It amazed me that a cat could be trained to do this

[NJCher]

My husband just returned from three weeks in Italy and told me this story.

He was walking on a street, kind of near what we'd call a town green, where he saw a cat sitting on a box. It was a black cat and since we have a little black cat and he missed her terribly, he went over to the box to talk and possibly pet the cat. He had seen others stop by the cat and put something in a box next to the cat.

What he found next to the cat, however, was quite a surprise. There was a sign that said, "Feed me, I'm hungry." There was a box with coins next to the cat, who looked well fed.

Fascinated, my husband backed off to watch. As people would walk by, the cat would give the person a pitiful look and say, "M'row?" The cat would only "m'row" when it was one person. If there were numbers of people, the cat would just give them a look.

He had business so he had to leave but on the way back, he stood at a distance to once again observe this fascinating display. What he saw this time, however, really took him by surprise. A man came over and collected the coins and disappeared back into a doorway. Soon more people came along and the cat resumed with the "M'row" but this time the cat would look over toward the doorway where the man was. The expression, my husband said, was like, "How am I doin'?"

It amazed us both that a cat would do this and not become bored or run off. I know my cat would sit there about one minute. Obviously there's something in it for the cat and the cat knows it.


Cher

[bubblesby2002]

1. I really like that story

Movie animal trainers can do amazing things with cats, why not everyone else. I think it just takes time and patience.

[NJCher]

3. what cracked my husband up

...was how fast the cat's expression changed. From "pitiful me" to "hey, how am I doin'?"


Cher

[Beaker]

2. maybe the cat was attatched to the box...

liquid nails has lots of uses.

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. What's amazing is what the cat did if people DIDN"T donate . . . .

.
.

[Lorien]

5. Maybe clicker training at work?

In fact, I was just clicker training my 4 month old kitten some basics like "Come", "Jump up" and "get down". My older kitten knows "high five" and "gimme ten" as well-but I'm sure that if I had more time for it, they could learn some real tricks (the book I have describes teaching "stay", "speak" and cat agility training, believe it or not)!

www.clickertraining.com

[NJCher]

6. jen, thanks for that link!

Wow, I'm fascinated. Going to give it a try.


Cher

[Lorien]

7. Just a hint

if you have more than one cat that you want to train, get a different sort of clicker for each cat. I use one traditional clicker for the older kitten, and a small microchip squeek toy for the younger.

Good luck!

(just had to post this image-too funny!)