Ever since we adopted Shinjuku, I've been wanting to do clicker training with her. It was more of a fun thing than a necessity. She's a very good senior cat who doesn't require behavior modification. She already knew all the important cat stuff, like how to use the litter box and snuggle.
The joke is that you can't train cats, but actually, you can, and most cat owners probably already have trained their cats. Training isn't about getting an animal to obey commands. It's about getting the animal to associate a certain behavior with a reward so they do that behavior, even if it's not something that would be inherently rewarding for them. In that sense, pretty much everyone who has a cat has trained it. If your cat hears the sound of the treat bag rustling, does it come running? There's nothing instinctual about responding to plastic rustling. You've trained your cat that the sound of the treat bag means there's likely a reward.
You might also notice that the cat always comes running and use the treat bag noise as a way of summoning the cat. For example, if you're trying to figure out where the heck the cat got to and want to make sure it's OK, you might lure it with the treat bag. And then of course you give a treat, reinforcing that coming when the treat bag rustles is a rewarding behavior. This is the part where the joke that the cat has trained the human might get made.
I think a better way to think of it is that the human and the cat have found a way to communicate. Communicating across species boundaries is hard! Humans and cats don't share language and even our body language is very different. We communicate with behavior that the other party finds rewarding. You, the human, find it rewarding when your cute cat comes to you. The cat finds rewarding to get a treat. The cat learns that the treat bag means a treat. And you, the human, learn that you can use the sound of the treat bag to get the cat to come.
I could give a lot more examples of things like when you teach the cat that when you've put a blanket on your lap, it's OK to jump up an knead, or that the cat teaches you how to pet it by stretching out and purring, and so on. But I'll just stick to the treat bag example because it's so simple and vivid.
A more precise signal #
What if you want your cat to do something a bit more complicated than come running when the treat bag rustles? You could give a treat when the cat does something good, but it may be hard for the cat to know exactly what it did that was good, and might even get the wrong idea. It takes a while to get the treat out and the cat might have moved on to something else. Cats get distracted pretty easily.
This is where the clicker comes in. The click noise instantly communicates to the cat that whatever it just did was the right thing and that a treat is coming. If you watch cat training videos from something like Cat School you might get the impression that clicker training is magical and cats will do amazing tricks right away. Well, maybe if the cat is the talented Jonas from Cat School and you're an animal behaviorist.
Of course, a cat doesn't inherently know that click=treat. You have to teach that first.
A series of hoops to jump through #
The first thing I had to figure out what treats Shinjuku would like, or to put it in cat training terms, what was her most high-value treat that would motivate her. It was a slow process. In the beginning, Shinjuku actually ran away from treats. Any food not in her food bowl, she refused to even sniff. I started putting her treats in a little treat dish, and even took to pointing at the treat and explaining it was for her. Eventually I got her to eat some treats.
Then, I got the clicker and clicked it as I put down the treat. She startled and backed away from the treat. I tried a few more times but it seemed like it just stressed her out and made her less interested in the treats, so after a while I gave up.
At the same time, I continued to occasionally give her treats to figure out what she might like. I also used treats to encourage her to explore new objects. For example, when I bought a heated pad for her, I used treats to lure her on to it. (Once she figured out it was warm, she no longer needed luring.) Every time I wanted her to go on a thing and put a treat down, I had the habit of tapping it twice with my finger.
In January, I tried a new kind of treat, Greenies Dental Treats, and she was incredibly eager for them. Shinjuku is not a very food-motivated cat, but she would follow me around the house if I had Greenies. She also purred loudly while eating them. At long last, I had found the high-value treat that would motivate her! If only I could get her to stop being scared of the clicker.
One day, and I now don't remember why, I tapped the top of a box twice with my finger when Shinjuku was around. She made a happy mreow and jumped directly on top of the box. I realized then that I had slowly, and somewhat accidentally, trained her that when I tap something twice, she will get treat when she goes there. It had taken months because I wasn't very precise, but one day she just got it. And I got it, too. I immediately got some Greenies and fed one to her.
We had a motivating, high-value reward and a signal she understood.
When it clicked #
I started doing "cat agility" with her, tapping boxes, chairs, and others places and giving her cut up bits of treat when she went where I tapped. After a few days of this, I decided to try the clicker again. We had the treat she liked, and she got used to the idea that we'd do training together every day. Into this routine, which she seemed to enjoy, I added a new thing: the click.
I got a bunch of little treats, and gave her one. Once I had her attention, I clicked the clicker, and gave her another. She did not run away! I did that over and over with a bunch of treats. Click, treat; click, treat; click, treat. Over and over until click=treat. It didn't take long.
Then I did a little bit more of the usual training, tapping at a box, except this time when she got on, I immediately clicked the clicker and then gave the treat. She got it very quickly from that point.
As soon as I started using the clicker with her, she made much faster progress. Previously, she wasn't quite sure if she would get a treat just by putting her front paws on the box, and seemed a bit frustrated. Within a few rounds, she got it that all four paws (click!) was the required action. She also understood that if there was a click, she should stay where she was and wait for the treat.
After a few days, I noticed that she was following the hand with the clicker, not the pocket with the treats as before. The click=treat association solidified quickly.
Patience, patience, patience #
Training a somewhat timid senior cat is probably harder than training a younger, bolder, or more food-motivated cat would be. It took a lot of patience to even get to the point where we could do training. The sequence went something like this:
- 3 months: Get cat to feel brave enough to accept treats.
- 3 months: Find a treat the cat finds truly motivating.
- 3 months: Accidentally teach the cat that "tap, tap" means "Go here for treat."
- 1 week: Associate treats with "click."
Granted, most people might not want to go through all that. Cats mostly learn to do all the important things on their own. I think it's pretty worthwhile though because it's a fun activity for both the human and the cat. You can teach the cat fun tricks or useful behaviors that will help keep the safe, like staying in one spot or coming when called. It's fun to have a routine with Shinjuku and I love how excited she gets when it's training time. She runs ahead of me to the box fort where we train, tail up and proud. She makes the most adorable mreows and purrs loudly while eating the treats. It's a cooperative activity.
For me, there's an added reward: the fun of doing something that's supposed to be impossible.