High Five Cat Training

The Benefits

• Helps to showcase a cat’s intelligence and gets them noticed in shelters.
• Provides physical exercise and mental enrichment.

Stages of Training

Stage One: Getting them interested in the hand

1. When the cat is alert and close by, sit on the floor in front of them and show them a tasty piece of food in your hand and let them take it. Do this a couple of times.
2. Next show them a piece of food but this time close your fist around it and lower it to the ground so they can reach it easily.
3. They will hopefully be curious and start sniffing and pawing at your hand to try to get it. Don’t hang on to it as this might frustrate them.
4. You need to be quick because as they touch your hand with their paw, you must immediately mark that behaviour with a word (Good or Yes or a click if you’re using a clicker) and allow them to have a treat taken from a training pouch FROM YOUR OTHER HAND as a reward.
5. Patience is required as some cats may not touch your hand straight away.
6. To help them along, reward for small incremental steps towards the desired goal. That means if their paw lifts just a little way off the ground, without even making contact, we still mark that behaviour.

Stage Two: Shaping the behaviour

1. Once the cat has begun to understand what they need to do to gain the treat you need to begin opening your fist on the hand they are touching so the palm of the hand is facing them (but not fully open yet).
2. Once they are touching your hand consistently, you can gradually begin opening up the palm, using a phrase such as: ‘High Five’.
3. The sequence now will be: present hand and say ‘High Five’ at the moment the cat touches your hand with their paw. Mark it and present the reward (still from the other hand).
4. As you progress with this, begin to lift your hand higher up so they have to stretch to reach your palm (see Figure 1).

Stage Three: Progressing and perfecting

1. Continue with the training until the cat is consistently performing the behaviour and fade out the verbal mark (or click) and just use the ‘High Five’ cue.
2. Once they are doing really well, try practising in other rooms of the house.
3. Eventually, once they really know the sequence, you can alter your schedule of reinforcement. In other words, you shouldn’t need to offer a treat on every repetition. Every other time they respond should be fine.
4. The idea is that gradually you will fade out the treats, perhaps giving one every now and then to keep them interested and motivated.
5. If a cat swipes or snatches food or uses unsheathed claws to touch the hand an alternative would be to teach them to target something more remote – like a target stick or a cone (see Target Training: https://petcourses.co.uk/free-resources/target-training).