Successful Cat Introductions

Julie Gordon All, Homepage blog, News & Events Leave a Comment

Bringing a new cat into a home with other cats? Let’s face it: cats are territorial, so you will want to be sure to introduce your cats slowly to minimize fearful or aggressive interactions. In the beginning, you will want to confine the new cat to a separate room to encourage them to get used to one another’s scent. Eventually, you will be able to progress to a controlled face-to-face meeting, allowing visual contact through a barrier, such as a pet gate, baby gate, or screen door. But how do you progress to visual contact while avoiding a stare down or confrontation? Try training!

Teach Your Cat to Follow a Target

Julie Gordon All, Homepage blog, News & Events Leave a Comment

Imagine if you could teach your cat to go into or out of a carrier effortlessly, without physical manipulation. How about getting on or off furniture? What if you could dazzle your friends by teaching your cat to spin, rollover, or jump through a hoop? These behaviors can all be achieved by teaching your cat to follow a target stick—one of the easiest and most useful behaviors to teach!

Happy Cat Day: Fun with Shaping

Julie Gordon All, Homepage blog, News & Events Leave a Comment

How do you celebrate National Cat Day? At Karen Pryor Academy (KPA), we celebrate by teaching our cats new behaviors, of course! Cats can be trained easily with shaping, the process of using a series of gradual steps to build toward a final behavior. With shaping, you can teach a cat any behavior that the cat is physically capable of doing, from sitting, spinning, and stationing on a mat to riding on a skateboard!