Clicker training for felines has several benefits. You will only need a clicker and a few choice treats for your cat as well as 10 minutes of your complete attention during the once-a-day training sessions. Your cat will learn new mental skills and benefit from physical exercise. So, how to start clicker training for your cat? • Find a quite place where you and your cat can start your training session. Sit on the same level as your cat, click on the clicker and then immediately give your cat a treat. This is letting your cat associate the clicking sound with the choice treat. • Place the target, which can be any toy, close to your cat’s nose. Simultaneously click on the clicker when your cat sniffs the target and then reward it with another consumable treat. You must click while the desired behavior is happening – neither before it nor after it. • Then hold the target to one side. Your cat should then turn its head and then sniff on the target. Again, click and reward your cat. • Place the target farther away. At this point, your desired behavior for your cat is to move toward the target and touch it. When your cat does as expected, click and reward again. • When your cat begins following the target, you can then move on to other commands. For example, say “Sit” while placing the target slightly above your cat’s head and directly in front of its face. You can also practice other commands like “come” and “spin” With practice, your cat can respond to your verbal commands even without the target and the clicker. You should be patient during the process but with cats’ innate intelligence, you shouldn’t have long to wait. You will also find that training your cat when it is hungry yields faster training results because it is more receptive to the treats. You must also avoid any kind of negativity during your training sessions – no drills, no punishments, no scolding – because your cat can easily end the session by walking away; blame their fierce sense of independence. You are also well-advised to limit the first training sessions to just 20 clicks, at most, so that your cat will not easily get bored with the proceedings. If you want your pet to have the healthiest and longest lives possible, call Murray Hill Vets at http://www.murrayhillvethospital.com/. They also offer pet boarding, show standard grooming services, convenient on-line pharmacy, and pet adoption program.
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