Most of us are familiar with Pavlov’s dogs. In short, Ivan Pavlov, who was studying digestive processes, would ring a bell and present dogs with food. He soon realized that the dogs would begin salivating when the bell rang, even if no food was present. This is what became known as classical conditioning and helped develop the school of behavioral psychology.
A few months ago, I realized I have accidentally trained our cats similarly, even though no food is involved. We have two Ring devices: our front doorbell, and motion-activated floodlight which covers our carport and back steps. I have the Ring app on my phone and have different alert tones assigned to each device so I’ll know which one I need to check when a notification sounds. The cats have learned that when the tone for the carport sounds, it is frequently followed by someone coming to the front door. It’s funny to watch them. When the carport alert sounds, they either run for the door and look out the windows in the sidelight to see who’s coming or just sit up and look at the front door. Actually, I’m pretty impressed that they put all of this together on their own.
On another note, I found myself in need of Mark Petruska’s (as yet non-existent) cat scratcher business this weekend. As the owners of multiple cats, we have a variety of cat scratchers and cat trees scattered around the house. When the scratchers wear out, we generally buy a new one. At one point, we bought sisal with plans to just repair the scratcher. Well, I have no idea where the sisal went, and we never did repair that scratching post. When I was vacuuming last week, I found a mystery substance on the floor. I soon determined that the cats had scratched through the rope on the scratching post and were now in the process of destroying the cardboard tube that functions as the base of the scratcher. I assembled the replacement cat tree over the weekend, a process which required a lot of feline “assistance.”
I hereby pinky swear that next time, I will repair the scratching post, not replace the whole cat tree/scratcher.
What behaviors have your pets learned without training?
Linda Lou's Life 
That was hilarious!
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Wow, your cats have no mercy! Solid deconstruction, there. My dogs have all learned to identify our car engines. When they hear one of “our” engines approaching the house, they get excited and run for the door, tails wagging. It’s always a bummer for them when it tuns out to be someone else driving the same make and model!
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Cat claws are no joke!
It’s so sweet that your dogs recognize your car engines. “Mom and Dad are home!”
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Our 2 cats get put to bed in the laundry room at night. Every night we send the cats and the kids to bed at approx 8:30 pm. The kids can stay up later and read if they choose. We pray as a family before sending them off to their rooms. At the sound of “amen” the cats circle my oldest son mewing so he knows it’s time for him to put them to bed with a little “midnight snack”. It’s hilarious! 😂
We need to replace our cat tree… I’m procrastinating on that project. Great job on yours!
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That’s great! I love it!🤣
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Well, I no longer have any pets but I am impressed by your cats which could get side gigs as Walmart greeters. That is one shredded scratching post! My neighbor got a shelter pet, a cat, after her longtime companion cat Missy had to be euthanized as it had dementia. She got this cat, which she named Sassy, around Christmastime. She went to work one day, then hours later she pulled up in the driveway and noticed right away the living room sheers were in tatters and her tall, Victorian-inspired Christmas tree was leaning sideways. The tree had those long, wide ribbons, all which were torn to shreds, broken bulbs. She went in the house, got Sassy and her cat carrier and took her back to the shelter.
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Sadly, sometimes new pets and owners aren’t a good fit.
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Yes and she had so much love to give a pet, having cherished Missy all those years. She got a dog, a Malti-Poo (half Maltese and half Poodle), which was too hyper and so she had to crate it anytime she was out of the house. She gave it away and got a fish tank. 🙂
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That’s a great looking cat tree. They must feel like we do with new bedding. 🙂
We had dogs. One of them would run to the door, tail wagging, waiting. I’d look out – nothing. But within a minute, hubby would pull up beside the house. He didn’t get home at the same time every day, so that dog must have been able to “hear” that car from way down the road? I don’t get it. It wasn’t loud, but he knew!
Animals – amazing!
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Animals do tend to have better hearing than humans, so they probably could hear his car.
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This post is exactly the validation I needed. I guess I’d better start looking into tax laws and setting up an LLC! And of course, I’ll need a catchy name. There goes my productivity the rest of this week!
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