posted by fmoore on Dec 13
Kittens love to play and they appear to have boundless energy.
They are very inquisitive creatures and love to explore and giving them things to play with and look at will help to keep them occupied and out of trouble as much as possible.Kittens will go through various stages in the first weeks of their life, and they will learn about their surroundings and how to interact with other pets and people in the house, and more importantly how to interact with you.
Playing with your kitten will teach it a lot as it develops all the natural instincts from playing around to hunting.
You will find that after about six weeks the cat will begin stalking and hunting and often jump out from behind things to attack your leg as you walk by.
This is a natural instinct that needs to be developed for you to have a healthy happy cat.
If you find your kitten is jumping out and attacking you or others in the house it should not be reprimanded otherwise it will get confused about something that is only natural.
It won’t do you a lot of harm but it will do your kitten a lot of good to develop these instincts.
Naturally you will have to stop it from misbehaving, and that is something that it needs to learn as well as all its other natural instincts, but common sense will let you know what it should and shouldn’t be doing.
There are lots of different excellent toys available to keep young kittens happy for hours on end, but there is nothing better than the time that you spend to interact with your kitten and develop a relationship that will ensure you have a lot of fun for its entire lifetime.
Just like children, kittens will test the boundaries and if left unchecked you can have a cat that is very difficult to manage as it gets older.
posted by fmoore on Dec 10
Cats, like kids, can be a lot of trouble. That is part of the reason why we will them so much. However, there will be times when you will need to reprimand your cat to prevent bad habits.Expect it to take considerably longer than if you were teaching a dog but don’t believe for one minute that you can’t teach your cat to do what you ask it to do just as well.
The best way to train a cat is by letting it imitate you as though you were its mother. The first thing you need to do is get your cat to trust you. This is best done when your cat is a kitten as it may become more difficult to teach once it become older.
Shouting and growling at it, as I am sure you are aware, is not an effective approach in building this. Now, a way this can be done is by flicking a bit of water at your cat or by giving your cat a small fright by making a bit of noise when it does something wrong. Do not use your cat’s name when taking the above corrective measures. You do not want your cat to associate its name with something that might make it upset.
Cats love praise. Speak softly, encourage, and reward your cat when it does the right thing. By teaching your cat that it will get more from doing something that you want it to do, will ensure that it will be more inclined to obey you for its reward. This is the fastest way to get your cat to do what you want.
When you are training your cat, you must remain consistent at all times. Diligence and persistence are the only way to get the desired results from your cat. If there are other members in your family, they can help by always ensuring that the same commands that you give your cat are given by them as well. With the help of other people doing this you will have a better of training your cat that much faster.
We all know how cats have a mind of their own and are very independent animals. This only becomes more so as they age. Believe me, a trained cat is a much more fun to have over the years and is well worth the time and effort for you and your family to enjoy.