Do you ever hear people talking about how cats are untrainable? You can usually tell if that person is a dog or cat person based on what follows. Either they say because they aren’t smart enough to learn, unlike dogs, or they will say that cat’s are way too smart and have too much self respect to do tricks. I fall squarely into the crazy cat lady category. So much so, that for my inquiry project I am going to try and train my cats to do tricks! I was inspired my psychology in the classroom lecture when we talked about the behaviouralists and Pavlov. I want to use behaviouralist principles to teach my cats tricks. There is something called the clicker method that a lot of people have had real success with. I will be following the guidelines set out in this method and be connecting with the vast community of cat lovers on the interest to help me out when I get stuck. I think this inquiry is going relate really well to my learning as a prospective teacher. I will have to work out a plan, be able to stick with it but modify if things go sideways, not get frustrated when my students aren’t getting it and be able to assess successes. I am really looking forward to see if my notoriously lazy, but also very scared of loud noises cats take to this method!
Here are my students:
Brother and sister feral turned domestic Todd (black) and Suze (tabby)!
