her, seemingly hard enough to cause distress (she screams and yells), but not hard enough to cause harm. The older cat makes no noise, just silently beats her ass. They usually break it up and separate, and then they're fine for a day or three. Should I worry? I introduced them slowly over a year or so, and the fights don't seem to be escalating. Actually decreasing in frequency. They are about the same weight but one is male (old) one is female (young). Both are fixed, have all shots, and no health issues.

I have an 11 week old kitten, he's a sweetie most the time but he's decided it's his personal mission to bite and lick my nipples. Yes I do wear a shirt, yes I wear a bra with a pad unless going to bed, I've yelled "OW", I've redirected him with toys. I'm at a loss with him, I love him more than anything, but I can only get so many scratches on my nipples before I cry. Please if anyone's trained away this behavior or has any advice let me know 😭😭

So me and my husband found a kitten 8 months old on Sunday under our car so we brought it inside, noticed he had a bad eye, and was congested and had mucus. So we decided to help him get better then take him into a shelter. We have a dog and another cat already. So we got a box put litter in it and put him into the bathroom until he understood the assignment. Fast forward it’s been 4 days and the kitten does not go into his litter box. Anywhere but his litter box. I’ve even picked up his poops and threw them in the litter box so he knows that’s where he needs to go. I really just don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t want him roaming around and just go anywhere, but he doesn’t seem to try. I need help please!! 😩😩😩😩😩

Hi guys so I have two lovely cute cats both age 3 now. One of my cats has formed a new habit of flipping and moving his water bowl and spilling all of it (I have a silicone mat down I’m not really worried about the mess). I tried solving this issue by using their water foundation instead because I thought it would be harder to flip it however he has found a way to still flip the whole thing and I don’t really know what to do because if I’m asleep or outside I’m not able to refill It and my other cat drinks a lot of water throughout the day and night so that means he doesn’t have water when its been all spilled. Pls I would appreciate any kind of advice. Thank you xx