A Michael Broad Blog
The question comes from Quora. It is a disturbing but fiercely honest question as the person who asked it has admitted to the world their error (but they remained anonymous in terms of their name). And it is a grave error as what they did has clearly damaged the relationship. I hate to say …
There are different views on this and some websites actively recommend it as a cat trainig method. Apparently in a proportion of US homes there are spray bottles in every room! These are, in effect, water pistols used to squirt water at domestic cats who are on surfaces which are forbidden by the owner. …
For me this is stupid, unhelpful and mindlessly commercial. It is actually cruel. It is actually bloody awful to look at to be perfectly honest. He is a mean looking man, isn’t he? He does not look very nice and his behaviour is inline with his appearance. His behavior achieves nothing except for a …
This is a snippet of advice from Jackson Galaxy. I’ve never tried it because I’ve never had cause to but I am sympathetic towards people who may on occasions become frustrated with their cat’s behaviour. Cat behaviour is never bad in an absolute sense but it can irritate people sometimes. Perhaps he or she …
I have always been passionately against punishment as a means of training a cat. I thought I’d look up what Jackson Galaxy thinks about cat punishment. He discusses it in his book Total Cat Mojo. Supporters of punishing a domestic cat would argue that it is a way of altering cat behaviour for the …
This is silly. Cat ‘owners’ should never squirt water on their cat to make them move away from an area which the person considers out of bounds. As the video shows it does not always work but it may work in another way: weaken the friendship between person and their cat companion. It is …
By Ruth How often do we hear someone say: ‘If I have to be reborn on this earth I hope I come back as a cat’ (domestic cat). Well, to me that’s the daftest wish of all to make, because cats are the most vulnerable, misunderstood and mistreated animals of all. Too many people …
The difference between punishing a cat and negative reinforcement, both of which should be avoided, is that the former requires the cat to be able to measure his/her behaviour against norms as decided by humans which is something that is beyond them while the later is simply associating a certain behaviour with something painful …
