My Observation Of Belly Cats

I’ve got some crazy hungry cats. They crave wet food. Any time they hear the sound of the can being opened they immediately run to the kitchen, start to whine, and jump on the counter where they know it is going to be prepared. If they can’t hear the sound, it’s the smell that grabs their attention, but they usually keep an ear open for it, as it is the most exciting part of their day. Their meows and rubs against my leg seem to be their way of telling me to hurry up, as if that would speed up my ability to deliver this disgusting smelling dessert to them. This was all closely examined as I tried to classically condition my cats. One day, I found an object that would play a strange, non-food related sound: a toy bird. Every time I decided to give my cats wet food, I played the sound that the bird made for them right before opening the can. Initially, they thought nothing of the chirping and only started for the kitchen when they heard the ting of the can opening. As I consistently did it everyday before opening the can, I started seeing the cats begin to meow like they normally would to the can, but to the toy bird. I have used the bird multiple times to bring the cats to my location (if they ever went somewhere we didn’t want them and refused to come …show more content…
This is a learning process that can be found in both humans and animals. There are three types of learning, including associative learning, which occurs when an organism makes a connection between two events. Within associative learning, there is classical conditioning, which occurs when an organism learns the association between two stimuli. Classically conditioned organisms are able to anticipate events they have been trained to expect as a result of other occurrences. Specifically, classical conditioning is the learning process in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an innately meaningful stimulus and acquires the capacity to elicit a similar