Be careful what you train for

Some time ago, I read a magazine article about a family who adopted a cat. The cat fit easily into the family's life - except for one problem. She scratched the sofa.

 Holes appeared almost immediately, but the family, unfamiliar with a cat's need to strop her claws, didn't know what to do.

 Finally, the husband announced, "I know exactly how to train her."

 As soon as the cat jumped on the sofa and began scratching, he picked her up and gently threw her outside. "There," he said. "She won't scratch the sofa again."

 I'm not sure if throwing a cat around is going to train her to do what you want. In my experience, you have to be careful how you train any animal - cats, dogs, even birds.

 Wan-Wan, my poodle pup, has learned, for example, not to eat any catfood that ends up on the floor. She's figured out, though, that it's okay to gulp it down, as long as I don't see her do it. I thought I'd trained her properly, but there it is.

 My neighbour across the soi has unknowingly trained the wild birds, mainly pigeons, to drop by every morning when he puts rice out for them.

 Unfortunately, he feeds them about the time that Thep, my orange soi cat, has learned that I get up. He waits patiently by the gate until I let him in for breakfast.

 One day, the man calls me over. "No one likes this cat," he complains. "He makes all the dogs bark. He's always disturbing people when he's up on the roof, and it's very ugly when he waits by your gate."

 In embarrassment, I try to tell the other neighbours that I'm sorry. Thep wanders where he wishes.

 They all say that he's not bothering anyone. Besides, he catches cockroaches and chases the rats away. Everyone, it seems, appreciates him, except that one man, who only likes birds.

 "They fly away," he explains.

 One evening, I see the man's wife outside my house swinging a long stick at my roof.

 "What's happening?" I ask.

 "The cat's sitting on your roof. I just want him to move away so that the dogs won't see him and bark. I didn't hit him," she says.

I don't think a big stick is a good training instrument and ask her to tell me the next time there's a problem. I can call Thep into my patio.

 Thep himself seems to have figured out that people (mainly that one man) don't want him on the roof. Now he walks the soi, stopping at every gate where a dog lives. He loves the sound of barking, I think.

 As for that cat scratching furniture, she indeed learned a lesson. For the rest of her life, she continued to scratch the sofa every time she wanted to go outside.