Cats are lovely animals. They are so affectionate, and are often happy just to sleep on a person’s lap and be stroked. Some cats can be more aloof though, and the most they will allow is a little pat on the head before walking off to do their own thing. Other cats are like hell on earth. They scratch, run up and down your curtains, bite people, and ruin your furniture.
The first thing you need to do is to try to understand why they do the things that they do. Some cats behave the way they do purely out of boredom. Other cats behave badly due to transitional changes while they are going from being a kitten to being an adult. Sometimes, a cat’s bad behavior can be a sign of an impending or ongoing illness. Understanding this can help you to avoid worse problems in the future.
Once you have a bit of an understanding of the reasons for your cat’s behavior, you can start to work on changing things. Make a list of the cat’s bad behaviors, putting the worst behavior at the top. Then go through each bad behavior one at a time, to avoid overwhelming the cat with too many changes at once, which could lead to even worse behavior.
Cat training is largely about patience, and it’s important not to let frustration take a hold. If you shout at your cat, this will do nothing but upset the cat, which could create a whole new set of problems.
Make sure you don’t try to reprimand a cat the way you would a dog. Cats do not respond to this kind of thing well at all. Instead, you need to get to the actual root cause of why the cat is behaving the way they are, and then make the changes at that root level, rather than just getting angry at the cat.
