Photo/s of the day.

[moonvoice]

Please accept my apologies for the occasional excruciatingly framed or focused picture. As it turns out training with two cats (or a cat, and a very excitable Maybe-beast), as well as a camera, AND a clicker, and biscuits, and bad lighting, is just...well, you'll see what I mean.

Maybe! Tower!






Training??? - This is Maybe's stupid-face. Maybe makes stupid-face every time I stand in front of the cupboard, grab a handful of biscuits and say 'training?' in a sort of hyperactive chipmunk voice. Her tail lifts off the floor, her pupils dilate, she starts meowing. Training? Really? Are we really training? Am I going to get to DO stuff? REALLY? REALLY?!?! Moet, on the other hand, is already walking off, because he KNOWS he doesn't get anything without doing stuff. So while Maybe starts to inflate in excitement like a loud, meowing, spastic balloon, Moet has gone to offer a perfect sit, patiently.





Chair! - Today it was a new chair, not the black swivel chair, but this one. In a different room.. I broke Maybe's brain. Her mouth is open because she's meowing. Maybe can't NOT meow when I'm doing this with her.





Beg! - Maybe likes sitting on her haunches like a...something that sits on its haunches. So I'm trying to teach her 'beg.' Maybe has taken this to mean 'excitedly claw at your hand. EXCITEMENT!' She doesn't get a treat for this, but I got a photo of her excitedly clawing at stuff. Moet looks on. He's much more patient about waiting for his turn than she is. The thing I say the most during training is 'get out of the way, Maybe! It's his turn!'





On the tower!





Off!





Moet, Touch! - The rules are, he must make contact, not just swipe aimlessly nearby, he must not use his claws. He is so gentle.





I don't get exciting tricks like Maybe... - No, alas, Moet will not catapult himself to the top of the tower for ANYTHING. Not even bacon or cheese.





Stop making me touch your finger! - Moet will touch the finger no matter where it is. Sometimes I mistakenly point at Maybe to get her attention and out of no where, Moet will make a flying leap onto my hand and grab it with both paws (no claws). He gets a treat because, whoops, my bad. But still.





I am touching the treat dispenser! - Yes. Yes you are, you big sook.





No, Maybe, Chair! - Maybe LOVES flying to the top of the tower. So when I asked her to jump on the chair (while Moet was on it, which was probably a bit of a challenge for her, since I don't generally ask them to occupy the same space on purpose), she offered me a tower jump.





Good girl, Maybe! - I got her on the chair eventually! Moet hoovers up treats so fast and then gives you this look like 'do I get a treat?' Like the actual treat giving never even happened. He's a master of doing the whole 'is it dinner time?' half an hour after dinner time. And then half an hour after that. And then half an hour after that.





But I did really get a treat. - Yes. He got lots! :) Maybe cannot look at the camera, because she's still eating her treats, because she got lots for getting on the chair with Moet, without attacking him, or me, or eating his treats. Yay Maybe!





Now they are all tuckered out and sleeping in the sun. :)

Comments

[tigerweave.livejournal.com]

gorgeous gorgeous post :-D their personalities come through so strongly :-) :-) ;-)

[anrui-ichido.livejournal.com]

Heehee! I think 'touch' is so cute. :) I wonder if I can teach my cats how to do it.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Moet will not catapult himself to the top of the tower for ANYTHING.

That is because he is a Gentleman, as evidenced by how he does "Touch." (Which made me go AWW :D )

I love reading about people's cats, and yours even more so, since they are still definitely Cats, but with the bonus of being well-trained (or well on the way, in Miss Wild Thing's case).

[sabr.livejournal.com]

OMG I don't feel like such a nut for clicker training my boy :)

[silverjackal.livejournal.com]

Heh. These are *great*. They may not be technically perfect due to circumstances, but they really do convey what's happening wonderfully. I'm particularly taken by the one of Maybe jumping onto the chair (you can see her focus is actually on you, and she's working hard, and thinking hard to do two things at once) and Moet doing those wonderful gentle finger touches. Fabulous. :)

[thunderbiscuit.livejournal.com]

Aha! The finger touch is too adorable. Sounds like a good trick to train my little fluffy cat-dog (I call him this, because he really does act like a cat some days).

Also, this makes me want to document a training day. :D

[corvus-animus.livejournal.com]

Problem for me and clicker training my cats is that they aren't really food motivated :/

So glad your training is going well!!

[merimask.livejournal.com]

They are both so cute, and I LOVE that Maybe has found her purpose. She's a really amazing cat, & lucky to have a human who was willing to put up with her foibles to find the talent that was hidden inside.

I am seriously impressed, by the way! You must have been a lion tamer in some past life. ^_^

[paleo.livejournal.com]

Clicker training is addictive. :-)

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

That's so cute. I love the photo of Moet "touching the treat dispenser." He has such a big smile on his face.

Your cats sound so much like mine...Minnow is *bouncebouncebouncebouncerollsqueakmewmewmewyouwantmetodosomethingtreattreattreat!* and Myst is, "Yeah. OK. You try to get HyperKitten to focus, and I'll just be sitting here politely. But I'm not going to do anything stupid and pointless no matter how much you click."

