CAT-alyst with Melissa Millett
CAT-ALYST! FELINE FUN, TRICKS & TRAINING
with Melissa Millett
A KPA LIVE!™ Class featuring real-time training and coaching WITH Melissa
Do More WITH YOUR CAT THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE!
Television-and-movie animal training star Melissa Millett helps you "CATalyze" your training to have loads of fun and enhance the bond you share with your cat(s)!Cat training will amaze your friends and clients, strengthen your bond with your cat, and provide healthy mental and physical stimulation for your cat—in short, it's beneficial and so much fun for both of you!
If you are a dog trainer, training cats is among the very best ways to improve your training skills. Training cats will help you think more expansively about how environmental arrangements, shaping plans, and reinforcement delivery can accelerate or slow training success.
In this six-week, 4-unit LIVE virtual class, internationally recognized cat trainer Melissa Millett teaches you the training strategies, techniques, and behaviors that have helped make her and her cats the stars of movies and television shows. "CATapult" your training skills and have loads of fun together learning to train an amazing range of behaviors. You'll first teach your cat underlying foundational skills and then progress from there to more complex behaviors, in just 6 weeks. This course starts with building solid foundational behavior that will be the CATalyst for various exciting and engaging tricks, including leaping to your shoulders or through arm hoops, weaving through your legs, and more. Melissa wraps up by teaching you how to string together some of your stronger behaviors into a fun routine. She also explains how she prepares her cats to "take the show on the road" with leashing and collaring, detailing all of the considerations that ensure that even the first outings are safe and positive for everyone.
Training cats in any meaningful way has long been considered difficult to impossible— "like herding cats." This class highlights cats as the highly intelligent and eager learners they are. The curriculum includes various tricks curated to match a wide range of cat temperaments and strengths. Plus, there is no better way to sharpen your training skills than to work with cats!
Melissa and her cats are known internationally for their ever-evolving repertoire of cat tricks and for being top animal actors (see her bio below). As one of the few trainers completely immersed in the science and art of marker-based positive reinforcement training, Melissa, a terrific teacher, is both lauded for her ethical standards and highly sought-after for work because she delivers. With clear video demonstrations, detailed hands-on exercises to practice, and coaching, you'll amaze yourself—not to mention your friends and clients—with what you and your cat can do together.
LEARN, PRACTICE, SHARE
LIVE learning brings concepts to life
LEARN
Six weeks of training, a week-by-week curriculum integrated with four LIVE virtual classes with real-time coaching, interactive learning, and Q&A. Super educational, super fun.
PRACTICE
The LIVE week-by-week curriculum integrates with, and prepares you for, the weekly LIVE class. New levels of advancement each week!
SHARE
Ask questions and share insights, pics, and your training videos. Celebrate progress together!
A week-by-week curriculum guides your learning every step of the way. Each week, join your classmates for one of four LIVE classes for real-time training and personalized interactive coaching, plus Q&A with Melissa. You will see other students practice the behaviors, hear Melissa’s feedback, make adjustments, and improve their training. Each of these Zoom-based classes is two hours long. All students get access to the full week-by-week curriculum and class forum. In each Zoom class:
- Engage students watch training and Melissa’s coaching and can ask questions through Zoom chat.
- Excel students get personalized real-time coaching and feedback on their training during the Zoom class PLUS on-screen Q&A.
Miss a class? No problem. LIVE classes are also recorded.
Let's Begin This Fabulous Journey, Together
- Week 1 Lessons
- Live Class 1: November 4th
- Week 2 Lessons
- Live Class 2: November 11th
- Week 3 Lessons
- Live Class 3: November 18th
- Week 4 Lessons
- Live Class 4: December 2nd
See What's Covered in Each unit
LEARN WITH Melissa Millett
Melissa Millett is the founder and head trainer of In Dogs We Trust, The Ultimutts, and Hollywoof Stars. She has also taught thousands of family pets. A sought-after animal expert, Melissa has been featured internationally as well as on every major Canadian TV network, including Breakfast Television (Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary), CP24, Global News, CTV (Toronto, Vancouver), Animal Planet, The Pet Network, and more. Melissa was the host of the television show Doggy House Calls and the spin-off series Doggy Diaries in cities across Canada.
Melissa is known across the globe as an advanced trick trainer and performer with Ultimutts. Several of the Ultimutts have been featured internationally on Good Morning America, The Rick Mercer Report, The Family Channel, CBC, and Cineplex Theatres. Bella the Boston terrier traveled across the country with the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! organization to promote her appearance in their 2016 publication. Jellybean the deaf Australian cattle dog made it to the semifinals of the Facebook Watch show World's Most Amazing Dog, receiving 36 million views and coming very close to winning $100,000 USD!
Melissa offers an elite training service for animals in film and TV. Most notably, she co-trained the cats for Stephen King’s 2019 Pet Sematary. Melissa worked on a 2019 Super Bowl commercial as well as on commercials for Duracell, Yoplait, and Gund. Past clients have included Paramount, Netflix, Warner Brothers, and more!
Learn more about Melissa on her Hollywoof Stars website.
