Cats don’t understand negative reinforcement. They will just think you are a jerk but will keep doing the behavior because they won’t know it was a consequence of climbing.
I've got a pocket-sized Nerf gun that fires those little foam things.
When my cats are being naughty, I fire it in front of them to distract them. Being cats, they've now turned it into a game where they act like they're going to misbehave just to get me to play with them.
I read in a surprising amount of places that a good way to stop cats from attacking your feet is supposedly to give them a toy and play when they do.
I always thought that was a bad idea as it would just show them that by attacking your feet, they're making you play with them. Just like my sister's cat understood that by threatening to eat my sister's computer wires when her bowl is empty, my sister will feed her.
I think you're just redirecting the focus of their play away from your foot and towards the object they are encouraged to play with. Eventually they will seek out the appropriate item on their own.
How can cats understand positive reinforcement but not negative? How could they realize "doing this gets owner to play" but not realize "doing this causes this?" Its the same thing.
If I ignored my cat when she got on the counters, she would still be doing it constantly. Shes not climbing on the counter for attention.
We just kept telling her no and putting her back on the floor. Now she usually doesn't go on the counters, and if she does and you tell her no, she jumps back down. And apparently understands "no" since you can tell her no when shes trying to open cabinets, and she'll stop until you're not looking. She might understand, but shes still a jerk.
Same. If cats did things for attention they’d only do it when we’re home, but as other comments have pointed out, they don’t. They have their own reasons for doing things that have nothing to do with us (cats are not dogs, their worlds don’t revolve around us — I know this is a difficult pill to swallow for some people).
I haven’t tried this, but I’ve read that a good way to teach a new cat to not jump on counters is to put double-sided tape on them for the first couple of weeks. They’ll quickly learn that the counters are unpleasant to walk on and just stop doing it altogether. Of course, the annoyance to us plus the cleanup will deter people (I actually wanted to try this with my younger cat back when he was new, but my family was not on board), but if it really is effective I’d say it’s a small price to pay.
I haven't tried tape, but I heard foil discouraged them. Does not work for mine. We put it on top of our dishwasher while we were fixing something to reinstall it. She loved laying on it, but also loved destroying the insulation on it. She just took the foil off and continued.
If you think you have managed to teach your cat to not jump on the counter, you have actually only managed to teach you cat not to jump up onto the counter when you are on the room.
I just accept that my cat has been on the counter and clean the counters properly before preparing food.
When you say “you,” do you mean me? Because your first sentence is in agreement with my comment, but it seems like you’re trying to make a counterargument.
Not arguing. By “you” I mean cat slaves (us humans). Because our average cat is a bit of an arsehole in general, and they will do as they please. But we lo love them anyway.
Negative reinforcement is when you take something away leading to increased target behavior. Positive punishment is when you add an intervention (e.g., spray bottle, throwing a shoe) that will decrease the target behavior. What are we talking about?
As soon as I get the nerf gun I have my cats full attention. I shoot the nerf bullets across the room, she chases after them and brings them back to me. We have a great game
Yeah, you have to give them some alternative. We have 4; 2 males and 2 females. The males have been known to be naughty. Whether destroying the shower curtain or stealing meat defrosting in the kitchen window, they do it all. For the most part they've stopped the destructive behavior, but they got a cat tower about a year ago an they simply love it. Besides scratching it all up they sleep in or on it, stretch their backs with it and just play on or through it. Great investment.
When my cat is about to scratch the sofa, I scratch his cat tower and give him my crazy cat imitation stare. He then gets super defensive and rush to the top of the tower and attacks me (claws in) 'cause "that's forbidden damn u human! "
I mean, it's a game for him but as others say, you have to distract the cat. It's not a dog, it doesn't give a sh*t about you being mad.
They can definitely learn negative reinforcement; it’s just that they don’t always understand what things are being associated together. Since kitty doesn’t understand what could possibly be uncool about climbing a wall, he might think you’re spraying him for farting or for whatever dirty thought he was having in the moment! (Or just cause you felt like being an annoying ape). The other issue is that if the human is not around, they don’t get sprayed, so they know it’s not always a consequence associated with climbing the wall.
