Teaching Your Cat Tricks

Have you ever thought about teaching your cat how to sit or speak? Usually we think of tricks as something reserved for dogs, but cats can learn too! Although it is a bit trickier (pun totally intended), it is not impossible to teach your cat a trick or two!

When I first got the idea for Oneiroi Photography I had already been regularly taking photos of Oni (aka Oneiroi) for years. I was scrolling on tiktok one night and saw a video of someone teaching their cat how to sit (who said tiktok was a waste of time?). I immediately thought about how beneficial teaching Oni a trick or two could be when it came to photographing him. He was my main subject for the first couple months of this business and although he does love being the center of attention, he didn’t always love having to sit still while I shoved a camera in his face every other day.

So, with a little coaxing using his favorite treats (he is extremely food motivated!) I was able to teach him how to sit both outside of and during photo sessions!

This trick (combined with the distraction of his favorite toy) is how I was able to create this image.

After teaching him how to sit I started wondering what other tricks I could show him. As long as food was involved he was eager to learn!

So how do you teach your cat a trick and what are some tricks they can learn?

I think the answer will be a little different for everyone and depends on your cat. Of course, not every cat is going to want to do tricks so follow your cat’s lead and stick with their own skill set.

1.) Sit

This was the easiest trick to teach Oni since it’s something he spends most of the day doing already. I started by saying the word “sit” every time he sat and gave him a treat as a reward. He picked up on this pretty quickly and knew what sit meant within a few minutes.

Like I said before, he is incredibly food motivated so that made it easy to teach him tricks. If your cat doesn’t prefer treats, try using their favorite toy or petting them as a reward.

Baby voice disclaimer:

Yes I talk to him in an annoying baby voice—let’s not pretend you don’t talk to your cats the same way haha

2.) Up

I tried to make the commands short and sweet. Once again, I stuck to what Oni already knew. He frequently likes to use my leg as a post to stand up and stretch on, so I knew he would be able to easily stand up. When he learned he got a treat for standing he quickly remembered the trick.

3.) Spin

Using hand movements really helped Oni learn this trick… and honestly, we still do the hand movements! Spinning isn’t a movement he does in his everyday life (Who is spinning in their everyday life??), so using hand movements to guide him has been helpful. You may find that guiding your cat this way makes teaching them a trick much easier. Using a toy instead of a treat would be super simple to do for this trick as well.

4.) To Speak… or Not to Speak

One thing a cat is never going to do is just about anything it doesn’t want to do. You’ll have to trust me when I say Oni is an expert at the trick “speak” and he does usually follow the command. He talks more throughout the day than I do (he has a lot of opinions about the world).

The biggest thing you should takeaway from trying to teach your cat tricks is that if they don’t perform the trick, nine times out of tent it’s not because they don’t understand it, it’s because they don’t want to do it.

Cats can be stubborn little guys and they demand full autonomy over what they will and won’t do, and we love and support them in those decisions (politicians should start listening to cats)!

If your cat doesn’t want to do a trick, it’s not going to and that is okay! Give them an extra little treat or pet anyway, just for being cute!