2 ms·

>He just doesn’t know how to connect your negative reinforcement with his behavior. I don't know. The one time I got seriously mad at Yoshi (my cat) was when h

by pilif 12y ago

>He just doesn’t know how to connect your negative reinforcement with his behavior. I don't know. The one time I got seriously mad at Yoshi (my cat) was when he bit through an ethernet cable. That was the one single time I've actually squirted water at him and threw him out of my appartment. Since then neither my ethernet cables nor my iPhone USB cables got bitten through any more (he also knows that chewing on iphone cables and headphones is a very good way to get attention). There's a lot of stuff I let slide with him (maybe too much - I love him to bits), but he really seems to respect the fact that chewing on cables is a total no-go (also: bloody dangerous - some carry current)

tfinniga 12y ago
Yeah, that bit of the article was not very good. Several paragraphs to say "Your cat can't figure out negative reinforcement - their brains just can't handle it! Change the environment instead." Then right next to that, it's all "You should give your cat positive reinforcement, that totally works!" Not that it's bad advice to have positive reinforcement come from you and negative reinforcement come from the environment, but the explanation is poor.
erroneousfunk 12y ago
Yeah, I also have a 1.5 year old cat who is great at not getting on counters because we threw her (gently!) off of them so many times. In fact, if she gets up on anything she's not supposed to be on, you just have to stare at her and point at the floor, and she jumps off (we have lots of appropriate climbing places, but she hasn't yet figured out that there's a difference between "on the TV stand when it's off, and on the TV stand when we're watching it") The 6 month old Russian Blue? Not so much. I get the feeling that "negative reinforcement" doesn't apply to all cats all the time.
mercnet 12y ago
Cat's definitely do understand punishment for their behavior. My girlfriend's cat will scratch the couch and immediately start running away as he knows we are going to squirt him.

by pilif 12y ago

tfinniga 12y ago

Yeah, that bit of the article was not very good. Several paragraphs to say "Your cat can't figure out negative reinforcement - their brains just can't handle it! Change the environment instead." Then right next to that, it's all "You should give your cat positive reinforcement, that totally works!" Not that it's bad advice to have positive reinforcement come from you and negative reinforcement come from the environment, but the explanation is poor.

erroneousfunk 12y ago

Yeah, I also have a 1.5 year old cat who is great at not getting on counters because we threw her (gently!) off of them so many times. In fact, if she gets up on anything she's not supposed to be on, you just have to stare at her and point at the floor, and she jumps off (we have lots of appropriate climbing places, but she hasn't yet figured out that there's a difference between "on the TV stand when it's off, and on the TV stand when we're watching it") The 6 month old Russian Blue? Not so much. I get the feeling that "negative reinforcement" doesn't apply to all cats all the time.

mercnet 12y ago

Cat's definitely do understand punishment for their behavior. My girlfriend's cat will scratch the couch and immediately start running away as he knows we are going to squirt him.