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CATS |
By Learnzat.com Cat owners often claim that cats are too intelligent to do the kinds of tricks that dogs do. Some believe cats are not that intelligent at all because it's harder to train them to do tricks. Co-operation of a cat with a human is limited unless the cat feels that it is beneficial to perform a task. The key is to find a way to motivate a cat to perform tricks on command. When training a cat you need to figure out that motivation. Usually this means food, or at least conditioning it to think there is the reward of food at the end of the training session. Even then, cats are not motivated by food in the same way as dogs - if obtaining the food reward is too much hard work, cats many times will move on and go in search of easier "prey". When teaching cats tricks, the most effective method is one that animal trainers call "shaping". This technique is also used with wild animals. You have to break down the process into small incremental steps, where each step is easily mastered. Because cats are easily de-motivated, the training session must be set up so the cat has very high odds of doing the right thing. To start with, you look for something a cat does naturally and which can be shaped into the desired behavior. Every time new steps are introduced, the cat must determine whether to do the additional step and get the reward or stick to the old routine and miss out on a reward. If you keep the steps small and the shift is gradual, the cat won't to get frustrated or make too many wrong choices. Once the cat has learned a trick, he must learn that he won't get a reward every time. Eventually he will only get an occasional reward, but intermittently rewarded behaviors are better retained than taking the rewards away all together. This way the cat develops a general rule of "do this trick and I might get a reward" and he keeps on performing, rather than thinking the rules of the game have suddenly changed in which case he will not want to participate any more. |
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