You can train a cat to do on command, anything it can do normally.
It just takes a lot more work than with a dog.  Dogs are pack
animals and inherently want to please the leader of the pack.
Cats are more independent and don't typically feel the need
to please..but that doesn't mean they won't.
Find out what your cat loves, scritches, pieces of tuna, being
brushed...etc.  Than use that as a reward.  I let Sasha play
in the back yard (as long as I am home) because she always
comes when called.  She always comes in when I call her because
when she does she gets brushed.
She will also jump up on a bed, chair etc. on command
because there is always something good waiting for her.  This
really saves on the back <g>.  Cats are trainable.  I wouldn't
say you can get them to do "anything" but you might be surprised at
what you can get them to do with the proper motivation.

AG

There's actually a book on teaching cats tricks. You can teach them just about
anything that you can teach a dog. The book is called "Cat Tricks, 29 silly
stunts you and your cat can do together." by Barbara Siegel. My cat Mimi can
shake hands, stand up, beg, stand up and go around in a circle, roll over, come
when called. My other cat just knows how to eat and sleep.

Hi Michael,

Cats are highly trainable, my girlfriend has always had dogs so when we got
a cat she still expected some tricks! We discovered our cat's love of tuna
and watermelon and offered it to her as reward, you do have to be patient
and not bother to "train" for more than 5 minutes at a time or the cat gets
bored.

Coffee (our cat) can now do;

give paw (she offers her paw like a true lady!)
high five (similar to give paw but batting at your hand quite high up)
jump over stick
balance on back legs (she can do this for like 10 minutes or something, eyes
locked on a treat abover her head, like a meercat)
kiss

There are a few variations of each depending on circumstances! We're working
on "play piano" which I heard was quite easy to teach cats, she loves the
piano anyway.

All of these are natural cat movements; cat's arms are as dextrous as ours,
they rub noses (or kiss) to greet each other, as a kitten Coffee would often
balance on her rear legs to look on top of boxes or to see over the
footstool etc.

Cats learn well by copying, with "paw" we only had to show Coffee once or
twice by gently lifting her paw into our hands whilst giving her a treat and
saying "paw, paw" a lot, she soon got the idea and will do it for anyone
now.

A lot of cats will learn to open doors and windows and so on just by
watching what you do; if they get something they want out of it they're
capable of very complicated sequences of actions and amazing feats of
memory, just make sure training is always fun, always has a treat and
playtime at the end, always give lots of love and encouragement and keep the
sessions short!

Good luck,

Steve

Here's a nice article about training cats.
http://www.newsday.com/mynews/ny-lspets3915319aug02,0,5735994.column

CATS WILL WORK FOR GARLIC CHICKEN
By Denise Flaim (Newsday)

'Cats come when they feel like it, not when they're told," purrs Halle Berry to
Benjamin Bratt as he orders her

"Catwoman" character to surrender.

Her 45 feline co-stars would beg to differ.

"Cats can be trained - it's just that not all people can get them to be," says
Mark Harden, head trainer for Boone's Animals for Hollywood in Castaic, Calif.,
which provided the newly released film's cat cast. "Cats have a different
motivation and a different level of needing to please. It's not like a dog, but
it's there."

The three "lead cats" in "Catwoman" - a trio of look-alike Egyptian Maus
playing Midnight, who breathes life, not to mention superpowers, into Berry's
character - learned 50 tricks for the film, about 15 of which were eventually
used. Among them: sitting, standing and lying down on cue; staying; chasing and
retrieving objects; jumping onto a shoulder; and following the beam of a laser
pointer with their eyes and heads to achieve difficult "look-away" shots.

Despite the director's initial skepticism about the cats' trainability, only a
handful of shots in the film used CGI cats - movie jargon for "computer
generated image."

Like many animal trainers, Harden uses positive reinforcement - rewarding
desired behavior - as a training tool.

In the four months of training leading up to the film, Harden used a clicker as
a "bridge," or auditory IOU. "It's like a debit card - as they start 'chaining'
behaviors or tricks together, we use the clicker to let them know a treat is
coming."

The payoff is usually chicken marinated in garlic, so the kitties get a whiff
of the reward to come, though sheer attention - petting and cooing - is another
reward. Harden reserves playing with toys such as a feather wand for unwinding
after training.

Harden says all felines, not just his Hollywood cat pack, are trainable.
Patience is crucial, as is keeping the first few tricks simple. (He suggests
getting your cat to hop up on a chair by luring him with a piece of food, then
rewarding him.) Create a "habit of need" by feeding the cat at the same time
each day, "so he knows where food comes from and doesn't think the food gods
are leaving it for him."

Reluctant students may require a leash. Otherwise, "if they're quick enough,
the whole thing is over and you spend a day digging them out from behind the
VCR."

Despite the species' reputation for aloofness and fierce independence, Harden
says consistency counts for a lot: He taught his house cat not to go out an
open door and to stay out of the flower beds in the backyard with sheer
diligence, repetition and the occasional foot stomp.

While Harden gets most of his purebreds from breeders, he estimates 85 percent
of his feline workforce comes from shelters. Being photogenic is one
requirement for stardom. But so is being generic.

"The biggest thing we look for are cats that are matchable," Harden says,
referring to a cat's ability to double for another. Patterned cats such as
calicos can be too hard to match. Ditto for a kitty with a big color patch over
the eye or mouth, which can't be covered with makeup, or a cat with two
different color eyes. And nobody wants a fat cat: "Chronically overweight cats
are very difficult to motivate."

More than two dozen of the "Catwoman" cats weren't matchable enough to continue
their acting careers after filming wrapped. All were adopted, not least of all
Plato, an orange-and-white longhair with a distinctive patch over his lip. He
went home with Berry, previously an avowed "dog person."

Harden started his training career 25 years ago with exotics, and he has
difficulty singling out the trickiest species to work with, because everything
is relative.

"A lot of the animals that you think are hard, like lions and leopards, aren't
asked to do anything that difficult," he explains. "They jump or snarl and
that's it. But with something that's very capable, like a dog or monkey, the
action gets very hard," because writers and directors expect more from them.

As for his bewhiskered, tail- twitching actors, he thinks their reputation for
not being trainable isn't going to change anytime soon.

"I think cats are like the dolphins," Harden concludes. "They have very good PR
agencies."

Email: denise.flaim@newsday.com

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

I've trained my 4 cats to lead me around like an idiot, fulfilling their
every whim....

eq