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eftychia at 04:15am on 2004-01-08Saying, "Mouse! Mouse!" is not very effective, especially if Perrine has her face in her food dish. Saying, "Perrine! Here! Look over here!" is sometimes effective, but never quite fast enough. (Assuming she's in the room, that is. If she's elsewhere in the house, "Perrine! Vien ici!" takes way too long, and she expects cuddles or a treat when she arrives, not hunting instructions -- I have to work on that.)
On the other hand, picking her up and holding her facing the oven when I open it so that she immediately sees the mice inside as they scatter, that works. She didn't catch them, but she immediately jumped down to check out the area, then stationed herself where she could see them if they came out, and directed all of her attention thataway, ears twitching at each tiny sound, and stayed there for half an hour.
I absolutely must teach her the word "mouse". Once she knows what I mean, she knows her job; I just need to make it easier to tell her.
Training cats
Ex: I taught Hobbes to shake hands. Simple enough process.
Phase 1)
Say "Shake". Pick up his paw and shake it. Scratch him where his skin is very dry. Do NOT pet him at all until he lets you shake his paw.
Phase 2)
Say "Shake", offer hand. Again do not pet him until he gives paw. Say "No" in a firm but clearly corrective tone of voice when he tries to get petted. When he does offer paw, scratch him where it's dry saying "Good Boy" or other phrase in tone he recognizes as positive.
Phase 3)
Go nuts trying to STOP the cat from pawing at you whenever he decides it is time to pet him.
Once in a while I can get Hobbes violently shaking toy mice with his mouth on the command "Kill". It's just too adorable.
Eventually I want to teach him "Go Bite him" means "He has food for you".
kitties
I never had a cat that I trained until now, and I don't really feel comfortable taking credit for that. The cat trained the dog and then watched him develop. Then the cat discovered that sitting up and begging got him fed first. He began to paw me for attention, politely, and I still stand fondly amazed when I pull out the filled food scoop and the cat will give me a "high five" similar to the Japanese prosperity kitty. I don't have a method down as clearly as you.
I've always just kind of lived with cats. What Glenn's doing with Perrine is wonderful. Though that alpha bitch kitty did tend to go astride my shoulders through the woods and I wondered who was winning what sort of contest. I think she was training me to accommodate her wishes. She was small, like Perrine, and knew a clear mark when she smelt it. She was an offspring of the trash downstairs from me (Oh,wow, urgh. Tap shoes and clogging needed.) who didn't control their cat and whose kitten got a fractured pelvis somewhere and I had the great good fortune to run into. She never went into heat, took over everyone, kept smacking the other cats and the dog...
This should be a reminiscence on its own. I really couldn't take her with me to the new household I was going to, (2 extant cats with attitudes) but she had the run of Mom's garage, and probably found another good mark from there. I hope.
Re: Training cats
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She is actually very smart and has a rather large vocabulary of words she appears to understand. Naturally she knows her name and her nicknames and the word no. But she also knows birdies, dinner, yummies (meaning treats), come, belly belly (means roll over and give me your belly to scratch), nip (meaning catnip), feather, rings (meaning those little foam disks that get shot from a toy gun, boy she love chasing rings), spot (meaning the sunspot that reflects off my watch that she chases on the wall), grass (you say grass and she goes nuts and murrups at you until you give her some, we don't say "the G word" unless we are prepared to give her some, grass is good for cats digestion and we buy pet grass for them at the local pet store in the winter), and she even knows a few phrases like "not kitty toy" and "not kitty space" but with the phrases it may just be the tone of ones voice when you say them.
I think with enough reinforcement cats can learn all kinds of stuff.
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I taught Amber to deal with insects for me on the phrase "Crunchy! Tasty!", but that may be too long for a good command. :-)
There should be a simpler way to keep mice out of your stove, though...
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Clicker Training
I suggest capturing a mouse in the garbage can (I have some traps that don't harm mice - I think I bought them at Wal-Mart or something).
Will she kill and eat the mouse, though?
Ashley (who is purring on my lap at the moment) rips their heads off and stashes them in my clothes or in little pockets of luggage and backpacks. It's nearly impossible to get the stench out (since I discover them days later).