Meet our kitties, Stormy and Patchi. Stormy is the “big sister” that’s (usually) well behaved and loves to cuddle. Patchi also likes to cuddle—it just usually involves a helicopter-purr right next to your ear at 3 AM.
But really, we love both of our cats.
Recently, we decided to try an experiment. Maybe you’ve seen some of the “talking cat” videos online, where they have an array of buttons for the cat to push. Something like this one:
We didn't know if it would work, but I have trained cats to do tricks before, so we thought it would be fun to try at least. After doing plenty of research on how you can teach a cat to “talk”, we decided we wanted to give it a go.
There’s two parts to teaching your cat to "talk". One, you need to train them to associate specific buttons with specific outcomes (i.e. pushing the “door” button always means that the door opens). And two, you need to teach them the actual skill of pushing a button with paw target training.
When I was younger, I trained my family’s cats to do some simple tricks. One would sit on command (when bribed with a treat). Another would flop on her side and play dead (also, when bribed with a treat). I figured paw target training would be similar enough. And it was, though it had a lot more steps to guide the cats through and took a LONG time.
Now, after four months, Stormy officially knows how to push a practice button! Patchi is close. She knows how to smack 'em real good, though they don’t quite make a sound when she hits them yet. But she purrs her heart out the whole time 😹
Stormy was also a bit faster at understanding the button-reward connection. Within a month, she figured out that if she flopped down on the “pets” button, she’d get lots of attention from the humans. Pretty soon her morning routine involved shifting around on top of the button until the strange noises summoned a human to adore her.
As for Patchi… well, she’ll figure it out eventually.
Now we’re just waiting for the magic moment where the kitties (probably Stormy, at this rate) realize they can use their fancy button pushing trick to request “pets”, “play”, or “door”. Maybe we’ll have some “talking cats” soon. Or maybe not. Either way, it’s sure been a fun way to spend time with our furry friends.