How to Teach a Cat Tricks

Tricks aren’t just for showing off — though a cat that high-fives on cue is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Teaching tricks is some of the richest mental enrichment you can give a cat, it deepens your bond, and it builds the communication skills that make everyday handling easier. And the best part: most cat tricks are far simpler to teach than people expect.

Two techniques do almost all the work. Luring uses a treat to guide your cat’s body into a position; shaping rewards successive approximations of a behavior. Both rest on the reward-based foundation the American Association of Feline Practitioners recommends. Charge your marker first, then work through these four classics.

Trick 1: Sit

Sit is the gateway trick. Hold a treat just above your cat’s nose, then move it slowly up and back over the head. As the nose follows the treat upward, the rear naturally drops into a sit. The instant the bottom touches down, mark and reward. After a few reps, add the word “sit” just before you lure, then gradually shrink the hand motion until the word alone does the job.

Trick 2: High-five

High-five is built by shaping. Hold a treat in a closed fist near your cat. Most cats paw at the fist to get it — the moment a paw lifts toward your hand, mark and reward. Raise your standard step by step: first any paw lift, then a paw that touches your hand, then a clean tap against your open palm. Add the cue once the tap is reliable.

Trick 3: Spin

1. Lure the circleWith a treat at nose height, lead your cat in a slow, complete circle. Mark and reward when the turn finishes.
2. Name itSay “spin” as you begin the lure. The word and the motion become linked.
3. Fade the lureMake your hand circle smaller and smaller until a small finger twirl — or just the word — produces the spin.

Trick 4: Shake

Shake is high-five’s cousin. Present your open hand low and flat; when your cat rests or taps a paw on it, mark and reward. Gently scooping under the paw at first can help. With repetition and a cue word, your cat learns to offer a paw on request — a genuinely useful behavior for checking nails later.

Once these four are solid, you can chain them into sequences or move on to fancier feats like jump-through-a-hoop and fetch. Every new trick uses the same loop — lure or shape, mark, reward, name, fade — so the fifth trick is always easier than the first.

Fading the lure and adding cues

The step that separates a cat that does tricks from a cat that does them on command is fading the lure. Early on, the treat in your hand guides the body; eventually you want the cue word, or a small hand signal, to do that work alone. Fade gradually: shrink the food lure into an empty-hand motion, then into a smaller gesture, then pair it with the spoken cue, until the word by itself produces the trick and the reward follows after.

As your cat’s repertoire grows, you can start chaining tricks into little sequences — sit, then high-five, then spin — and even put behaviors on different cues so your cat learns to discriminate between them. Trick training has no ceiling; it’s an open-ended hobby that delights your cat as much as your friends. The only real limits are your imagination and your cat’s patience, so always quit while you’re both still having fun.

Mustafa Bilgic

Editor · TrainACat.us

This guide reflects positive-reinforcement, luring and shaping methods endorsed by the American Association of Feline Practitioners and the ASPCA. It is educational and not a substitute for veterinary or professional behavior advice.

Sources

• American Association of Feline Practitioners (catvets.com) — Positive Reinforcement Techniques
• ASPCA — Cat Training & Enrichment