Here's What You'll Be Learning UNIT by UNIT
1
Set the foundation
List of Behaviors:
- Stationary Focus
- Movement focus/follow
- Luring practice/reset treats
- Target Stick
- Target Hand
- Mark
- Follow
Unit#1 starts off with a "CATegorically" solid approach to training! Melissa teaches you the foundational behaviors that are essential for motivating your cat to focus and get moving. While cat training is quite similar to training other four-legged friends, Melissa will teach you how to use a cat’s proclivities to train a particular set of foundational behaviors, skills, and techniques to set up you and your cat for fun and success. Get started on these right away as the rest of the class will build from this foundation.
In this week's curriculum, you will help your cat understand the training process by building a set of foundational behaviors, movement behaviors, and stationary behaviors on marks. In the process, you will teach your cat "how to learn" through capturing, shaping, luring, and targeting. The process begins by teaching your cat how to help your cat stay focused and engaged while training. Unit #1 sets the conditions for future success, so follow the recommended training plan closely. For many cats, this foundational training establishes a lifetime love of training!
If you haven't already, jump on the class forum to see your classmates' early cat training videos, post links to your own videos, and both give and receive peer accolades. The forum is also where you can see Melissa's written feedback for the Excel student videos and her answers to those students' questions. Follow along and learn!
In the weekly LIVE class meeting on Zoom, Excel students will demonstrate their foundational skills progress for the whole class, receive coaching from Melissa, share their experiences, and ask questions about these early steps. Q&A will be open to all students. Finally, Melissa will talk about the links to the skills and fun behaviors taught in the next unit, which includes jumping through your arm hoops and onto your shoulders.
2
JUMP ONTO SHOULDERS, ARM HOOPS, LEG WEAVE, SPIN
List of Behaviors:
- Movement (cont)
- Mark (cont)
- Shoulders
- Arm hoop
- leg weave
- Spin
In Unit #2, Melissa teaches you to use the foundational skills and behaviors from Unit #1 as the CAT-alyst for teaching some great tricks! You'll use your skills at building focus and engagement as well as your cat's newly acquired movement, and stationary behaviors to CAT-apult your learning forward each and every week.
We begin with the behaviors that our cats can learn more quickly and build from there. Many students and their cats may continue building on the tricks in this unit during the remainder of the course so we'll take some time to make sure we have these right.
Don't forget to post your training video links and comments to the class forum! Melissa will also be providing feedback on the Excel students' video for everyone to see.
In our second weekly LIVE class meeting on Zoom, we all watch as the Excel students will demonstrate their cat's skills progress for the class, get coaching from Melissa, share their experiences, and ask questions. Q and A will then be open to all students. Finally, Melissa will talk about the links to the skills and fun behaviors taught in our next unit, as we up the fun games another notch.
3
JUMP INTO ARMS, FOOTSIES, FOOSTALL
- Mark (cont)
- Movement (cont)
- Jump into arms
- Footsies
- Footstall
In Unit #3, Melissa guides you through how to build on your progress to teach a few new crowd-pleasing cat tricks that are both flashy and fun! Since these behaviors build on the previous units, Melissa will revisit the skills from Unit #2. This week will also delve into the various ways that we can troubleshoot different temperaments in cats to best set them up to succeed. Some cats are slow to move while others are eager, some prefer acrobatics while others like to remain planted. There's more than one way to train a cat and Melissa will explore them all!
Post your training progress video links and cheer on your fellow cat lovers with comments on the class forum! Melissa will also provide feedback on the Excel students' video for everyone to see.
In the third LIVE virtual class meeting on Zoom, watch as the Excel students demonstrate their cats' skills progress for the class, receive coaching from Melissa, and share their experiences. Ask your questions during the Q&A that is open to all students. With some luck, we will see some really cool tricks in this week's LIVE class. Finally, Melissa will talk about the links to the skills and fun behaviors taught in our next unit as she ups the fun factor yet again!
NOTE: There will be a 2-week break between Unit 3 and Unit 4 to accommodate Thanksgiving and to allow additional time for students to practice.
4
Lights, Camera, Action!
List of Behaviors:
- Add leash and collar (from mark)
- Cat follows with the leash dragging or with the leash held without tension
- Touch on leash walking (handout - safe outdoor adventures with cats) (how to take next steps safely on your own)
- Fun routines (put behaviors together that you’re doing well) (BONUS!)
Unit #4 is the cat's meow! Melissa will teach you how you can string together the fun behaviors your cat has learned into fun routines that showcase your cat's unique strengths and abilities. Melissa will also show how you can use the follow and mark behaviors to begin cat leash-walking training and discuss how you might make your first on-leash outdoor experience a positive and enriching one for you and your cat.
As usual, jump on the class forum to post your own cool cat progress videos, and see Melissa's feedback to the Excel students on their videos and their questions.
In our final LIVE class meeting on Zoom, we all watch as the Excel students demonstrate their progress on the behaviors built throughout the course, demonstrate their on-leash adventure preparations, or show off the fun cat tricks or routines they've created! This celebratory final class will also be your last chance to get real-time coaching from Melissa, share your experience, and ask questions about any of the class content.
Remember, you have access to the course content including the class recordings for a year from enrollment so you and your cat can keep on learning together after this final LIVE class.
