Teaching Scar to Sit
Introduction
For this assignment, I have decided to train Scar the cat to sit. Scar is a three-year-old neutered female. Her owner lives in a shared house with three housemates. She is the flat pet and both an indoor and outdoor cat. Scar is extremely social, active and attention-seeking. She cannot sit still or stay. During the day, she is usually left alone and is the only pet in the house so gets little socialisation. Her owner admits he probably doesn’t give her the amount of attention she needs. The sit command would get her to; be calm, stay when needed and is an alternative to jumping and meowing when she wants something. The training could offer some much-needed enrichment, socialisation and be a short-term cure for boredom.
She has had …show more content…
Variable reinforcement can be more effective than continuous reinforcement when using secondary reinforcers (Willson, Stratton, Bolwell, Stafford, 2017) The secondary reinforcers I used were the word sit and a hand gesture. In future training, I would create a more definite plan of how I will vary the reward frequency to increase the retention of the ability.
Scar was unsuccessful in associating the word “sit” with the action. This could be because some research has found female cats are often unresponsive to auditory training cues (Willson, Stratton, Bolwell, Stafford, 2017).
When Scar was distracted I was frustrated and considered using other methods such as pushing her into sitting and forcing her to stay in the room. This could cause a negative association and she may be less motivated if trapped. It was difficult only using positive reinforcement. Harmless negative reinforcement delivered at the correct time can be useful in training cats as they are not pack animals but solitary so they do not have a drive to please owners (McCutcheon,
Introduction
For this assignment, I have decided to train Scar the cat to sit. Scar is a three-year-old neutered female. Her owner lives in a shared house with three housemates. She is the flat pet and both an indoor and outdoor cat. Scar is extremely social, active and attention-seeking. She cannot sit still or stay. During the day, she is usually left alone and is the only pet in the house so gets little socialisation. Her owner admits he probably doesn’t give her the amount of attention she needs. The sit command would get her to; be calm, stay when needed and is an alternative to jumping and meowing when she wants something. The training could offer some much-needed enrichment, socialisation and be a short-term cure for boredom.
She has had …show more content…
Variable reinforcement can be more effective than continuous reinforcement when using secondary reinforcers (Willson, Stratton, Bolwell, Stafford, 2017) The secondary reinforcers I used were the word sit and a hand gesture. In future training, I would create a more definite plan of how I will vary the reward frequency to increase the retention of the ability.
Scar was unsuccessful in associating the word “sit” with the action. This could be because some research has found female cats are often unresponsive to auditory training cues (Willson, Stratton, Bolwell, Stafford, 2017).
When Scar was distracted I was frustrated and considered using other methods such as pushing her into sitting and forcing her to stay in the room. This could cause a negative association and she may be less motivated if trapped. It was difficult only using positive reinforcement. Harmless negative reinforcement delivered at the correct time can be useful in training cats as they are not pack animals but solitary so they do not have a drive to please owners (McCutcheon,