Teaching the command “To me!”

The chances are that your cat has already been beautifully trained to come to you. You need only pick up the tin opener, if you feed it tinned food, or shake the box of dry cat food, and the cat is beside you promptly and willingly — though a moment ago it was several rooms away.

That is very interesting. Why does your cat answer those sounds so reliably? Because it has a clear motive. When it comes to those sounds, a meal always follows. There is no downside for the cat: it is never scolded and never disappointed. If you smacked your cat every time it came to you at the sound of the tin opener, and did not feed it, it would very soon stop coming to that sound at all. But of course you will not smack the cat. And what happens if you call it and immediately put it in the bath, or in the car for a trip to the vet, or spray it with flea treatment? Do you see the idea? If you call the cat over and then do something disagreeable to it, what motive has it left for coming to you again?

A tin opener is a hundred per cent consistent. It always makes the same sound. Consistency matters enormously in training. The sound must carry no emotion in it. The noise of dry food in a box, or of a tin opener, never varies — but your voice can. Shout at your cat to make it come to you and it will not come. Cats are not stupid: they will not go to a person who is angry, upset or irritated. When you are training an animal, see that your voice stays as level as you can make it. A pleasant tone makes the whole business easier for you and for the cat alike.

There is a good side to this, though: if your cat has learnt to come to the sound of a tin opener, it can learn to come to the sound of your voice. All you need is to become half as good a teacher as the tin opener.

Start by choosing the right reward, and let your cat’s own preferences tell you which. If it has a passion for fruit, use fruit. If it is greedy for mutton, why fight it? This is no moment to be fastidious: use whatever works.

As with the other difficult commands, begin at the end and work backwards. Does that sound absurd? It is nonetheless right. With “To me!” it means starting with the cat very close to you, and then moving further away until it will respond at a distance.

If your cat will not cross the one foot between you to take a treat, why try to make it cross ten? And if it will not walk one foot for a treat, then either it is not hungry enough or it does not care for the treat. Either way, something has to change. Feed it after the sessions. Give it less food on the days you train. Use a different sort of treat. In short, make the treat work for you.

Once the cat is showing willing, begin. Start working on the command with the cat right beside you. Call it by name and say “To me!” in a brisk voice at normal volume, and give it a treat straight away. Repeat that several times, until the cat is snatching eagerly at the treat the moment it hears “To me!”. All you need at this stage is to connect the words “To me!” in the cat’s mind with praise and with a reward in the shape of food.

Once that is going well — some cats take a few minutes over it, others a few sessions — move a few feet away from the cat. Say “To me!”, show it the treat and draw it after you. I like a cat to sit when it reaches me, so I add the command “Sit!”.

When your cat is doing all this perfectly, step back a few more paces as it comes towards you. Now it has to cover five or six feet and then sit on command. After that, start giving “To me!” with the cat at the other end of the room. If it comes at once, give it the treat and praise it. If not, go over to it, hold the treat under its nose and back away to the place you called from. Praise it and encourage it to follow you; if it does, reward it. If it does not, stop the session, put the treat away and try again later.

Now you can start bringing some fun into the training. When the cat is in a good mood and eager to please, play the “To me!” game all over the house or flat. Begin with an easy task and make it harder as the cat gets better at it. While the cat is watching you, slip out of sight round a corner or behind a door and call it. Praise it while it is looking for you, even though you cannot see it — praise matters particularly here, precisely because you are out of the cat’s sight. As soon as it finds you, praise it and reward it with a treat. Set yourself to go on praising until the cat comes and finds you, wherever you are.

It is important to keep praising while the cat is searching, both to give it an idea of where you are and to keep up its motive for looking. Sit there in silence and you are no help at all — and you may find yourself sitting alone for a very long time. This is not a test; it is a game. If the cat is having difficulty finding you, make the task easier so that it succeeds. Nothing helps towards a goal like success. Think about the game, not about the difficulty.

Here is an amusing side effect of being the only person in the house who trains the cat. Your four-legged friend may decide that the words “To me!” literally mean that it is to run to you in particular — regardless of who actually said them. So do not be surprised if the cat races straight to you the first few times somebody else gives the command. It is easily put right: have that person work on “To me!” with the cat a few times from very close range, giving it as many treats as they can. The cat will quickly grasp what the new game is.