The BBC has a piece on its website that purports to be about training cats, but in fact discusses nothing of the sort. It’s a two minute package which focuses mainly on cats being “mugged” with a brush as a pretense at grooming, and a discussion of trimming their claws (not declawing). Training strategies and techniques aren’t mentioned once.

I had thought that the piece would talk about operant conditioning and how you can use it, in the form of clicker training, to train pretty much any animal capable of learning. Instead, there are stupid questions about “Are you trying to turn cats into dogs?”, and some slightly odd ailuropolitical (see below) questions about whether cats should be kept inside or not.

If you really want to train a cat, you’re better of learning about clicker training, and understanding what rewards cats are interested in. (Unlike dogs, food treats don’t always cut it!) There are loads of videos on YouTube about cat clicker training, but here’s just one example:

Now, ok, I just made up the word “ailuropolitical”, from the Greek “ailouros”, meaning “cat” and “political”, derived from the Greek “polis”, meaning “state or city”. I’ve noticed that there really is a political aspect to certain discussions around cats in both the US and UK. For many, the way we treat cats is underpinned by a certain set of beliefs which are not based on either the reality of the world we live in, nor the biological and psychological needs of cats. Instead, they are based on quasi-philosophical notions of what cats should be, and the emotional reactions of people who are attracted to species often the target of cat predation.

I’ve heard people talk about, or sometimes just insinuate that, it’s wrong to train cats because it takes away their dignity. Cats have been worshiped for centuries, and modern worship tends to manifest itself in things like excessive treat giving. The idea that cats have the kind of dignity that can be damaged by teaching them to come to their name, sit on command or submit to grooming is, in my opinion, just another aspect of modern worship. It’s a philosophical stance that declares that cats are “free spirits” that “cannot be tamed” and should not be “shackled” – training is therefore an insult to the worshipper’s concept of freedom and independence. Perhaps people who think this way are living vicariously through their cat, enjoying freedoms they think denied them via their pet, and thus training is an indirect insult to them personally.

Then there’s the discussion about whether or not cats should be kept indoors or outdoors. This one is, in my opinion, very politically charged, and there are several different facets.

In the US, there is a movement that campaigns for more cats to be kept indoors. The American Bird Conservancy started the Cats Indoors! Campaign, and the main thrust of the argument seems to be that cats are non-native predators playing havoc with the small bird, mammal, reptile and amphibian populations. There are definite anti-cat undertones in the way I’ve seen this campaign discussed, with lots of posters urging people to keep their cats indoors, but with very little real advice for cat owners who want to do so.

Much of the rhetoric is familiar to me from my teens, when our nextdoor neighbour would rant about our cats, accusing them of “murdering” all the small birds in the neighbourhood. And it does get very political – with photos of cats eating birds, a lot of mentions about “educating” cat owners and links to “cat control ordinances”. If you wanted to be divisive, you could pick no better way to go about it.

I have no doubt that cats do catch and kill many small creatures that would otherwise go on to lead a full and happy life. Any ecosystem that has non-native predators introduced into it is going to suffer, but the anti-cat undertones will do little to make cat owners act to curtail their pet’s outdoors activities.

The US Humane Society’s view seems to be that cats should be kept indoors for their own safety. According to them, outdoors cats only live three years, a claim I’d like to see evidence for before I give it any credence at all. But whilst it is true that cats outdoors do face risks, such as being hit by traffic or attacks by other animals (cats, badgers, dogs in the UK, and anything from snakes to coyotes to eagles in the US), the indoors cat also faces risks. Obesity and diabetes are both serious problems for indoors cats. And as far as I can tell, the HSUS gives no solid advice on how to keep an indoors cat healthy, and however well-intentioned it is, it fails the very cats it’s trying to protect by not addressing the problems caused by indoors living.

I am very much in favour of indoors cats if, and only if, they are able to live in the right environment: one that is stimulating, provides sufficient exercise, and where they can engage in natural behaviours. This means thinking more about the cat’s surroundings than simply figuring out how to make sure they don’t escape.

At the end of the day, advice given to cat owners should be based on a sound understanding of cat biology and psychology, not on humans’ personal foibles, philosophies and prejudices.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 22nd, 2009 at 9:26 pm and is filed under cats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.