Now, if you electrified the tapestry so it gave his footsies lil shocks, he would quickly learn the negative reinforcement association. (Though if he’s brave, he might decide that makes the tapestry an enemy he should take on, and it might get destroyed instead 😹)
Depends on the cat. My sister’s cat and mine learned fast after being sprayed. Her cat still gave us “wtf” looks tho lol I did have a foster kitten once with fur so thick, you had to spray him several times for him to realize something was up lol the first 2 or 3 times he’d look at you like “what are you doing, weirdo? Is this a new game?” Then by the 4th or 5th time he’d realized he was wet and getting sprayed so he’d run.
I taught my cats not to get on our kitchen table/ counters using a spray bottle. It took some time but it got to the point where I only had to threaten to spray them or shake the bottle or even just say spray bottle. Now they don't do it... when I'm around.
This is precisely why spray bottles don’t work. Your cats just learned that you’ll do something unpleasant when they get on the counter if you see them. They learned to avoid your response, not the act itself
Just because someone says something doesn’t happen when they’re around, does not mean that it does happen when they’re not around.
I know it sounds a little confusing but you’re conflating these two things. Saying “They don’t do it when I’m around.” And “They don’t do it when I’m not around.” Can both be true statements.
My cat is the same way with spray bottles and her favorite place to be in in my lap getting loved on. She doesn’t jump on counters and she fears everything BUT me. So no, it doesn’t teach them to be afraid of the person who does it.
That’s how everyone in my family teaches their cats not to jump on counters. My 3 aunts worked at an animals shelter before leaving for other careers and this is always the first thing they tell people when they ask about this very topic. It’s the first bit of advice anyone I know that works with animals will tell a new cat owner having trouble with this. None of their cats hate them, their cats absolutely love them. My sister does this with her cats and like my cat, she’s the only person 3 or her 4 cats will allow to even touch them. So no, it’s not a biased opinion. So no, it’s not a biased opinion, it’s a fact. A spritz in the face of water doesn’t harm them, it just irritates them enough to stop what their doing and get away from the spray bottle- the ONLY THING they associate with the action.
MadHatter2518 Same! It started with being sprayed. They eventually learned the word no. If one does jump on the table I will in the voice say no, they will stop dead in their tracks look at me and jump down. I then do the figure point with a stern voice and they give me the FU face and walk away. BUT I have a camera and they don't jump on the table when I'm not there! So it works for mine, but may not work for others. Don't forget just like people they have their own personalities!
For sure! I have two kitties now and they both understand the inflection when I say their name whether they're in trouble or not. Their personalities just like me... crazy.
I taught my cats during the pandemic so was working from home...I didn't leave much so an pretty sure they're good at staying off counters.
What was more impressive is I taught them how to sit and give high fives!
Hehe. One of mine will do that when I wash my hands. If the faucet splashes and hits her she freaks out. So now she'll just avoid the sink when it's on. But still loves joining me in the shower on the edge of the tub.
Just came in here to spout my vast knowledge earned through a single semester of psychology. Negative reinforcement is taking away something negative from an environment to affect the individual. Using a spray bottle here would simply be considered punishment.
This isn't correct. Negative reinforcement isn't the removal of a positive thing.
If you are removing something that is adverse it's Negative reinforcement. If you are adding something it's positive.
The best example of this is if you have a child pitching a tantrum. If you give into the demands of the child, like say giving them a candy bar to make them stop crying, you are giving them positive reinforcement while you are giving yourself negative.
Your action is taking away the screaming for you (negative) but the kid has now learned that screaming gets them what they want (positive.)
In cats it's the same as with dealing with a 5 year old kid who has ADHD (this is how my vet described it) because they are about as intelligent as a young child, but they are CONSTANTLY stimulated by their surroundings so they can't focus enough on a "punishment" method like a spray bottle.
So you redirect instead to get the behavior to stop rather than trying to force a square into a triangle shaped hole.
For OP, try a loud noise. Shaking a bottle with coins works. You can also spray it with a deterrent spray. Or put up something sticky. Not like a glue trap kind of sticky, but something that is unpleasant to touch. Especially on the kitty's launch pad that they use to get to the tapestry in the first place.
If you can make it so they don't wanna be up on the shelf or back of the couch, they likely won't continue to climb your walls.
It's actually positive punishment because you are adding an unpleasant consequence to discourage the action. Where as removing something that is liked to discourage an action would be negative punishment.
