Neither positive reinforcement nor punishment, there is an “intermediate space” between the two in dog/cat training

Neither positive reinforcement nor punishment, there is an "intermediate space" between the two in dog/cat training

The mantra for so many years has been that the only way to train your dog or cat is through positive reinforcement. This is reward-based. The concept of punishment to get a dog or cat to do what you want them to do has been quite rightly outlawed. It doesn’t work. It just makes …

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Do cats apologise to their owners when they’ve done something wrong?

Do cats apologise?

A ‘veterinary expert’ in Miami, USA, Nuria Gómez Constanzo, believes that cats apologise to their caregivers when they’ve done something wrong. They understand they’ve done something wrong and then they try and make up by rubbing against their owners and being extra friendly towards them as their version of an apology. My conclusion at …

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Is it effective to tell-off your cat?

Bad boy reprimand to a cat won't work but makes this worse

Some cat and dog owners think that they can can tell-off their companion animal to correct so-called “bad behaviour”. People are thinking in the same way they think when they tell-off their child. Humans understand what a telling-off means. Parents can explain to children why they’re being given a good telling-off with the objective …

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Infographic on cat punishment versus divine intervention

Infographic on cat training - divine intervention versus punishment

I am not going to add many more words other than those in the infographic as I believe it explains the difference well. A problem is that people can understandably relate to their cat companion as a little human and family member because that is what they are for many cat caregivers. Or they …

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Do you sometimes yell at your cat or dog?

Never shout or yell at your cat or dog

If you have sometimes yelled at your cat or dog I wouldn’t blame you. Perhaps you are very stressed. It is very easy to be stressed nowadays. The world is very stressful! There’s all kinds of things which stress people including, in the UK, scammers. The UK is drowning in scammers. Scammers on the …

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Someone asked: why does my cat sulk when I scold him?

Anxious cat because of shouting

I’d like to discuss the question, “Why does my cat sulk when I scold him?” I think that the question is full of misconceptions and is wrong in many ways. Firstly, in my experience cats don’t sulk. To sulk is to be silent, morose and bad-tempered out of annoyance or disappointment. It’s the kind …

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Should I rub my cat’s nose in his pee?

Cat pee under black light

You should not rob your cat’s nose in his pee no matter what he has done to urinate inappropriately. They won’t have a clue what is going on except that it is a bad and frightening experience. The same applies to pooping inappropriately and the same applies to dogs in both cases. The rule …

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