Train a Kitten for Playing

The key to training kittens is to ensure that whatever you want your pet to do is pleasurable and rewarding. If they misbehave and you don’t want them doing certain things, then you need to ensure that they are never rewarded, and that there is no fun associated with it.

It is also important to note that to try and reprimand your cat while training them will simply not work.

If your cat misbehaves he will continue to do it when you are not around. If you punish the cat later, he will not make the connection between the crime and the reprimand. Some cats will act up just to get attention. So what do you do?

Aggressive behaviours can be common within kittens alongside a whole variety of other behaviours. It is very natural for your kitten to try and hone their exploratory, predatory and instinctive behaviours. All of these important skills are vital for survival in the wild.

Kittens learn to bite from the mother and offspring. If you take a kitten from their mother to soon, it can have adverse effects of rough playing. The kitten does not have time to spend with the family to learn rough playing with out the hurting.

Do not let the kitten play with your hand or feet, as this will allow the behaviour to be a positive behaviour. You will need to teach your kitten that this type of behaviour is not acceptable.

Train your kitten with the correct behaviours for rough play. Have toys that will intrigue the kitten to play with, pull toys, put a small stuff toy on a string, and pull the toy. Allow the kitten to pounce, bite, or chase the toy. Allow the cat to rough play with a larger toy; this will help to stimulate the aggression behaviour that is natural in a kitten.

You will want to set up daily sessions, with the kitten a day for this type of activity. This is let the kitten know that this is ok to do, with the toys or items that you have let them play with. This only gives a cat the signal that it is ok for the cat to use the object for rough play.

When your kitten is playing rough and does use an object to play rough, play with you will want to say “NO” in a stern voice. Do not yell or scream at the kitten, as they really do not understand you and sure do not at this time understand the word meaning. Say no, the kitten’s name, and the behaviour he is doing. “NO tabby, you can not play rough with my hand.”

If this does not work, you can try using the spray bottle method to distract the attention from the rough play of the object. Cats do not like the spray in the face and will turn from what they are doing, you might have to repeat yourself for a few times, but tabby will get the hint soon. Try not to spray the fur or coat as this will mat the fur, and when grooming comes, it will not be a great experience for your or your kitten.

If you want the cat not to claw or sit on furniture or articles, you should put uncomfortable things on them so the cat does not feel the comfort to sit or claw on them.

Such things as a net, should be placed over the couch for discomfort. When the cat starts to claw, they will get their claws snagged and they do not like that. Therefore, the cat will learn that it is not a comfort zone for them to be sitting or lying on.

When the kitten is playing correctly you will want to have small treats, bite size as a reward for the kitten, this will assure the kitten that when doing good rough playing is done that some things special is coming. Once you see that behaviour for this is under control at this time you can decrease the treat until you are not to do that. You can use this special one when you want to just to let the kitten know they are doing a great job.

Never tap hit or flick your kitten for rough play, this will not work your kitten will fear you and or that this is great rough play and try to continue. In addition, never harm your cat or kitten for any reason.