Moved (sorta)

Well the cats and I are in the new place all though I haven't really finished moving out of the old one yet. The cats have settled in fairly well, though there are lots of places for them to hide for now.

Orrick has a bladder infection and is on anti-biotics. I am not his favorite person since I am capturing him twice a day to shot medicine down his throat.

On the plus side I finally found a food that I can reinforce Danu with. Spray cheese. So I just finished her first targeting session. I used a verbal sound as a marker instead of a click or even the clicker plus sounds. I didn't really want to change the clicker plus settings unless I knew it was going to work. She was touching the end of the spoon no matter where I held it, but she wasn't ready to take a step first. Hopefully she this will work as reinforcement at least until I find a quick and easy method of delivering babyfood.

Kitty Zen and Eye Contact

Well we started on kitty zen. I was using the raw food from the tube which probably wasn't the best thing to use since they could get some food off my fingers from licking, but it didn't seem to hurt the training too badly. I worked Set first on kitty zen. I need to keep training records when I train but by the end of the session Set was staying off my hand and I had worked him up three seconds. Then we went on to eye contact. None of my dogs have ever had a problem with eye contact. Set has looked in my eyes before, but not as intently as the dogs. I started clicking any glance even toward my eyes. By the time I was done he was offering eye contact everytime I looked at him.

Orrick I basically just worked on Kitty Zen. My timing was better, but he was more interested in the little bit he could lick off of my fingers. He was staying off my hand when I offered maybe 60% of the time. He decided he was done. Sometimes training can be streesful so I let him walk off so he could assimilate. When I let Set back in to the room and he went back to offering eye contact everytime I looked at him.

Danu just wasn't interested in the food. She climbed in to my lap for attention, she has learned to walk up to me and stare and purr for attention. Now if I could just get that channeled in to a real training session.

Evil Kitties Strike Again!

My cats fried my hard drive. Yep, I cleared the area behind the desk out so I could stack boxes up there leaving the power bar the computer is plugged in to exposed, ran out for just a minute while the computer was running and when I came home the cats had bounced off the button on the power bar while my computer was running and now it no longer sees my hard drive.

I suppose there is a slight possibility that the cats aren't to blame, but they were chasing each other from the top of the china cabinet and down around the boxes. But don't think for one moment I think it was an accident. I am sure this is another step in there nefarious plans for wolrd domination.

Kitty Zen

Time to work on kitty zen.  Danu won't really work for cheese which is a little strange since she usually loves cheese.  So I switched to chicken baby food and was quickly surrounded by cats.  Orrick was getting the idea of waiting then getting to eat, but he isn't big on patience and we will need to work on duration.  

I also bought some frozen rolled cat food, similar to the natural balance rolls at the health food store, Orrick chewed through the wrapper so it should be high enough value to be used as a reinforcer.  So on to Kitty Zen.

Mean Kitty Song

I got such a kick out of this.  Talk about life with a bengal.  I am going to try and embed the video, but I have never done that before so here is the you tube page.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qit3ALTelOo

Clicker Plus

Okay, I love the Clicker Plus. I bought it a few years ago because I have three dogs, but I never used it all that often. I either separated the dogs for training or I put one on a down and worked the other. Then I would toss treats to the one holding his down. However for the cats it worked perfectly. The clicker plus for those of you who don't know is a battery operated clicker that you can purchase from clickertraining.com. There are four sounds at two volumes, ping, trill, chirp and click. I chose the softer ping for Orrick and the softer chirp for Set. I started targeting with Orrick in a room full of cats and nobody else paid any attention. Eventually Set realized that there was food and came over. The clicker plus also has a button on the side where you can quickly switch between two sounds. So I could do a rep with Orrick then a rep with Set. I will end up having to seperate them to do shaping work or to work on more complex behaviors, but for behaviors that require a prop or are lured I can work them together no problem.

Danu still didn't seem interested in the food, I will give it a few more days and then charge the clicker with chicken babyfood. I may end up trying to use babyfood instead of cheese, the cheese takes them too long to eat. The problem with that is with the dogs I just put the babyfood out of reach. There is no out of reach with these guys. I swear I could put it on Mars and they would find a way to get to it, or to make me get it for them.

Targeting

Okay I think I did some trageting in the past using the clicker. If I click I have every animal in the house come running and surround me. I started with Set without the clicker in an attempt to keep from having to hide in the bathroom to get any training done. I used mozzerella cheese as the reinforcer and Set picked up that he needed to touch my finger with his nose to get cheese. In fact he caught on more quickly than my GSD mix did. Orrick joined us however while he was responding and getting his treats he didn't have a light bulb moment. I probably should have just moved to the bathroom, but I ended up with another cat, and two dogs hoovering around us. I let the other kitty join in and occasionally would toss treats to the dogs, but I really miss the clicker. I am going to try to run to the store and get batteries for my clicker plus so I can use other sounds that won't bring the crowd.

This morning I tried to work with Danu on targeting. She ususually loves cheese but wouldn't eat her treat. I switched to the cat dancer my all time favorite cat toy, but I had a hard time keeping her attention on me and not the toy in between reps. I think the clicker would have helped here since it would have been a clear signal for "Yes, now you can play!" If she doesn't start responding to the food I may get some baby food and charge the clicker before I go back to using the toy. I had no problem with Orrick and the toy, but I had a clicker and he knew what the click meant.

I'm trying to pack so I can get moved in the next month, but I have a plan. I'm going to yse R+ on myself. I will clean and pack for an hour and then have a 5 minute training session, then pack for an hour and train. So with any luck I will be able to keep this updated.

Why Train Cats?

Every cat I have ever been around that was allowed to go outside preferred to go outside. It is believed that cats need to be outside to live a full and truly healthy life. While I tend to agree that most cats don't get enough stimulation I won't let my cats outside for safety reasons. So I felt I needed to find ways to keep them mentally and physically stimulated. They have been trained to do preform some behaviors, like getting up high when I walk in the door so I don't step on them and (occasionally) sitting for food.

What I really want to so is use the clicker to start shaping behaviors, a great way to make the cats think. And also maybe train some brain heavy behaviors like object or scent discrimination.

We will see how it goes.