Charlotte's Training Program

Charlotte is a very smart kitten.  Over the last few days I've come to realize that Charlotte has begun a training program.  There are certain behaviors we've repeatedly discouraged.  She has started doing them to get one of us to distract her by offering the toy-on-string-on-a-stick or the laser pointer. 

Her training program we going well until I started seeing the pattern and stopped responding as she wanted me to.  Now, we're watching for those behaviors (or similar patterns) so we can reward her when she is NOT doing them, or when she stops them.  The idea is for us to train her, not for her to train us.

In her case it means taking a few seconds to analyze what she's doing & what she wants to accomplish to make sure we only cooperate with training efforts we can live with.

One of her favorites has been to pluck at a plastic bag.  She loves the crinkly noise almost as much as the jingle bell noise.  The first time or two I would grab the laser toy to get her to stop.  Then she realized she could use it as a request.  Then it went a bit further.  Once I had the "ah ha moment", I decided to get it back on our terms, not hers. 

Living with a really smart kitten presents a different kind of challenge than living with a really smart dog.  The dog wants to please you, but needs stimulation.  The kitten (and eventually the cat) wants to please itself more than you, so the rewards and behaviors have to be much different.

So, we're training each other - it's an ever changing landscape ... stay tuned!