As you know, I can do some tricks. The humans who I met at BlogPaws got to see me do them in person! Cat tricks are not really all that hard. I bet a lot of you kitties out there could get your human to do them with you. And the best part is you get treats, just by giving your human some very specific paw or body signals. Pretty awesome, isn’t it?
All your human needs to start working with you on this is patience and some treats. A clicker is optional — I learned without one. And your human should also trim your claws before you start practicing. You will see why once we get started.
I’m going to show you the four basics because they are all sort of related: Sit Up, High Five, Shake and Stay. Learning one led to the others, and I still practice them several times a week.
Sit Up
Every cat that has ever come to live here, beginning with the cat before Sparkle, has learned how to do this trick. Except this one — she knew what my human wanted her to do, but she just refused. That means, if you do the math, 85% of cats my human has worked with do this trick. It is part of our breakfast ritual — we all have to sit up for a bit of food before my human gives us our bowls. My human simply holds up a treat or some food the way you see here (she is using a fork with a chunk of food to make it easier for her to photograph).
While we were learning it, my human held up the food or treat just out of our reach until we sat up, and when we did, she said, “Sit up!” and then gave us the treat. Eventually, we learned that when my human said, “Sit up,” if we did, we got something tasty. My human doesn’t even have to look at me anymore. If I am sitting there, waiting for breakfast, she can just say, “Sit up,” and I will do it. It is just a matter of repetition. When your human thinks you have learned to Sit Up, she can try saying it before holding out the treat to see if you will do it. If you don’t, that just means you need to keep practicing.
High Five
Some cats are naturals when it comes to High Fives. Here is how you figure that out: take a particularly tasty treat and hold it a little higher and farther away than you normally would for doing a Sit Up.
If it’s a good treat, your cat will stand up, trying to reach it. If it is not a good treat, then why are you using it? Go get some freeze-dried chicken or something else super good!
If a cat tries to grab the food or treat like I am here, it will be very easy to get her to learn how to do high fives! This is also why it is a good idea for you kitties to have your claws trimmed before practicing this — you don’t want to snag your humans’ skin with your claw. That will discourage them from working with you.
Once you humans get your cat to reach for a treat, all you need to do is hold the treat in one hand and give your cat’s outreached paw a high five with the other hand, and at the same time say, “High five!” Then give her the treat. It’s that simple.
Just keep doing that a few times a day, several times a week, and eventually it will stick.
Shake
High Fives and Shakes are totally related. Instead of giving your cat a high five, say, “Shake,” and lightly hold her paw instead — emphasis on lightly. You don’t want your cat to think you are being grabby and graspy. You can teach your cat to do both High Five and Shake but make sure she knows one really well before going onto the other one, or she will get confused. Chances are she will be a little puzzled when you start the new trick anyhow, but that’s when the patience thing needs to kick in.
When your cat is used to doing Shake, then you can grasp her paw a little more firmly, like a real handshake.
Stay
Stay is actually a very good trick for a kitty to know! It helps us focus. I confess, I get a little ADHD sometimes, but when my human tells me to Stay, and I know there’s a treat at the end of staying, I will sit down and stay put. For some reason, most kitties understand that pointing the way my human is in the photo above means to sit down. If your cat needs help with this, just point at her when she is sitting still, say, “Stay,” and give her a treat. Eventually make her sit longer before giving her the treat. Soon she will relate “Stay” with sitting patiently (or like with me, semi-patiently) and waiting for a treat.
Staying is a good thing to practice between other tricks. It may take a while, but eventually a cat will learn to stay still while you are digging through the treat bag for another treat. That is a good test to see how well she is catching on.
So there are my cat tricks! I hope you and your human have learned some new things to try. Remember to make each session fun and brief. My human and I only spend about 10 minutes, sometimes less, to practice my tricks. She uses them for when we are out places to tell if I’m comfortable. Even if I am a little nervous, she knows that if I will still do a trick for her, that I’m okay, and if I won’t, then maybe I’m too uncomfortable and we should leave.
The best part about cat tricks? Not only is it a fun game to play with your human, we kitties are always the ones in control! Your human always should follow your lead and practice tricks with you that you naturally gravitate towards. I know it has strengthened my relationship with my human. Maybe it will do the same with yours.
See all of Summer’s merch at her Designercat Shop, available on Zazzle.
Mommy and I only have a couple of tricks. Before she feeds me I am required to sit, stay. And if I want to say something to Mommy, I gently paw her–usually this is an alert for her, as I can tell when her glucose level is low, but it can also mean, here I am, you need to calm down and pet me.
Nice tutorial, Summer. Rufus the Red and Mickey Mouser both shake paws very nicely, but we haven’t tried any other tricks. It really helps if your cat is food driven! We’ll be trying to extend our repertoire, thanks.
What a great post, Summer! These tips are super. Oh, Mommy LOVED seeing you do your tricks at BlogPaws.
Great tricks, my Chewy does the high 5 when I use wand toy, and he definitely stands up high as a toddler when I’m chopping something in the kitchen 😀 😀
We sit up fer treats, stand high fer wand toys, get up on lap when called, and answer when spoken to. What we CANT do is be around lots of strangers.
