How do I convince my cat to behave?
- Mar 5
- 1 min read
I like to think that dogs lend themselves to training better than cats. Your dog loves to please you. They want to engage, and they can be motivated by food rewards. Cats on the other hand, are tricker. Even for me! Cats do their own thing. How do you train them to get off the bed? Stop scratching? Or even worse, how do you stop spraying, fights with other cats, and neurotic behaviors?
In some ways, cats respond best with being trained backwards. Instead of changing them to fit your environment, you change your environment to fit them. This can even go as far as rearranging some furniture in your house! Cats thrive off of high shelves and areas where they can perch off the ground, safe and able to survey what's going on below them. Changes like this are what cat behaviorist Jackson Galaxy affectionately calls catification. One of the reasons I like Jackson's teachings is he relies on ancestral behavior models to help solve modern issues our animals are having.
"Your cat's instincts propel them to jump, perch, climb, play, sleep, eat, hunt and claim their own territory...catification is the art of making changes and adjustments to your home that meet the needs of both you and your cat, aesthetically and spatially," Jackson writes.
So - if you're having trouble with your kitty, it might be worth taking a look at doing some redecorating!
