People think that cats can’t be trained. They’re wrong. Through careful coaxing and iron patience, I have drilled my cats to stop taking bites out of my mashed potato. They no longer wake me up at the crack of dawn by leaping on to my face. And thanks to my persistence, they are regular, enthusiastic users of the cat flap. Particularly at night when it’s locked and they bash their paws against it like amateur feline bongoists.
But this is where my cat-training prowess plateaued – I couldn’t manage to take things to the next level. I did buy a tedious 700-page book that promised feats such as teaching your moggy to sit. I tried random websites’ impressive-sounding tutorials on high-fiving, vaulting and convincing cats to happily don a harness and be walked like a dog. But, invariably, my cats would stray from the plan and I’d be left scouring 800 words of text for a solution. What did my efforts actually teach them? That there’s no better time to steal snacks than when your confuddled owner is staring at his or her phone or into a book. So I gave up.
Until today. Now, I am armed with the teachings of School for Cats – a series of TikTok videos, each one around 20 seconds long, making it easy to refer to while training my two beloved feline companions. There’s Mochi, a three-year-old tabby and highly strung madam. Also Poirot, an elaborately moustachioed and insanely rambunctious five-month-old kitten. They’ll be taught separately, though, because – to put it mildly – they are not the best of friends, and it’s difficult to conjure up an informative educational atmosphere in the middle of a fist fight.
Day one of training starts well as a super-keen Poirot turns up wearing an elegant tuxedo (which, admittedly, he always does thanks to his black and white fur pattern). But I quickly learn that some of these skills might well be beyond my cats. I’d thought that “lay down” would be the ideal trick to teach a pair of cats that border on narcoleptic. However, when I try gently pushing Mochi into a lying position, she stares balefully at me – her sad, wide eyes dripping with betrayal. Poirot thinks we’re roughhousing, so uses my hand as a scratching post.
Another trick, known as “paw” or “shake”, involves getting your cat to give you a high-five by offering them a treat. However, Poirot just ends up biting my fingers until I drop the treat in pain. I move on to the tutorial “over”, in which a compliant cat jumps over an owner’s foot. Mochi, being the contrary moggy that she is, instead learns how to slide under my leg.
However, when I find the right trick, I am genuinely astonished by the results. The 360-degree turn that is “spin” is a hit with both of my cats. Not only do they quickly comprehend that they’re meant to follow a treat around in a circle but, after a couple of sessions, they even start following my empty hand in the hope of being rewarded afterwards. Which is the first time I have ever managed to get my cats to do anything without food-based bribery. I mean, if I’m honest, it’s also one of the few times I’ve managed to make them respond to instructions with anything other than a sarcastic narrowing of the eyes. So it’s a double win.
What’s more, the training for a trick called “sit pretty” genuinely becomes one of Poirot’s favourite things in the world. Apparently, standing up on his hind legs to reach for a treat is the absolute pinnacle of exciting playtime for a kitten. Hours after one training session, my wife inadvertently points at Poirot during conversation, causing him to leap four feet into the air on to her finger. So successful it is, I’m tempted to rename the trick “fly, my pretty”, or “rocket launch”, or “TAKE COVER! INCOMING CAT!”
I’m chuffed. Initially, because the training exercises are a lot of fun. They’re simple to follow, easy to refer to during training and perfect for a creature that has a five-second attention span. Plus, they suit the cats.
But, eventually, I come to appreciate them for something I hadn’t anticipated. They’ve had lovely consequences for my relationship with my pets. It was fairly predictable that Poirot would take to it, given that he’s an excitable, pliable kitten. But Mochi’s response has been a revelation. She has spent the past two hours sitting next to me on the sofa, just watching me operate a Word document. She’s even begun hopping on to my lap for a snooze – something unheard of since the honeymoon period of her moving in with us. If I’d known that teaching her to spin in circles would make her this content, I’d have done it months ago.
Frankly, there’s only one small disappointment in this whole process. No matter how much I scroll, there is one thing I can’t find. Seemingly, School for Cats has no lessons on how to stop your pets playing your cat flap like a bongo.
Explore the world of TikTok and discover the joy of learning new things in shorter bursts. What will you #LearnOnTikTok?
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