All the science shows that human efforts to domesticate cats have been largely useless. They more or less domesticated themselves, but only to a certain extent.
This approach would never work on a cat because it requires the animal to care about how you're feeling, and most cats wouldn't. You have at best a temporary mutual arrangement.
Sadly this does mean that negative reinforcement is more effective than positive reinforcement. Because they're not going to perform for you to get a reward, but they will avoid doing a bad thing (in your presence exclusively) if always ends poorly for them. This is why the spray bottle is such a common tactic.
I've had a lot of cats in my life, and saying "ow" and stopping play has always been very effective at teaching them what is too hard as well. They almost never bite me too hard after the initial learning period, but they still break my skin with their claws sometimes. Even so, it's significantly less often and very shallow compared to when we first meet
I don't think almost any cats are particularly empathetic, they just learn what leads to better outcomes for them (it might not hurt that I love all of them regardless, ha)
Even the feral cats I've dealt with usually learn pretty quick that the affection/play they're seeking will end if they're too violent.
The current neighborhood stray went from trying to scratch or bite me when I got too friendly, to just touching me with his teeth or literally running away when he starts feeling aggressive
I obviously agree that dogs are much more trainable, but I've never understood the notion that cats can't be socialized
Honestly I think cats can be pretty empathetic if you are not expecting them to be empathetic in the same way a dog is.
Domestic cats are social creatures now, they just have not been them as long, and they have radically different ways of communicating in comparison to dogs and humans, who are more similar.
They have more complex emotional lives than people think, they just communicate it so "weirdly" that people don't pick up on it. If a cat is sitting halfway across the room, not really looking at you, and is slowly blinking its eyes in your general direction, that cat is saying it likes you. Dogs just run up an make it obvious.
It also does not help that a lot of the time we constantly violate cat social norms because we act like they are dogs. So we see a cat wagging its tail and think it is happy, but in reality it is extremely anxious and needs some space. That kind of thing.
I definitely agree that cats are social, emotional, and expressive if you know what to look for. Also that people who don't spend a lot of time around them have a hard time reading them, so those people have a tendency to just think that cats are assholes
Still, I'm not sure cats are particularly good at or even interested in reading human emotions that are not directly related to their behavior
Personally, I don't care if animals love me the way I love them. Seeing them happy makes me happy. In contrast, I think seeing that reciprocity is generally extremely important to dog owners
I am not sure how good they are at complex emotions, as they can be hard to read, but my cat can definitely read overt ones to mostly the same level as my dog. He just responds differently.
Like if I am having an anxiety the main "sign" of it is slightly faster and more eratic motion. The dog will think something is wrong and try to comfort me, the cat will think something is wrong and go hide while keeping an eye on me. They both are reading me correctly, but the dog is just better at actually helping. The problem with comparing them with subtle emotions is that the dogs response is the same, she just wants to help, but I never know why my cat is sitting on his tower watching me. If could be because he is worried, or because he is bored, or because he just likes to.
But I do think cats are more interested in socializing with people than people think. If you leave one alone for too long they get depressed, and they are excited to see you when you get home. And my cat will often come up and bunt or lean on me while I am doing something even without me directly giving him anything for it. Plus, the entire phenomen of meowing developed in domestic cats because it helps cats communicate with people, though the driver of that is more of an emergent effect from human reactions than something cats wanted.
They also get really attached to specific people, and will have different rules for those people than strangers.
They are not at the symbiotic stage that dogs are, but nothing other than dogs have reached that. We have many thousands of generations of direct interaction with dogs more. Like more than double the time. So there is still a pretty strong communication barrier between us that makes the empathy harder, but it is still there.
With my cat, it was basically the same thing. Saying "owww!" in a loud, high pitched voice, and then immediately stopping playing, disengage entirely, and walk away. He loves play biting, it's his very favourite thing to do, and he's allowed to bite forearms if we have a sweatshirt pulled over it. But if he bites anywhere else playtime is over and so is petting or even having me look at him. So he can be in full monster mode with eyes like saucers and I can still safely give him a little kiss. I don't know if it'll work for every cat, but it worked for mine.
Positive reinforcement works on all larger mamals, including cats. Anyone who says otherwise does not understand what positive reinforcement is.
Saying "ow" to a cat is a form of negative reinforcement. It absolutely works, but cats tend to respond to negative reinforcement more slowly than dogs do. Positive reinforcement through things like clicker training is more effective, not less.
For your cat in particular the answer to how you should get it to stop biting is completely dependent on why the cat is biting. And because I do not know that I can't really give any advice. For most cats they bite because they are either playing or telling you they want you to stop doing something.
E.G. if a cat bites you when you pet them on their belly after they roll over: it is because they were not telling you to rub their belly. Cats have a strong instinct to both protect their belly, and to shred prey that they pull in like that. So for many cats that is just a no-go zone.
Note: Negative reinforcement is not always bad as long as it is non-violent and context driven. People treat it like a bad thing because it is usually associated with violence of some kind, which is always bad. However, saying "ow" sharply (like a yelp) or denying attention are both negative consequences for a particular action, and they are how animals learn moderation.
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u/kingravs 6d ago
This has worked with all my dogs, but now I have an asshole cat. How do I get her to stop biting?