Dog trainers can be found pretty much everywhere, while Googling “cat trainer in my area” yields few, if any, results. There’s a reason for that. Dogs are highly trainable and take direction well once trained. Cats are…well, cats.

Our feline friends respond to commands about as well as a box fan, so the idea of “training” a cat to “act” in a certain way sounds like an exercise in futility and frustration. However, cats play parts on screen, not just in the background. So how do trainers manage it?

Animal handlers for film and TV say cats are the hardest to train

Animal trainer Melissa Millett and animal coordinator Kirk Jarrett told Insider how they get animals to cooperate on screen. Even after working with wild animals like skunks and bison, they say cats are the most challenging to work with.

One reason for that is that cats are independent predators, so cooperation is not part of their natural instincts. They also aren’t particularly prone to people-pleasing the way domesticated dogs are. No amount of “You’re a good boy!” will get a cat to do something it doesn’t feel inclined to do, so trainers have to resort to cat-friendly training techniques.

Cats are motivated by treats, more treats, and fun

The two tools Millett uses to train cats are a clicker and treats. The clicker makes a clicking sound that gets associated with a certain behavior, and the treats reward the behavior.

Millett uses one technique called “targeting,” which involves luring a cat with treats to get it to touch its nose to something. Then trainers move on to getting the cat to move to a specific location, called a mark. Starting with a mark close by, they gradually move it farther away. Each success is met with a click and a treat.

Here’s some cat clicker-treat training in action:

@clickerkittens reading this absolves the creator from any and all instances of being punched by ur cat while attempting this ♬ Running Up That Hill........

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