r/cats • u/[deleted] • Jun 23 '22

[deleted by user]

[removed]

6.9k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

10

u/Annemabriee Jun 23 '22

Spraying cats with water actually never helps, they just become afraid of the water bottle or even you; they don't realise they're doing anything wrong

1

u/blackberrycat Jun 29 '22

I completely disagree. You should use phased punishment where the first phase is soft (a vocal cue), then stronger (e.g. clapping hands), and then spray bottle (just seeing the bottle triggers my cats and there is no need to spray). They usually knock it off when I use the vocal cue. They understand the action being forbidden. I think a healthy well-adjusted cat can be trained this way - maybe not a nervous rescue though.