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General Pet is your source for advice and information for a happy and healthy pet.
Author: James Cave
While cats may put up a front that they are wild, independent creatures, the truth is, with a little nurture and training, they can easily become well-trained, mannerly members of the family.
Naturally, the most important part of domesticating your cat is the toilet training process. The most common process here is training your cat to use a litter tray.
This is probably the easiest of all the toilet training processes. Cats take to a litter tray as a natural instinct encourages them to bury their debris.
An alternative to this is to encourage the cat to do its business outside. A cat flap is usually essential for this method to work, particularly at night and it can take a considerable amount of training before you start to see results.
Another toilet training method to consider is training the cat to actually use the toilet like a human. It may not be the traditional method but for many pet owners it is a cleaner and more hygienic approach to toilet training your cat.
An additional area of domestic training that most cat owners need to consider is making sure your cat doesn't scratch and bite the furniture. To begin with it is a good idea to 'catproof' the house. In the same way as you would prepare your house for the arrival of a new baby, it is a good idea to do it before you get a new cat. After that it is simply a matter of teaching your cat not to scratch and jump on the furniture within the house.
Scratching is by far the most significant problem cat owners face and one of the easiest to solve. Firstly, it is important to realise that cats, even household cats are hardwired to sharpen their claws on hard wooden objects.
Punishing your cat every time it scratches a piece of furniture won't undo millions of years of evolutionary hardwiring. Instead it is far easier to build a scratching post and encourage your cat to sharpen its claws there.
Once you have the scratching post, it is then worthwhile punishing the cat every time it decides to put its claw into a piece of household furniture. Using similar psychology, it is worthwhile rewarding your cat every time it uses the scratching post rather than the furniture.
While there are plenty of other things to consider before getting a cat like pet insurance and whether or not to get that cat neutered. Toilet training and protecting the furniture are two of the biggest problems cat owners face. If undertaken early, especially while the cat is young, these two problems can be solved relatively quickly.
Before deciding to get a cat, it is always worth making sure you are ready to undergo the amount of training and preparation needed to train the moggy to become a mannerly household member.
James Cave is a dedicated Cat lover and writes for a digital marketing agency. This article is not intended as either advice or as a promotion but should be considered professional content.
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