Understanding The Behavior of Cats and Kittens

Cats are unique animals with different and sometimes mysterious ways of conducting themselves. Before attempting to train your cat or kitten, it can be helpful to first understand the behavior of cats. Most owners desire a well-behaved cat, one that will, for example, use the litter box instead of their comforter, closet or shoes. To achieve this, you must first know that cats learn by experience. If their experiences are good, they will attempt and seek to repeat them. If, on the other hand, an experience is unpleasant, they will make every possible effort to avoid repeating that experience in the future.

When training your cat, it's important to ensure that whatever it is that you want your cat to do is made rewarding and pleasurable. Similarly, those things that you don't want your cat to do must never be rewarded but should, instead, be made as unpleasant as possible. Sometimes we unintentionally reward our cats for bad behavior. For instance, many cats pounce on top of their owners early in the morning and make a big racket. Owners often wrongly react by getting up to feed the cat, to play with him or let him outside. Indirectly your cat has learned that such misbehavior will get him the rewards and/or attention that he is looking for.

More about cat behavior and training.