The Cat Whisperer
Why Cats Do What They Do — and How to Get Them to Do What You Want
by Mieshelle Nagelschneider
Bantam
Dogs sit, stay, roll over. Cats laugh.
But it doesn’t have to be that way, animal expert Mieshelle Nagelschneider claims. Though their owners might think otherwise, there are ways to train cats as well as dogs.
The only difference, she says, is what motivates them.
“Dogs are into their owners, but a cat is motivated by what’s in it for them,” she says. “If you scold a cat they won’t listen — in fact, it makes the problem worse.”
There are some 500,000 cats in New York City alone. Across the country, millions are unnecessarily euthanized or are sent to animal shelters and to an uncertain future each year, most from behavioral issues that can be solved.
“Most cats crave any form of attention from the owner — even if it’s negative attention,” she says.
Nagelschneider attacks these problems in her new handbook, “The Cat Whisperer,” by showing owners how to train their cats, mostly by re-educating their owners.
“The reason people are so mesmerized by house cats is because they are truly miniature versions of lions, tigers and leopards,” she says, and that’s first step to understanding kitty issues: if a circus lion can be trained, why not a house cat?
The 42-year-old, who studied animal behavior at Harvard and psychology, developed her own techniques through her experiences as a vet technician, eventually opening up her Cat Behavior Clinic consulting service in Portland, Ore.
She grew up on a farm nearby, but ironically wasn’t allowed to have cats because she was allergic to them. But Nagelschneider, who currently resides in harmony with seven cats, a Great Dane, a Chihuahua and a husband and son, says she always felt an innate bond, to “think like a cat.”
The most common behavioral issues are aggressiveness, urination and pooping outside the litter box, cat-to-cat tension, spraying, excessive meowing, improper socialization of a kitten and compulsive behaviors such as over-grooming, chewing the carpet or clawing those pricey stereo speakers.
In just about every case out of thousands she has consulted on, all except those that involved medical complications improved with a 30-day plan using her three basic rules she calls C.A.T.:
* Cease the unwanted cat behavior by eliminating the cause of the behavior or make its location unattractive;
* Attract the cat to a desirable behavior or location with a lot of positive reinforcement to make an alternative behavior more attractive;
* Transform the territory and change the physical environment.
For instance, when a cat starts defecating outside the litter box, it’s usually because it’s dirty, an aggressive cat is standing by, or a toddler is hovering around. Nagelschenider suggests taking off the litter box lid. It allows the cat to survey its surroundings, as it would in the wild.
One thing that certainly doesn’t work is that favorite of the “Dog Whisperer” Cesar Millan — being the alpha animal. Cats don’t have pack leaders like dogs do, and don’t respond to humans who try to boss them around.
The only thing they really respond to is the kind of reaction they get.
“Cats learn by experience,” Nagelscheider writes. “They will more frequently perform behaviors, or manage to end up in locations, that bring rewards. They will tend to stay away from behaviors or locations that do not (or that are actively unpleasant, such as a counter with sticky tape on it).”
So if your loudmouth cat has the habit of screeching in your ear at 4 a.m. the worst thing you can do is pick him up and put him in another room, because that just trained your cat to repeat the unwanted wake up call at the same time every morning. In fact, do absolutely nothing. Don’t even turn in bed.
Nagelschneider says the only reliable way to bring a cat to task, meanwhile, is clicker training.
If you see your cat doing desirable behavior, like using their scratching post, you use a clicker to make a noise, then give them a small piece of food they like.
“With my cats, it took only four click-and-treats for them to connect the dots,” she writes. Once conditioned, cats will do desired behavior in the hope of small rewards.
Of course, since you’re the one having to do all the clicking, it begs the question: who is being trained, the cat — or you?