Spring Gifts

Cat Behavior Modifications

June 12, 2012 | By More

If you look at the differences between cats and dog, you probably see that even though they are the two most common pets in the country, and that they both have fur, you realize that they are as different as night and day. Each has their own personality and each is harder in some aspects where other areas are easier. You choose your pet based on how much time you want to spend training them and what you expect out of them. If you own cats, they are easier to train, but they can have problems. You have to know a little about cat behavior modification if they are acting up.

Most cats are easy to train when it comes to them using cat litter pans. They won’t take a long time to get used to using them, and some go without having even one accident. It depends on the cat. When they are having problems, you can use a few cat behavior modification tricks to get them to go in the cat litter pans. When they have an accident, wipe it up and place it in the pan. You then take them to the litter box and let them smell. You can even simulate covering it up so they can see that. They are smarter than you may think. They will pick up on it quickly with this type of cat behavior modification. Usually, all a cat or kitten needs is for you to gently take his front paw and make a light digging motion in the kitty litter. He’ll get the message from that.

Some cats claw things. That is just the way that it is. They have the urge to do this, and you are probably not going to be able to use cat behavior modification to stop them from doing it; however, you can show them where it is acceptable to do this. You have to have something in the home that is okay for them to scratch. Put this where they can get to it, or even near where they have already been scratching. For this type of pet behavior modification, that might be all it takes, but not always.

When they are not getting it, you can use a different type of pet behavior modification. One thing that some do is to have a spray bottle of water that they can spray the cat with then they are doing something in the wrong spot. A small squirt bottle or squirt gun (think small, like the smallest size squirt gun size, like you can find at the dollar store or five and dime). Don’t make the mistake of shooting them with a heavy stream of water. It is mean and can hurt them. For this cat behavior modification, leave the bottle on a fine mist setting. That will be enough to annoy them and they will not, after a while, go to that same place because they do not like the water.

Throwing things, dunking in water, rubbing faces in feces, and other mean-hearted attempts at cat behavior modification are obviously not the right choice. These actions would only be regarded by your cat as random human attacks. They are cruel and do not work. You don’t want your pet to fear you, you want them to respect you. It might not seem that you get the same devotion from a cat that you would get from a dog, but you are wrong in that aspect. Cats will fight back whereas most dogs will not. Use the same respect in cat behavior modification that you would hope someone would use on you.

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Category: Pets