Do you know kitty ping-pong? If not, watch my attached video. My cat loves to play a variant of ping-pong. I roll a ball in her direction and she shoots the ball back to me and sometimes also in other directions.

To be honest, I taught her this game. I did roll the ball in front of her paws and waited if she would use her paws to roll it back to me. When this happened, I did give her a reward, one of her favorite cat treats. We did repeat this quite often until she started to understand the game. Once she understood, I rewarded her less and decreased the frequency of rewards because I didn’t want her to learn that it’s about the nom noms.

I say she likes the game, because now she does offer me at times to play it and I know when my cat likes something or not. This game is funny.

Contrary to popular belief, I do think it is not only possible to teach cat tricks, it is also very important. I agree that we shouldn’t force our cats to anything but if we notice that they start to do something on their own or if they interact with us like in the case with the ball, it is ok to build up on it. It’s especially good for house cats as there is not too much to do inside and any kind of new activity is beneficial for the cat.  This is why I like to keep my cat busy and I notice that she does answer it with a satisfied presence.

I taught her the Meerkat trick and many other tricks. It’s not only activity, it’s also exercise for her brain. I noticed very early that cats are able to learn, when my cat started opening doors as she learned that on their own when she was very young. I was pretty surprised and became curious if I could teach her some tricks and it worked very well, it’s just that you need more patience compared to teaching dogs. But one thing is very clear, cats are extremely smart!

I never would say that it is a must to teach a cat but I would suggest to try it out. Cats like it and if you do this, your cat can get very creative. But don’t overwhelm your cat, they know when it is too much and they will show it and then you should stop until another day. Overall it’s not so much about the teaching alone, it’s more about the activity too. It’s all about having fun together.

I hope you liked reading my thoughts and enjoyed the video.