Ebony is a barn cat that I got three or four years ago from a church friend. Ebony was nine at the time and had spent all his life as an indoor-outdoor house cat. He is now a full-time barn cat. He is also very, very afraid of the world. He has no physical impairments, but he doesn’t jump. It was suggested to me that maybe he scared himself a time or two jumping onto something. I don’t know why he doesn’t jump, but he doesn’t, even though he physically can. This means that I can’t get his food up off the floor of the barn to keep it away from raccoons who apparently see a “vacancy” sign somewhere.
When I first got Ebony, he cried for food and attention but also hissed at me. Because he hissed and I took that to mean that he was afraid, I stopped moving. Completely. When he moved away from me or, at least, didn’t hiss, I moved. A tiny bit. In the beginning of our relationship, I moved very, very slowly if at all. He has hissed at me, perhaps, four times in all the years I’ve had him now. Two or three times in the very beginning and then not at all for a very long time.
After having him for three years, I decided it was time to try to get him to the vet for some routine care. I had been feeding him in a cat carrier for a long time. I managed to get him to the vet for that first visit. But, he needed a second shot for the feline leukemia vaccine three weeks later. I messed up that attempt quite badly and I’ve spent the last year working on it every day, twice a day so that we can attempt to get him those two shots.
Things went well for the first visit, but, again, I messed up the second trip. Not so badly I had to give up altogether, but I did have to cancel that appointment and try again the next day. We were successful the next day and he got that second shot. The carrier was already poisoned and I had to trap him in a large, wire dog crate. I don’t know what he now thinks of the crate.
Phew. He got his two shots and I thought we could relax for another whole year. Nope. He needs to go back for a check-up in six months because he now is in the early stages of kidney (renal) failure.
I still have to rebuild the behavior of going into the carrier, allowing the door to close, staying closed, and being moved.
Sigh. Cats. Especially ‘fraidy cats. They don’t tolerate criterion changes very well at all, but progress needs to be made. I just have to go at his pace which is rather glacial. It’s amazing how tiny the “thin slicing” can be. Ebony has taught me a lot. For example, the first time my hand and his ear came into contact with each other, he freaked out, bolted out of the carrier, and I had to work at getting him to come back, move my hand more slowly and carefully so that I didn’t accidentally touch him. Surprisingly, he adjust to that fairly quickly.
Feeling proud of my training this little scaredy cat, I posted a short clip on a cat clicker training page on Facebook. Ha. Silly me. Here I was expecting someone to understand and notice that I trained Ebony to go in, turn around, and wait for the door to close.
The comments I got really surprised me. For one thing, one admin actually said that I wasn’t doing clicker (R+, positive reinforcement) training “correctly” because I should have clicked while Ebony was in the carrier, but fed him outside the carrier. Oh really? I was doing it wrong? According to whom? That is a great technique that works for some individuals, but one needs to train the learner in front of you, not some hypothetical one. And, believe me, feeding Ebony outside of the crate would have, and did, cause him to stay outside the carrier and expect the Temptations to come to him regardless of what he did. He would not, and did not, offer to re-enter the carrier when I fed outside.
Some other, supposedly encouraging comments, were that I should put the behavior on cue and cue him from somewhere else in the barn so that I could video his going a long distance to get into the carrier. And video that, of course, and put it on their FB group for all to see. Sure. I’ll get right on that. Ya, sure, you betcha!
Some cats might do that, but Ebony and other ‘fraidy cats are just not gonna. There’s just not enough motivation to go into a small space that screams “trap!” and way too many distractions (read scary things) on the way there.
It took more than a year (!) to train him to go in willingly and confidently so that I could close the door and leave it closed for up to two minutes. I did mess up at least once and forget to let him out again, but he quickly forgave me and went back in – after getting a drink of water!
Every time I thought he was ready for the next step, he showed me in no uncertain terms that I had taken too big a step and he was not ready for that. Oh. Oops. Sorry about that, kitty. Let’s back up and start over. We’ll go more slowly and carefully this time. Well, until the next time I lump, that is.
But actually transporting him to the vet and back, put us back quite a bit. We’re back to training twice a day at mealtimes to rebuild that behavior so that he can revisit the vet in six months. I’m sure that will poison the behavior yet again.
There’s nothing for it, but to keep on keepin’ on.
This is where we are now:
Part Two: https://wp.me/p2A08B-q1
Part Three: https://wp.me/p2A08B-q9
Clicker Chronicles 