1. Getting Good Behaviour from Cats Lecture 4 VS1010

2. What is the Difference between Cat and Dogs?
Why is it so difficult to train a cat to COME or to SIT?
Dogs learn this with ease
Why will cats learn to use a litter tray with almost no training?
To train a small dog to do the same takes incredible effort
The reason for such differences is that ‘what is important’ to dogs is not the same as it is for cats. 2

3. Group Dynamics Dogs are group animals and cats are not.
Dogs are social, gregarious creatures – pack animals
The most important pack member is the owner
This is why dogs left alone during their owners’ working hours commonly develop separation anxieties
Even a companion dog may not solve a separation anxiety.
when several dogs share the same household, one can still develop a severe separation anxiety that is not solved by the presence of its canine buddies. 3

4. Attachments of Dogs A dog’s attachment is to its group
Dogs get attached to their territory but it is secondary to the group
For example, a dog taken to his or her owner’s work place to be with its owners will be just as happy as when it is at home.
By comparison, a cat taken to its owner’s workplace is usually very fearful and anxious. 4

5. Why does this difference exist?
Cats are not gregarious and do not develop strong pack structures
leadership is not important
Wild or feral cats are mostly solitary creatures, hunting alone.
Where a group of cats occurs, it is more for sharing of a common territory and its resources, and for reproduction, than the establishment of a cohesive pack.
Cats are extremely territorial and, when fights over territory occur, the result is that the loser learns to avoid that successor but not to leave the territory.
Leaving the territory only occurs if aggressive encounters continue. 5

6. Attachments of Cats
A cat’s attachment is to its territory not to its group.
E.g. How often have you heard the turmoils of a cat owner attempting to establish his or her cat in a new home which is in the same neighbourhood as the old home? Commonly, the cat will repeatedly return to the old home. 6

7. Dogs -To Punish or to Reward?
Wolf cubs also learn what behaviours to avoid by the growls and snaps received from higher-ranking pack members,
Punishment can be effective as a training tool but rarely will punishment drive a wolf cub away from the pack – the lure of the group is just too strong.
For this reason, a dog continually punished by its owners shows appeasement behaviours where the dog is effectively saying ‘don’t hit me again’.
Given the same scenario – a cat is likely to leave the home. 7

8. Two or Three Dimensions?
Cats live in a three-dimensional world because they can jump and climb,
Dogs exist more in two dimensions.
Thus, the concept of ‘flight or fight’ becomes important.
Cats climb to hunt and to escape.
cats tend to develop flight responses to harmful stimuli because they are agile enough to escape.
Dogs can’t climb to escape
Therefore dogs use assertive forms of aggression (fight) because flight is more difficult. 8

9. What does all this mean?
Cats are more attached to their territory than their group so provision of a secure and comfortable territory is more important to them. Food provided in the nucleus of their territory provides one of the most important attachments.
Dogs learn readily when leaders do things that enhance the attachment. The COME command is a good example.
Dogs should be given proper leadership by their owners or the dog will take over this role. 9

10. What does all this mean?
Dogs will learn from punishment but it confuses them. The power of attachment over-rides the confusion created by punishment
Cats don’t learn from punishment – they become more detached to the object of punishment and avoid it. Cats punished by their owners become distant and fearful.
Achieving behaviour change with cats is often a compromise – find out what the cat wants, provide it first and then try to progressively change the established behaviour to fit your needs. 10

11. How Do You Change a Cat’s Behaviour?
Train a cat as if it is a killer whale
You can’t force a cat to change its behaviour
Use progressive methods to get closer to the behaviours you want 11

12. Change a Cat’s Behaviour using:- Progressive Approximation and Progressive Desensitisation
Progressive approximation utilises a sequence of rewards to make a desired behaviour more likely to occur.
For example, progressive approximation is used to make it more likely that a cat will use a litter tray that has been moved to a different room.
Progressive desensitisation utilises a sequence of rewards to make an undesired behaviour less likely to occur.
For example, progressive desensitisation could be used to make a cat less likely to show fear of a newly-introduced cat to the household. 12

13. Combining Techniques
Sometimes both progressive approximation and desensitisation can be used together.
For example, progressive desensitisation could be used to make a cat more tolerant of being patted when it is on its owner’s lap.
When the cat becomes more tolerant of being patted because aggression has been reduced, calm and happy behaviour can be reinforced with progressive approximation using food treats.
Watch this video
Now this one 13

14. Progressive Approximation -
Solving House-soiling With the Travelling Litter Tray Technique
The Problem:
Fifi the cat is soiling in the owner’s bathtub. The owners want Fifi to use a litter tray in the laundry. However Fifi hates the laundry because it’s too hot and the washing machine scares her because it’s so noisy. 14

