I was thinking about my amazing cat and wanted to share with you some of the ways I’ve come to realize that Alladin may not be nice, but holy heck, is he freakishly smart!
- Alladin knows when he has the leash on, he can go outside. No leash, no outside.
- He will play fetch.
- He (mostly) knows the difference between the toy box and the knitting bag, even though they are right next to each other.
- He knows tricks: come, sit, lie down, stand up, and give kisses– all on command.
- He has spontaneously fetched my slippers. First one, then the other.
- He knows not to sharpen his claws on leather furniture.
- He knows, without training, that a growled “Lie down on the foot of the bed” in the middle of the night means to get off my head and go lay at the foot of the bed. And he does so.
- Thanks to well-meaning advice to “swat him on the nose– it’s how mama cats teach them,” he can dodge an incoming swat and riposte with a claw and/or bite.
- He knows when we’re getting ready to move the RV, and hides in his cat carrier.
- He knows roughly when the sun rises and will awaken us for breakfast. Sadly, he does not know how to make coffee, or we would be much more willing to get up at his definition of “morning.”
- He knows when I’ve gone outside to spin on my wheel without him, and will sit at the door and cry, even though John is still inside. He could care less if John goes out without him, though.
I am rather proud of Alladin, I guess. He’s been extra smooshy lately, curling up in John’s lap and just hanging out on us whenever he feels like it.
How old is he? How long did it take to teach him these things? I have two that are 6 months old and I am working on teaching them things. They know if I hiss at them then they are doing something naughty and they come when they are called, but that is it so far.
Alladin is 4 years old now. We started training him when he was about a year old. Before that, he was still a little young to really “get it,” though if I’d started him when he was 6 months old, I’m sure he would be a lot better at “fetch” by now (he used to spontaneously play fetch for hours when he was a kitten). It took 10 minutes to teach him to come when called and to sit– no kidding. I used Cat Training in 10 Minutes by Miriam Fields-Babineau and Clicker Training for Cats by Karen Pryor. The Fields-Babineau book was definitely the most immediately applicable, but both books offered terrific advice and techniques for training a cat.