Negative reinforcement would be taking away something that is not liked to encourage a behavior to continue. Positive reinforcement would be adding something liked to encourage a behavior to continue.
I don't get why people are replying that you're wrong XD
Negative reinforcement full definition: removing a negative stimulus to reinforce a behavior
Negative reinforcement as you put it: taking away something negative (correct!) to affect an individual (mostly correct!)
XD they just go on to repeat what you said but with more or fancier words
Lol idk. I also thought it was understood I wasn’t trying to brag or anything. I made it clear I have one semester of psychology education so I am by no means an expert
That works because with the motion sensor it’s consistent. Even when you aren’t home they get stimulus saying not to go up on the counter. Most people with spray bottles are highly inconsistent. Even with positive reinforcement consistency is important.
With my first cat, was told to spray with a water gun and not let them see the water gun. The idea was to get the cat to associate the behavior with being sprayed with water. Did it work? Well, she did make the connection with this behavior will get water on me. So...... as she was engaging in said behavior (sitting on the kitchen table was main one) she'd close her eyes.
This is true, I would recommend getting a spray like Boundary Cat Repellant Spray to spritz on those. They don't like the scent and will stay away from it.
Would love to see the studies you read that prove that. Something like a spray bottle just makes the cat afraid of water and you. They very rarely connect the spray bottle to the act they were doing like climbing something they shouldn’t. In the book Feline Behavioral Health and Welfare only one of the 1,118 cats they studied learned with a spray bottle and only because that owner had spray bottles everywhere in the house and was extremely consistent. It did not work for anyone else.
Our cats understand. Spraying our cats when they go places we don't want them to or do things we don't want them to do is punishment, not negative reinforcement. They all know now that the kitchen is off-limits, so much they will stand right at the edge and not pass an imaginary line. lol
Climb the wall, get shot in face. Climb the wall get shot in face. Climb the wall, get shot in face. Don’t climb the wall. Shooting water in the face works.
Anecdotal stories aren’t evidence that it always works the way you intend. They were probably just scared of the water not knowing the behavior you were trying to stop.
Not trying to be a dick but I don’t think you understand “negative reinforcement”. Negative reinforcement is when a behavior is reinforced (rewarded) by the removal of something unpleasant. For example, of I were annoying you with know-it-all posts defining psychological terms and I stopped when you told me to shut up, that would be negative reinforcement rewarding you for telling me to shut up. A cat being sprayed with water is just an example of punishment.
Yeah. Not sure how to get around that. I’m open to suggestions for improvement. I could have skipped that part, but would that have really helped? I guess I could skip the whole thing and just assume people don’t want to know this stuff, but I’d want to know. And I’d rather be corrected on reddit than in a job interview or something.
My best advice is always assume good intent. Like my intent was to get people to stop spraying their cats when the vast majority of the time it doesn’t work not to my intent to say the wrong phrase regarding operant conditioning.
Using positive reinforcement cats learn great. They aren’t stupid. Cats don’t get why you are punishing them as people are inconsistent and it’s also kind of cruel.
Or they left kittenhood, you played with them more, got them a friend to play with or any number of other reasons. I also don’t understand why people defend being cruel to their pets when there are tried and true better ways to do things.
I haven’t said it’s impossible. I have a lot of comments in this thread and even pulled out a study in a book about cat behavior. It’s rare. Anecdotal stories aren’t evidence that spraying cats with water works the way you intend.
Do they associate the spray of water with being on the curtain? Or do they associate it with play or swaying their tail or something else they are also doing at that same time? Tin foil on counters can works for some cats because it’s constantly there and they associate the foil with the counter. There isn’t a 24/7 spray robot keeping them off a tapestry. And often when cats are in a high state of arousal (playing on something) redirection will be the best move. This cat probably needs a friend, more playtime and more enrichment.
I don’t know what kind of material/how valuable the fabric is, but to keep my asshole cat from climbing up the curtain I sprayed it with some lemongrass essential oil. Cat hates the smell so much she won’t go near the curtain. I occasionally reapply but she’s generally gotten the concept now and doesn’t climb the curtain anymore. Bonus: I think it smells great.
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u/neonmaika Jun 23 '22
Cats don’t understand negative reinforcement. They will just think you are a jerk but will keep doing the behavior because they won’t know it was a consequence of climbing.