BEHAVIOR CLIENT: Orange tabby was BFF’s with old lab who recently passed. Tabby became depressed, so guardian adopted an adolescent lab to console him. Several months later,Tabby is urine-marking window sills and door ways.
SOLUTION: Clicker train Tabby in soiled areas.
Here is how:
Step 1: Teach cat to touch a click stick with his nose.
Get yourself a click stick. It looks somewhat like a magicians wand and resist the urge to hold it as such and make pronouncements like, “Abracadabra, you are now a crusted toad!”.
Step 2: Grip the plastic base and extend the colored ball.
Step 3: Offer the ball two inches below the cat’s nose. As the cat inquisitively sniffs the ball, click. Reward with a bite-sized morsel of tuna fish–just enough to give him a taste.
Step 4: Repeat this sequence six times. Offer the green ball to the right of his muzzle, the left, three inches in front of him, and change it up so he’s actively targeting the ball.
Step 5: Practice in the urine-marked locations. Cats generally avoid soiling areas they associate with leisure, so the more you train, the faster his urine marking will decline.