Myst also has no interest in treats, which makes rewards hard. (Maybe it's a Siamese thing. The Original Myst had no interest in treats, either.) Both cats will work for praise, though.

Minnow just figured out the connection between that sound we keep making and her name. It was really funny to see the light bulb go on over her furry little head.

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

Nah, we're clicker-training our little lunatic and her more sedate compatriot too.

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

One of mine isn't either. She gets the concept of praise, but she'll do pretty much only things that make some kind of sense in her world. The other one, who is food-motivated but more praise-motivated, will learn things for fun.

[sidheblessed.livejournal.com]

Awwww!

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Hee, yeah, their personalities are plastered all over the camera. Especially Maybe's stupid-face.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Moet I kind of started with, because he was already gently offering the behaviour sometimes (not on the ground, it took him a long time to learn to touch my finger, when it was touching the ground). So I sort of just...capitalised something he was already doing, y'know?

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Sort of well-trained. I mean they're still cats. Ultimately scratchy, meowing creatures of like... hunting.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Yay! Clicker training FTW!

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Maybe is wonderful. She does try, and she gets ever so excited once she gets it right.

It took Moet a really long time to teach him to touch my finger like that, when it was on the floor (instead of just sniffing my finger). And an even longer time to teach him to touch a finger on an inanimate object, like a fridge, a my leg, and so on. He is best at it when it's directly above his head. Hee.

As I write this, as usual, she is sitting between my forearms.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I love the finger touch, he's such a sweetie.

And yes, training! Take photos! It will be awesome. :)

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Do you free feed? I.e. leave their food out where they can graze all day? Almost no cat will work for what they can get for free.

Likewise, a cat that has to earn ALL its food for the day via training, will very, very quickly become food motivated. So it just depends on how much you really want to train them.

Maybe and Moet get very restricted meal-times / amounts, and there is an allowance worked in most days that - they will have to earn some of their food via training. So what they're getting is not extra, it's their actual 'meal.'


But yeah, the first step with training cats is generally teaching them nothing comes for free. They don't get food without performing a certain behaviour first.

Moet wouldn't be able to be food-trained, if he was still free fed, and had kibble left out for him all day.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Maybe's purpose seems to be 'Agility Cat!' I am pretty glad we got her, actually, because I think she'd be hard for other people to take. She's great with guests! But as a 24/7 cat, she's been the most high-maintenance, high-energy, destructo-cat I've ever had or met.

Hee, a lion tamer? That job always scared the crap outta me!

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Clicker training is awesome. :)

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

With interest in treats; it depends on how you feed them. I said above that free-feeding pretty much eliminates food training as a possibility for most cats. And then for many others, if they can get it for free with their usual meals, then they won't work for it.

However, as soon as a cat learns it *only* gets its dinner via learning cues, it becomes food motivated very quickly. So to that end, it just depends on how determined you are to train, or important it is, y'know? Moet could've gone his whole life without it. But Maybe needs it, so we've taught her that nothing comes for free. Even her dinner and breakfast she must offer certain behaviours before she gets it.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

They're my cuties. :)

[tigerweave.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was a good piccie :-D

[firehauke.livejournal.com]

The beg/sitting on haunches thing we call the "Meerkat pose" or "prairie dog" (prairie kitty!) - Siren is REALLY good at it, will use it to look over the top edge of something (the couch, when I had boxes behind it, looking at the bed from the floor, trying to see the counters, whatever).

I have gotten Shaido to do it, but with his back problems, those times are rare now - I've taken to attempting to video him doing such things with my Ipod Nano and my digital camera (I got him nomming corn husk already!). Stuff ends up on my Flickr when I download.

[silere.livejournal.com]

I love your cat training posts! I don't have the time (or currently, inclination) to clicker-train my cats... but it's fascinating stuff. I thought about attempting it with my crazy wanna-be-agility mutt, though. Seeing that it works for you, even with two cats of such different temperaments and energy levels, makes me slightly more optimistic. Each of my pets is so very different, and i keep thinking it would take such very different sorts of training to teach them things.

I am currently content with them all being civil, getting along, and the dogs listening to me when i tell them to come, go, wait, stop, off, up, stay, lay down, sit, fetch, etc. the basic stuff.

I wish i had more energy for training. le sigh. but seven animals is hard just to give them enough love every day. (two of them are returned, previously adopted out, foster cats)

<3

[amethyst-clan.livejournal.com]

I love this post so much. :D

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I hadn't thought about making meals contingent on behavior. I'll think about that. Minnow is getting incredibly piggish about meals and that might help.

[thunderbiscuit.livejournal.com]

Definitely!

Also, I finally got a copy of House of Leaves. I have use all of my power to not sit here and read my face off. I looove it!

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

House of Leaves is the beeeeeeest. It's a beast of a story, but my god it sucked me in SO fast.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Hey as long as everyone's civil in your house, you're doing well! Maybe still isn't civil all the time, and I admit that's one of the reasons why I train her, to give her an outlet of all that crazy and often flat out destructive energy.

If Maybe didn't need that, I probably wouldn't be clicker training her. *grin*

[gaiamara.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! You've inspired me to start training my kittens. I just need to find a treat that they can't resist... hmm... liver, anyone?

I love Maybe and Moet's epic scratching-post. It's like a castle! They are ridiculously cute kittehs ^^