Clicker Train Your Cat

Clicker training your cat may sound like words that don’t go together, but you CAN train a cat. The most surprising part might be that it’s easier than you think! Let’s take a look at what clicker training is, how it works, and how you can train your cat.

What Is Clicker Training

In simplest terms, clicker training is when an animal performs a desired task, you click (make a sound with a clicker, clickable pen, your mouth, etc.) and reward.

In behavioral psychology, clicker training starts as classical conditioning, where the animal associates the click with a reward, and performs out of habit. It turns into operant conditioning when the animal completes a desired task to get a reward, performing that task intentionally.

How Does Clicker Training Work

In clicker training, an animal is given a cue, often (but not always) a verbal one like “sit.” When the animal performs the task, the click sound is made and the reward given immediately after. After a few times, most animals quickly learn that performing the desired action will result in a click and reward. Once the animals learns the task, you don’t always need to click and reward; your cat should eventually listen to your commands. However, you will want to click and reward sometimes to reinforce these lessons. The possibility of the reward then helps drive the behavior.

Tools for Clicker Training

1. A clicker. I highly recommend the ClikStik because it has an extendable wand that’s useful, but any clicker will do. If you don’t want to purchase anything, you can use a clickable pen or make a click sound with your mouth.
2. A reward. I use a variety of treats, with Temptations being the easiest for me to handle. For some cats Delectables or Churus lickable treats may work better (especially if they see it as a bigger reward), but you can use anything (including regular food) that your cat will go for. Dehydrated chicken or fish can work well here. If your cat isn’t food motivated, I recommend using affection as the reward.

To Start: Load the Clicker

The expression is loading the clicker, but what it means is you will click and offer a reward 3-4 times before asking your cat to perform a task. The idea here is to teach the cat that the reward follows the click.

Teach Your Cat

There are multiple methods to clicker train your cat or teach your cat to do the tricks and tasks I’m about to outline. I’ll provide examples, but feel free to explore other methods too.

In general, you can get your cat to do an action by luring them with a treat. You’ll use the treat to guide them. After doing this a number of times, you can just use your hand. Eventually, you should be able to just use a verbal command to get your cat to complete the task.

Targeting

Targeting is when you teach an animal to touch an object with part of their body. I find the easiest why to teach targeting is to:

1. Extend the wand on the ClikStik. If you don’t have the ClikStik, feel free to use your finger or another object.
2. Say “nose” (or “touch” or another word of your choosing).
3. When the cat touches their nose to the ball at the end of the wand, click and reward!

It’s really that simple. Most cats pick this up almost instantly. After they get the hang of it, you can start to move the target around and make things a little more challenging. If you have the ClikStik, you can experiment by making the wand different lengths.

Take a look at me targeting with a foster cat.

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Once your cat accomplishes targeting, the opportunities to teach other tricks or tasks really opens up.

Sit

This is probably the easiest command to teach! Watch Teach Your Cat to Sit with Clicker Training by Julie the Cat Teacher to see a video of how it works.

1. Put a treat above your cats head.
2. Once the cat sits, click and reward.
3. Eventually, just hold your hand above the cat and say, “Sit.”
4. One the cat sits, click and reward.

Look at You

Easy method. This method should work with most cats since they so frequently look at us when we speak.

1. Say, “Look at me” or something similar.
2. When your cat looks at you, click and reward.

Harder method. This method is commonly used with dogs, but can be used with cats if the easier method isn’t effective. I recommend using dry or dehydrated treats for this and keeping them in a pouch attached to you or a pocket or bag.

1. Hold a treat at your nose.
2. Say, “Look at me.”
3. When cat looks, click and reward.
4. After your cat seems to get this, don’t hold the treat, but hold your finger in front of your nose and say, “Look at me.”
5. When cat looks, click and reward. Make sure you’re pulling the treat from your body and not giving the cat the reward from the direction of your face. You want to make sure you’re training the cat to look at you and not look at the reward.
6. Once your cat gets the hang of this, stop using your hand and just use the verbal command “Look at me,” click and reward.

Look Away

Clicker training a cat to look away from something is particularly helpful because cats tend to fixate before getting upset (like staring at another cat).

This also works better with a dried or dehydrated treat.

1. Put a treat in your hand and close your fist around it.
2. Tell the cat to “look away.”
3. When they look away from your hand (this might take a little time), click and reward.
4. Once your cat learns, you can start to just use your closed fist (no treat), or even try holding an object.

Go to Place & Stay

Decide what “place” you want your cat to go to. Some helpful spots are a cat tower, cat bed, or chair. It’s useful to clicker train your cat to go to a place if your cat gets overstimulated, aggressive, or upset around certain situations. For example, you can preemptively tell the cat to “go to bed” and they will go to their bed instead of swatting at the dog who is getting on their nerves.

It will be easier if you use dry or dehydrated treats.

To see this in action, check out this video Cat Tricks: Clicker Train Your Cat to Go to Their Bed, or a Mat.

1. Lure the cat to the place by holding a treat over it and saying the command that you want to associate with it (ex. go to bed, go to mat, etc.).
2. Once the cat puts at least one paw on the place, click and reward.
3. Toss a treat to reset the cat (we need to get them off the “place” to train them to go to it again).
4. Repeat this process.
5. Once you think your cat gets it, teach your cat to stay at the place. While your cat is at the place, say, “Stay,” and click and reward.
6. Start to walk around, say, “Stay,” and click and reward the cat for staying at the place.
7. This will take some time, so be patient.

High Five

I LOVE this video Teach Your Cat to High Five with Clicker Training by Julie the Cat Teacher, so I’m going to include her sticky note trick in the steps below. Although I taught my cats to high five with just using a treat as a lure, I think the sticky note method is fabulous.

1. Get a sticky note and a dry treat.
2. Show your cat the sticky note and treat.
3. Place the treat down and put the sticky note over it.
4. When your cat touches the sticky note with their paw, click, pull the sticky note away, and let your cat eat the treat.
5. After a few times, place the sticky note on the palm of your hand, hold your hand up, and say a command (I use “paw” but you can say, “Gimmie five” – it doesn’t matter).
6. When the cat taps the sticky note with their paw, click and reward.
7. Once the cat catches on, start folding the sticky note to make it smaller and repeat. Continue to make it smaller each time until you can fade out the sticky note completely.

What fun things have you taught your cat? Please leave a comment and tell me about them!