Expert: Brandy - 2/21/2007

Question
I just adopted my first cat,she is a calico. I was wondering
how hard is it to teach a cat to do tricks? Thank you for any help you can give.

Answer
Thats a toughie. It can be easy, or hard. It also depends on what you want to teach your cat, how old is she, is she shy?

Human baby food of the meat variety (turkey, chicken) will work wonders to get the cat to sit up politely, and with a lot of patience, you can slowly add other tricks like speaking on cue. Even with my cats, though, it seems that I can only get them to do the Sit Up Nicely trick. Cats can be easily bored, and unlike dogs which will do tricks to please you, a cat will do a trick, well, perhaps just because.

Still, it's a great way to bond with a cat, and your calico could be the one that can do several commands.

I'm not an Internet junkie, but I believe that there is pretty much nothing that can be found on the Internet. I'm sure someone's written a book on how to train cats to do tricks, or some websites that give ideas.

It's worth a try. Good luck and have fun!