What do you do when your cat won't listen to you?

If I call my cat at the same exact moment that I open her can of food, she will come. Other than that, it probably isn't going to happen. Punishment doesn't work for cats. Dogs can associate a punishment with their behavior. Cats just think that guy is mean to them. On the flip side though, cats can totally connect rewards with their behavior. If she meows in the middle of the night and you feed her to make her be quiet, she assumes that she should meow in the middle of the night every night and reap the rewards. You don't train your cat, your cat trains you.

My cat comes when she is called almost every time, unless she is asleep, my wife's cat will only come some of the times. I assume the question is geared towards if the cat is behaving in a manner you don't want them too. If they don't know it is a bad behavior I hold them firmly on the ground make them look at me and say their name and tell them no in a stern voice. Through practice they now know that when I use my stern voice and say no they are doing something bad.

Sometimes I feel that cats think they are superior to humans. They have this look when you call them and they just look at you without moving at all and they have this look when they want something but as soon as you give it to them they change to a look that says "i've manipulated humans again!" But despite this I love cats so much because when they love you they ate also expressive. My cat would always sleep on my lap and would rub himself against me when he wanted to be carried.

When do cats ever listen? Haha, I pretty much just work around mine, we which do our own thing, and it works out most of the time. I've have heard about people using a spray bottle with water to squirt at the cats to stop them doing whatever it is they're doing, that you don't want them to. I don't know how successful that would be though.

(02-20-2013 02:02 PM)wolfpacklovin Wrote:  My cats never listen, but my trick to get them to stop doing something is the good ole' coins in the can trick. They HATE that and it's awesome because I throw the can and they have no idea it's me. They think it's some crazy, unknown object making a loud noise so after a few times they avoid the behavior they were doing because they figure out a connection to the loud, annoying can.

We have an air compressor in our garage which will periodically kick on, and it's incredibly loud. It scares the crap out of my cats whenever it turns on, and they literally jump like several feet in the air when it happens. It's hysterical to see.

That is a good idea with the coins in the can, never though of trying that. We were using water guns, but those *really* make my cats angry.

My cat does listen. She's very sensitive. She responds to her name only. She actually picked it, herself! I think most animals do. I very rarely have to discipline her. She responds to be nice, have respect or a firm clap.

One thing we've discovered completely terrifies our cats is when we have new people come over. They will take off and hide if someone comes over to visit. I never realized this because we seldom have anyone else over. They also get scared if we go stomping towards them (which we do when they are fighting or doing something bad). They will take off and hide in the corner behind our TV or under one of our beds.