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SmartyKat Instincts Cat Training & Behavior
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- Health & Wellbeing
How to train a stubborn 10-year-old cat when old methods fail?
Hello and thanks for using Boop by Petco! It may be helpful for you to provide more details as to what behavior you're trying to correct in Sabbath. As you have found out spraying with water and tapping or hitting never work. These punishments can actually make things worse and are not recommended. Positive reinforcement and consistency are key in any training. A Feliway diffuser may help you as well. Again, depending on the behavioral problem there may be different solutions so more details are helpful in Sabbath's case. If you are running into problems a consultation with your veterinarian or even a boarded veterinary behaviorist will help. They can even discuss behavioral medications if necessary.
Updated on November 25th, 2025
- Health & Wellbeing
What are the safest cat treats for training and increasing activity?
It's great that you want to work on some training with Boomer! Most cats really enjoy this - and despite what people often say, they're very trainable if you're patient and have tasty rewards :) There are lots of good options available for training treats. Personally, I like Temptations, Blue Wilderness, and Zukes brand soft treats for training. You can also use tiny dollops of canned food as a training reward, if he prefers this.
Updated on November 25th, 2025
- Health & Wellbeing
Best books to understand cat behavior and help my cat adjust?
"Think Like a Cat" by Pam Johnson-Bennett is a great book on cat behavior; this author also has a couple of other books ("Catwise" and "Cat Vs. Cat") which are also great. "The Trainable Cat" by John Bradshaw and Sarah Ellis is another good resource, with lots of specific info on teaching your cat to do things in a positive way. I hope that helps a bit! :)
Updated on November 25th, 2025
- Food & Nutrition
How to stop my kitten from jumping on me with claws and stealing food?
Training cats is complicated. You can certainly look into books about cat behavior or even about cat training but they are not wired like dogs. Regarding the rough play behavior, sometimes this behavior can be related to boredom, anxiety or a desire to play roughly. There are a few things you can do which may help. Try enriching his environment. Here is a great article about cat's instinctual needs: https://www.petcoach.co/article/why-every-cat-needs-a-place-to-climb/ Use a Feliway diffuser, set aside 30 minutes a day for vigorous play and really make sure to get Andromeda running. During the play time, if she seems like he wants to play rough, try to encourage her to wrestle with a stuffed animal. You may also try feeding her from a food puzzle and/or hiding food around the house for him to find. Most cats response best to combination therapy. The veterinarian can also prescribe medications which can help with behavior. The climbing behavior will generally stop and when she does th
Updated on November 25th, 2025
- Health & Wellbeing
How to stop my cat from misbehaving, eating food, and ripping trash?
Uh-oh, naughty Cassie! This is tricky. In general, when we're trying to shape our pets' behavior, of course we want to reward behaviors we like and either ignore, punish, or redirect behaviors we don't like. We want our pets to learn that "good" behavior gets rewarded, and "bad" behavior does not. The tricky part here is that Cassie has started misbehaving - but every time she succeeds in stealing food, or playing with something she shouldn't, if it's a good experience for her, she is essentially "rewarding" herself. We need to stop her ability to reward herself - and I'll be honest with you, it's challenging! My advise is that Cassie not be unsupervised around *anything* that she might get into, until these behaviors stop. This is easier said than done! But, again, every time she does these behaviors and has a great time doing them, she is solidifying the behavior. We cannot punish animals after the fact - we have to respond to them in that moment or they do not make the asso
Updated on November 25th, 2025
