The art of training through cooperation
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Can animals really understand the meaning of 'No!'?
A lady I’ve just met tells me that she’s taught all 11 of her cats what “No!” means - and they obey too.
How envious I feel. My cat-herd knows when I tell them “No!”, but they don't seem to understand that “No!” means “Stop doing what you’re doing immediately!” When they hear the word, they smile at me and carry on with what they’re doing.
I’d like to say that I’ve been more effective teaching “No!” to my dog, but I’d be lying. Wan-Wan, my poodle pup, reacts almost the same way as the cats do, with a smile before continuing what I don’t want her to do.
House-training has always been a problem. Dog rescuers tell me that many stray dogs don’t need to be house-trained. Their mothers have already taught their kids not to dirty where they sleep or eat.
Experts say that poodles are amongst the easiest of the breeds to train, but somehow the experts have never encountered a dog living with cats.
When I began house-training Wan, I laid newspapers down on the floor. In a few days, she began to understand that she should do her business on the newspapers. Slowly, I moved the newspapers towards the door.
How pleased I was when the clever pup caught on. In one more week, I estimated, she would be eliminating outside, on the patio.
Then one of the cats decided that newspapers didn’t belong on the floor inside. Whenever Wan urinated on one, the cat would growl and then jump on the paper, crumple it up and toss it against the wall.
The result was one confused dog, who forgot completely what I was trying to teach her.
Gradually, the dog has trained me. She urinates by the door, but inside. If I put down a flat nappie, the kind some people use for adult humans with urinary problems, the dog happily uses those, as long as they’re clean.
To my surprise, a reader asks me how to train a cat to use the litter box. Generally, even kittens instinctively head for containers of soft or grainy sand.
You do need to show any new cat where the litter tray is. If the cat is a bit slow, you might try leaving some of the faeces in the tray.
I did have problems with Angel when she first joined us. She had lived most of her first six months on the soi, using whatever patch of sand she could find. In my house, with no sand patches, she decided to eliminate outside, under the turtle tubs.
After a few days, though, she saw the other cats climbing into the litter trays, and from them, she learned what to do.
From my animals, I’ve learned that I am not alone when I’m trying to train one. If the animals consider the lesson important, they’ll help out. If the lesson is confusing, they’ll train me.
“No!” isn’t in their vocabulary, but “cooperative education” is.