Those are such good tricks, Summer! Moosey used to do shake, and Angel Graphite, too. Thanks for showing us all how to learn those other tricks. 🙂
great trick tips, Summer! our mom has taught some of us here a few and she has to use a target stick cause we go a bit crazy if the treats are out and visible 😀 the stay or at least four-on-the-floor is what our mom used for sharpie so she could get through fixing his meals without him jumping on the counter into the middle of it all!
we haven’t practiced in a while so hopefully this will get our mom to play trick games with us again 🙂
pip, smidgen, minnie, hollie
You must get a ton of treats during a 10 minute session! TW used to shake with a couple of the cats that came before me. I admit we weren’t even shaking and I just put my claw through her finger.
These photos made me smile and for that I thank you
I tried this with one (of our 5) cats and she gave me the finger and laughed in my face as she walked away from me.
Very impressive, Summer!
Very impressive, Summer. I have been known to do the sit up trick. The mom may try teaching me some of the other ones. ~Ernie
TKS will do anything for treats and chicken. So she might go for doing the tricks. But not me, nope, no way no how.
I know you mentioned “sit up” but what about “sit” from a standing position? We have done that with some of the Wayside kitties, too!
Mudpie and I do “Sit Up”! I don’t even have to use a treat…I hold a couple fingers above her head and she stands up to reach them!
This sounds lot of fun!!!!!!
Thanks for the tips on the tricks! I will definitely try this out with my kitties.
Summer, you are very co-operative! We cats here spend our time training the humans . . . we don’t have time to be trained ourselves ;D
the critters in the cottage xo
Great advice on how to train our humans to give us treats!
Very cook tricks!!! But we love the photos of you even more – the way the the perspective is kind of skewed – it makes your head look HUGE and your body look teeny!!
I have never thought of training my cats, they are usually too busy training me. 🙂 I am going to try a high five and see how that goes. I want to know what became of the gorgeous calico from the post back in 2004.
She was adopted by one of the other meditation class students, and I hear she promptly took over the woman’s apartment! The humans have lost touch with them, but I’m sure she’s still around and in charge – she would be about 13 now.
Summer, you were a young kitten when you started learning tricks. Can older cats learn them as well? How old is too old to start? Can you high five with either paw? That’s what it looks like. Thanks for the lessons. XOCK, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo
I bet Crockett would be a natural at high fives.
Really good Summer!! But….I have always done all of that naturally without being taught (wink), I am an extremely tactile kitty who uses his paws like “hands”, always have! Love, Cody
Those are awesome tricks, or as our angel brother Seth used to say, “Whatever makes ’em happy,” meaning our Mom. Angel Seth used to give high fives and roll over just for pets. Our Mom hasn’t been able to get any of us to do either of those things but we’ll admit we can Stay pretty well when we want to. Well, some of us will Stay.
Very interesting. I’m sure after reading this our inept humans will try to use this. Goodluck to them.
Great tips!
Have a wonderful weekend…
Noodle and crew
Thanks for the tips. Your very good at them.
Hmmm. I don’t think so. ~Bear Cat
ps – We enjoyed the pictures of Summer though!
How about “roll onto your back, trying to look cute?”
Kitty cats look so cute, when they tilt their heads or bat their paws around, for some reason!
You’re a fast learner and your mom is a good trainer. I’m not interested in food so there’s no incentive for me to listen to my human and do tricks.
You did all of that with great precision, well done Summer!
Summer you are so smart, thanks for all those training tips!
Mindy & Mike
You taught your human well pretty Summer, we are impressed!
if it means more treats, theo is willing to try anything. unfortunately he knows i’m pretty untrainable.
You are very patient to work with your hoomin so closely. And just think – SHE thinks she’s training YOU. ha ha meeowww!!!
Great ideas Summer. You are so right about us kitties doing only what we want, and treats sure do sweeten the deal. MOL. You make these seem so easy. Our humom is ready to begin. She keeps lots of treats in the pantry too. Thanks for sharing all these helpful tips with us. Purrs
BTW, does Binga perform too? MOL
I had enough problems training a dog, I’m definitely not trying to train a cat!
Wow, we can use that to get more treats! That’s good stuff fur you to use at the nursing home too.
Aww, those are awesome treats and you look so cute doing them!
You are so talented, Summer!
Genji was really amazed to learn how petite you are. He always thought he was the littlest guy around!
Purrs,
The Chans
Those a great tips, and it’s very interesting to see in which order one trick leads to another. Purrs
The head peep says thanks for the tips. Newton could totally learn these, and she thinks he could use a little training!
You have given us a purrrrfect demonstration! Mom says instead of HER training me, I’ve trained HER. If I scream she comes – if I hop up on her lap, she brushes me – if I go to the pantry she feeds me. I’m really very good at training!
Love, Sammy
Those are great tips for training a cat. Mum likes them.
We like the idea of treats. We would like to train our mum 😉
MOL!
Purrs Georgia and Julie,
Treasure and JJ