What does this mean to us? It means that dogs, who do have buttons, can be trained by anyone.
While cats need a relationship before they will listen to humans.
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We have buttons, too. These are instinctual responses to stimuli, and they are very useful for groups. When a herd of buffalo is menaced by wolves, they put all the calves in the center and form a united front against the wolf pack. When a straggler peels off from a herd, the whole wolf pack goes after the loner. When someone in a fireman’s uniform walks into a room and orders everyone out, everyone goes.
When a person has the right attitude, and conveys their wishes to a dog as a pack leader would, the dog takes their cues from the assumption of authority, and obeys. This is so instinctive to dogs that police and guard dogs must be trained not to listen to anyone but their trainer, lest someone with dog training experience circumvent them at their jobs.
While most dog training works on most dogs, cats have wide ranges of interaction styles and comfort levels. The tricks that work with a clever Alpha will send a gentle Gamma into heart failure. It’s an entirely different situation getting our Beta out from under the bed because they don’t want to go to the vet, and getting the same Beta out from under the same bed because they are afraid of firecrackers.
I can’t walk into someone’s house and get their cat to do much of anything. I have some expertise in showing cats I like them; I have often had a cat on my lap or at my feet within a short time.
But it’s because the cat wants to do that. All I’ve done is show that I am open to friendly overtures. It is up to them to make them.
This is why it’s unlikely we will see cat training shows on television or cat training classes down at the mall. It’s simply a different mindset. Imagine a group of people bringing in their cats for a session about Staying Off The Drapes. Imagine that actually working. Exactly.
This is also why cats fare so poorly in lab experiments designed to test their intelligence. It’s a fairly quick setup to convey to a dog that if they do something, they will get a treat.
Dogs are not about The Environment. Dogs are about The Task.
That is why they make such wonderful traveling companions. This is how they can be trained to perform jobs in all sorts of places, from guiding the blind through a place neither of them has ever been before to searching for the lost or injured in an area entirely new to them.
Cats are all about The Environment. They’re not even going to think about The Task until they have learned the new territory, feel comfortable in it, and have a good reason to listen to the human who is trying to communicate with them.
For a cat to do something a person asks them to do, they have to trust that person.
That’s why I can’t tell anyone what buttons to press to get their cat to do something or to stop doing something. All I can do is offer ways of increasing our communication, and boosting our trust levels, with each different person, and their different cats.
Then again, that is all I can do; because that’s how it’s done.
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There’s more ways to understand our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on WHY CATS DO THAT.
