Tutorials
Welcome to
Cat School
Thank you for purchasing the Cat School Clicker Training Kit. Your purchase comes with complimentary access to 14-days of Cat School. Contact us to redeem your 14-day trial.
Below you will find tutorial videos for each lesson in the booklet that came with your kit.
Lesson 1: Ping Pong Kitty
Having your cat chase food and return to you is a foundation behaviour for training. Use this game as a warm-up; if you toss a treat away, and your cat returns to you for another, that’s a good sign they are ready for school.
Lesson 2: Teach Your Cat Their Name
When your cat is on their way back to you, call their name. By doing this, you will be pairing their name with the action of coming to you. As soon as your cat approaches, click and reward. Once your cat eagerly approaches you when you call their name, practice this game in new environments.
Lesson 3: Target Stick Training
A target stick is an excellent way to teach your cat new behaviours. Once we teach the cat to touch their nose to the ball end of the stick, we can use the tool to guide them virtually anywhere.
There are three methods of target stick training: Sniff & Snack, Pointer, and Treat Ball.
Lesson 4: Sit
There are two methods to train “Sit” – the Magnet Method and the Capture Method.
Once your cat is consistently repeating the behaviour, you can begin to add a signal – either verbal or with your hand. Hand signals are easier for cats to learn than verbal signals though.
Lesson 5: Parking Spot Training
Every cat needs a parking spot to improve their behaviour. This skill can be used to help with problem behaviors such as counter surfing, door dashing, and more. It is also helpful for training multiple cats at the same time.
Lesson 6: How to train two (or more) cats together
This tutorial provides the best practices for training two or more cats together.
Should you train your cats together? Yes! Training cats together is a source of learning and enrichment for both cats. Throughout the session, each cat can work on a skill AND observe the other cat(s) learn.
We wish you lots of success training ALL of your cats.
Lesson 7: Stay
Once your cat consistently goes to their mat and/or their chair for parking spot training, you can start working on stay training. You’ll want to practice with both a chair and a mat. This behaviour is especially useful for asking your cat to stay in their spot while you prepare their food.
Lesson 8: Carrier Training
Carrier training is an essential skill for car safety. We always recommend keeping your cat contained in a carrier when traveling in the car. This tutorial video outlines an alternative training method for training your cat to get in their backpack or carrier.
Remember to practice your carrier training as well as the other steps required to prepare for vet visits even when you aren’t actually going to the vet! That way your cat won’t associate their carrier with the vet.
Lesson 9: Fist Bump
For this lesson, you will need treats and a small, plastic container that your cat can’t fit their head into.
This tutorial video includes the training steps for teaching fist bump, high five, and low five.
Lesson 10: Down
When you are working on the mat and training “Stay,” chances are your cat will lie down. Click and capture that behaviour. Soon your cat will realize that they earn a click and a reward when they lie down on their mat.
Lesson 11: Spin
Target stick training is a prerequisite to “Spin,” so start there if you haven’t already. Then you can use your target stick to encourage your cat to go around an object, gradually working towards a tighter spin.
Lesson 12: Arm Hoop Jump
The arm hoop jump is a fun behavior to teach! You can use either a treat or the target stick to encourage your cat to jump over your arm.
Bonus: 30 target stick training skills
Looking for more ways to increase your cat’s activity with target stick training? Check out these 30 skills you can teach your cat, including jumping on and off, going around objects, leg weaves, and more!
Looking for more help?
Join Cat School, where you will find a training roadmap, video and written training tutorials, and direct access to Julie the Cat Teacher. With only 5 minutes a day, you can achieve all your cat training goals while getting help from an applied animal behaviorist and encouragement from a community of fellow cat lovers!
