You must have noticed or experinced yourself that it takes a lot of patinece to train an animal to behave in a certain way. If you have a cat, dog or any other animal in your house, you have to observe them carefully to understand what thing to they accept and reject. The constant process of trying and keeping patience to make them do a task is not easy at all. But if you continue to train them, they will finally adapt to changes that you wnat them to accept.
e’re all unknowingly training our pets all day long,” Samantha Bell, cat expert for Best Friends Animal Society, told Hiptoro. “Every time we interact with them, we’re training them. The reason for this unintentional training is ‘operant conditioning’ – behavior leads to a reward which leads to a repeat of the behavior.”
“And I’m a cat behavior expert. It happens to the best of us,” she said.
A redditor u/shoonpo submitted a question to r/AskReddit: “What have you accidentally conditioned your pet to do?” He wanted to get to know more about the phenominan. As of this article, the post has nearly 64,000 upvotes and 13,000 comments, many of which are fun stories like Samantha’s!
1
I talk to myself constantly so my cat thinks it’s normal to walk around making chatty noises all the time. If he’s awake, he’s talking. I think it’s adorable but it drives my husband nuts, which has resulted in my husband yelling at him a lot (don’t worry, the cat doesn’t get upset). Now the cat thinks that’s just how my husband talks, so whenever he sees him he yells at him really loudly in order to imitate him. My husband will walk in the room and my cat will stop whatever he’s doing and just meow SO LOUDLY right in his face. It’s absolutely hilarious, dude got exactly what he deserved.
2
According to Bell, any reward-motivated animal is the easiest to train, including dogs, cats, chickens, and even fish. “Their species doesn’t matter as much as you’d think when it comes to training! The more they want treats or pets or attention or a certain toy, the easier they are to train. My two cats that are obsessed with treats are so easy to train that I can teach them a new behavior in a couple of 5-minute sessions. But my cat that is ‘meh’ about treats takes more time, work, and patience. Helpful training tip: I reserve treats for training time only. When they hear the treat bag crinkle, they know that they’re in training mode and are ready to learn. This gives more value to the reward which also helps with training.”
3
I would playfully grab (not hard, really light) my dog’s snout whenever we’re playing. He somehow figured out it’s my favorite thing to do when ever he comes over to me. So now, everytime he senses that I’m upset or sees that I’m crying, he would come up to me and gently put his snout in my hand.
However, he also mentioned that some pets are just not that motivated and are difficult to train. “If you have a pet that does not seem to get excited about anything: attention, treats, food, pets, toys, you should have them checked out by your vet to make sure they’re feeling ok.”
4
5
6
Somewhere along the way, my dog learned ‘get your toy’ means to pick up his nearest toy. I didn’t purposely train him to do it, but it’s good for when he’s about to leave one of them outside and I want him to bring it in. If there’s no toy around and I say this he’ll grab the nearest soft thing, usually some piece of clothing laying around. One time he tried to pick up the cat.
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
My wife and I have pretty set sleep schedules during the week. If we stay up later on the weekend or w/e, our dog gets VERY huffy/offended and will sigh passive-aggressively at us until we go upstairs to bed. Oh, and if one of his bowls is empty he licks it (also passive-aggressively) and then makes direct eye contact.
20
21
One time, my cat spotted a spider on my wall, since he was staring so obviously I was able to notice too. Grateful, I gave him treats and cuddles. He did it again a week later, same thing. Then one time he looks around frantically and I jump up to go check but I don’t see a spider. He looks at me expectantly. After a few times like this I realized he learned that looking around intensely at stuff means treats, love and attention. It’s now been 4 years and he will still look at me then pointedly look around the apartment, then back at me, expecting a reward. Has it resulted in him spotting the occasional bug? Yes, especially since over the years I’ve learned the slight difference between his real expression and the fake “I want treats” one. Still, even if I know it’s all a lie, it throws me off and sometimes I give in and look anyway. Maybe I’m imagining it but he always looks so satisfied afterwards, the fluffy jerk.
22
23
My dogs know the sound of the drawer the cheese is kept in the fridge. They could be asleep in a completely different area, but if you open the cheese drawer they come running and sit like good boys for their cheese. They are herding dogs and will also herd the cat away if she won’t stop meowing at me when I’m busy or if she tries to scratch anything.
24
25
After my roomate got a cat, my dog answers to “Kitty Kitty Kitty” cause he wants love and/or treats