15. Progressive Approximation -
Solving House-soiling With the Travelling Litter Tray Technique
The Goal: -
Rather than fighting Fifi and forcing her to use the laundry, the owners reach a compromise and decide to let Fifi have a tray on the front veranda. How do they achieve that when Fifi knows nothing about using a tray on the front veranda? 15

16. Step 1
Protect the bathtub from further soiling by temporarily leaving an inch or two of water in the bath tub until Fifi has learnt to soil elsewhere. 16

17. Step 2
Form a re-attachment to litter trays by leaving two trays on the bathroom floor and a third tray just outside the bathroom door. 17

18. Step 3
When usage has been confirmed, progress by approximating the trays (or getting them closer) to the front veranda.
For example, leap-frog the first tray over the other two and place it one metre along the ‘flight-path’ to the veranda by, for instance, following the walls. 18

19. The Result
Progressive approximation has thus been used to strengthen Fifi’s usage of the trays on the front veranda. 19

20. Progressive Desensitisation
Assimilating a New Cat Into a Household
The Problem: - Flip is a middle-aged domestic short-haired cat, that is well established in the household but has a moderately fearful temperament. Heck, a young, reckless and active two-month-old kitten has been introduced and Flip is now fearful of Heck. Flip is hiding and is spending most of her time under the owner’s bed.
The Goal: - To establish acceptance between the two cats so that both can co-exist. 20

21. Progressive Desensitisation
It is senseless to force Flip and Heck together. That will only serve to teach Flip to be fearful of Heck.
We need to progressively get the pair closer to each other, ensuring that calmness pervades through each progression. 21

22. Step 1 Keep Flip and Heck separate.
As it’s Flip’s territory, she should be the ‘favoured child’ and allowed more freedom than Heck.
Confine Heck to a room, (e.g. a spare bedroom) that Flip rarely visits and keep him out of the owner’s bedroom. Give Heck his creature comforts in the spare room. 22

23. Step 2 Share body scents:
Use a wet washer to remove pheromone scents from the face and forequarters of each cat.
Swap the washers and leave Heck’s washer in Flip’s room for her to investigate when she is ready.
Repeat this system daily until Flip shows no fear.
Also try the Feliway Pheromone Diffuser 23

24. Step 3 Share vision
With Heck on one side of a glass window or door allow Flip to circulate in the adjacent room.
Repeat this system daily until Flip shows no fear. 24

25. Step 4 Share vision and scent:
Place Heck in a cat-carrying cage in a quiet part of the house that is not central to Flip’s territory.
Allow Flip freedom to investigate if she wishes.
Repeat this system daily until Flip shows no fear.
Progress further by bringing the cat-carrying cage into the hearth or the territory (e.g. the lounge room or kitchen). 25

26. Step 5 Letting the ‘Cat out of the Bag’.
When Flip is calm with all of the above, let Heck out of the cage for small lengths of time
Increase as Flip gets used to him.
Progressive desensitisation has been used to weaken Flip’s fear of Heck. 26

27. Using both Progressive Approximation and Progressive Desensitisation for Aggression
The Problem: - Arnie-S is a large Domestic Long -haired cat that is aggressive to his owners. He will tolerate some nursing and patting when on his owners’ laps but, for no apparent reason, will turn and savagely bite and claw his owners in mid pat.
The Goal: - To train Arnie-S that patting is pleasurable. 27

28. Step 1 Arnie-S is picked up for a cuddle only when he is calm.
A favoured food treat is given immediately he is picked up to create a rewarding scenario from the beginning.
Arnie-S is cuddled for exactly fifteen seconds as he eats the food and then in placed on the ground before he feels the need to struggle to gain freedom.
This is repeated five times in each session with two sessions per day. Arnie-S learns that being on the lap for 15 seconds is pleasurable. 28

29. Step 2
The time of patting is progressively increased, in increments, to thirty seconds.
If this is successful, progressive desensitisation has been used to weaken the ‘need to leave the lap’ behaviour. 29

30. Step 3
Now, Arnie-S is picked up for a cuddle but no food being given until 15 seconds of calmness has elapsed.
The food is then presented to reward this achievement but patting is continued for a further 15 seconds as he eats the food treat.
He is then placed on the ground before he struggles.
This is repeated regularly. 30

31. Step 4
When he has learnt this pattern, the food is presented later (say at 30 seconds) and the patting is extended for a longer time (say to 45 seconds).
The time to presentation of food and the following patting after the food is extended progressively. 31

32. The Result
Progressive desensitisation has been used to create acceptance of lap-cuddling then ..
Progressive approximation has been used to extend the time of cuddling 32

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37. BEST OF LUCK IN THE EXAMS!!!37