My Pet World: How to train a scared but friendly cat to let you pet it
Dear Cathy,
I am the mother of an adorable, almost grown, black kitten. While she is friendly, she won't let me pet her. Whenever I reach towards her, she dodges my hand. Someone might have hit her before I adopted her from an animal shelter. It doesn't help that my brown tabby chases her and is cross with her. How can I convince my little black cat that I only want to pet and love her?
— Marian, Lincoln, Nebraska
Dear Marian,
You can train her to accept your touch. Get a stick or wand long enough to reach her, but that keeps you at a distance so that she won't bolt. Tap the stick lightly on the floor or furniture around her. If she stays put, use a training clicker to mark the correct behavior and toss her a treat.
When you think she is ready, make sure she is looking at you before touching her with the stick. If she runs, return to touching the floor around her again. If she stays put when you touch her, click the clicker, and toss her a treat. Each day, scoot a little closer to her and keep clicking and rewarding every baby step until you can touch her without her running. This training could take days, weeks, or months. But if you are diligent, you can train your scared, but friendly feline to feel safe in her world.
Dear Cathy,
We rescued a basenji mix as a puppy who is now almost five years old. He is high energy and very smart but was hard to train. He has two weird habits.
First, he likes to carry his dry kibble from his bowl in the kitchen into another room to eat it. Second, after getting a bath and towel dried, he gets the zoomies, running around the house, rubbing against the sofa, and jumping on the recliner. It takes him about five minutes to calm down. Any thoughts on these behaviors?
— Mary Rose, Valley Stream, New York
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