Techniques for training American shorthair cats to understand commands:

Cats do not have the same ability to understand language as humans. Therefore, it takes a period of training for the cat to understand the meaning of the instructions.

1. "Come" training The "come" movement of the cat is the most basic training movement and can be successfully trained under normal circumstances. Have you ever noticed that when you hold a snack in your hand, your cat will always come to you automatically? As long as you understand this, it is really easy to ask your cat to come to you. Before training, familiarize the cat with its name.

When training, let the cat know that you are holding snacks in your hand, face the cat not far away, call its name and say "come", and lead the cat towards you. If it does come over, praise it immediately and give it a treat. If it doesn't respond, walk toward the cat and let it sniff the treat in your hand. Then walk away again. Repeat its name and say "come." If you have a cat leash, put it on it. If necessary, gently pull the cat to prompt it to come to you. "Come" training If your cat has low obedience, sometimes it will not do what you want or respond very slowly even though it fully understands what you mean. Therefore, if it does not respond after issuing a command, please wait for more than five seconds. Repeat your order again.

After calling several times, if the cat still doesn’t respond, don’t call anymore, otherwise the cat will develop a habit of being “ignorant”. You will see results after a day or two of training. The training distance can be gradually increased, even walking from one room to another. When the cat has formed a relatively strong conditioned reflex to the "come" command, you can begin to train the cat's conditioned reflex to gestures. At the beginning, you shout the "come" command in your mouth and wave to the cat at the same time, and then gradually just wave without shouting the command. When the cat can complete the "come" action according to the gesture, reward it.

2. During "walk away" training, face the cat and let it know that you are holding a snack in your hand. Call its name and say "look", and then place the snack close to your eyes. As soon as it looks into your eyes, praise it and give it a treat. If it doesn't respond, wave the treat in front of the cat or let it sniff the treat. Repeat its name and say "look," then hold the treat up to your eyes again. Over time, whether you are holding a snack or not, your cat will automatically look into your eyes every time you say "look".

3. "Sit down" training The way to train a cat to sit down is to squat down with a snack in your hand and face the cat, say "sit down" to the cat, and gently press the cat with your remaining hand. The back is close to the hind legs. The cat may be reluctant to sit down at first, so you can press down on its back with a little force. As soon as it sits down, say "ok" to it, train "sit" and wait for about two seconds before releasing the hand on its back, then say "good" and give it a snack. Repeat the exercise and your cat should be sitting down on its own within a day or two. After the cat is familiar with the above training, you can try to change from squatting to standing up and gradually change the direction of the cat.The cat moves away and gives the "sit" command.

Notes on training American shorthair cats to understand instructions:

1. Control the length of training. Cats don’t have long attention spans, so it’s best to control them to about ten minutes each time, but they can be trained several times a day.

2. Quiet training environment. It is best to train alone in a quiet situation. Loud sounds or too many people can easily cause a cat to become frightened and scare it away, making it difficult to train it in the future.

3. Patient training attitude. Cats have always been rebellious little animals. In fact, many times they are not willing to be manipulated by others. Therefore, you must be patient when training. Even if you make a mistake, do not punish it excessively. If the cat hates the training, it will only be half the result with twice the result.