It all started with a simple goal: teach my cat, T-lo, to put her front paws on my shoulder for a “selfie” to complete her novice trick title. I had a plan, a target, and a willing (if occasionally chatty) feline partner. But what began as a straightforward trick training project quickly veered off-course, leading me down a rabbit hole of behavioural science that had very little to do with the selfie and everything to do with me.
The journey taught me a valuable lesson in animal training: sometimes, the most important learning isn’t happening in your animal. It’s happening in you.
Early on, an interesting pattern emerged. No matter how I set up the session, T-lo would often default to one specific behavior: she would walk over, plant herself in front of me, and sit politely, waiting for information.
Of course the truth is, she was doing exactly what I’d taught her to do. Over nearly a decade of fun but sporadic training sessions, I had heavily relied on prompts, lures, and targets. I had inadvertently built a powerful reinforcement history for “sit and wait for Dad to tell you what to do.”
I tried changing my position, moving the session to a new location – to no avail. This was a heavily reinforced behavior. Her behavior revealed the truth: the cue wasn’t an object or a place. It was me. My very presence was the cue for the behavior I was trying to avoid.
That realisation was a turning point. The problem wasn’t T-lo and my challenge wasn’t to “fix” her behavior, but to understand and change my own.
This is where the selfie trick was officially put on the back burner. My new, far more fascinating project became about communication and clarity. If my presence cued “sit and wait,” how could I create a new, cleaner cue for “paws up” that was more powerful and obvious than the entire environmental setup?
My goal shifted from getting a trick to creating clean cues. This forced me to look in the mirror and become a much more deliberate trainer.
Teaching an Incompatible Behavior: First, I had to give her something better to do than sit in front of me. I introduced a yellow footstool as a “home base” station. I started heavily reinforcing her for simply waiting on the stool.
Untangling My Own Cues: Next, I had to dissect my own movements. My hands were giving her a lot of information so, I ran an experiment: I trained with my hands completely hidden behind my back. The moment I saw her peek behind me, as if looking for them, I knew I was on to something. I had to consciously remove my own unintentional cues from the picture.
Practicing My Part: With the stage set, I began a transfer: New Cue (“Paw Paw”) -> Micro-Pause -> Old Cue (My Turn). I have to laugh at myself watching the early footage. My first attempts at the verbal cue were so flat and dull, a product of a tired brain. But I realised consistency was more important than tone. I had to practice my own timing and mechanics to create a predictable sequence for T-lo, ensuring there was a clear separation between the verbal cue and the physical movement it would eventually replace.
We are still refining it and my training became not about the selfie behaviour at all but about the incredible fun process of untangling a communication puzzle together. T-lo’s persistent “sit and wait” behavior, the very thing that felt like an obstacle, became the catalyst for my own growth. It forced me to be a better observer, to be more precise in my movements, and to recognise that every single thing I do in a training session is information for my animal.
I started this journey trying to teach my cat a trick. In the end, T-lo taught me how to be a better trainer. And that’s a lesson no trick title can ever match.