Training your Russian Blue

Russian Blues are known for being an intelligent breed of cat. They have a reserved but curious, inquisitive nature (but not all Russian Blues are reserved!) Training is also a great way to help your cat and kitten bond with you, as it is both stimulating and a bonding experience for cats and owners alike! Training has been good in helping keep indoor cats stimulated. In Young, NSW we are having colder winters. Often, I will spend time with Sascha in his enclosure teaching training as this helps us bond and spend quality time together.

I often try and make training as natural as possible. Firstly, finding out what motivates your cat is a must. Some cats prefer food, some positive reinforcement and others toys. Training can use clickers, though I generally do hand and voice-based command for more ease. I generally recommend training cats when they are a little older, some will be good from 6 months but often many will be better from 12 months onward to get the ‘kitten’ instincts down a little!

Trying to find ways to make a training behaviour more natural is also useful. When I taught Sascha the command ‘paw’, I did this from an isolated and raised position which meant he had to reach his paw to try and get to me. Over time, with the same command and reinforcements (he prefers lamb pieces and lots of pets!) He can do this with just a hand command now, or voice alone! This only took a matter of a few days. I have also taught him ‘round’ where he will go in a circle for a treat. These commands require a more graded form of conditioning that I will take time to cover in later posts.

The possibilities are endless, but it is also important to remember, not all cats will train like others and temperament is often a strong factor to how trainable a cat can be. I recommend reaching out if you are looking for a Russian Blue with more trainable aspects to it, as it helps to be able to look at the temperaments of kittens from a young age. We also recommend having a range of different stimulus available.

You can also buy ‘cat clickers’ that let you associate different commands to a number of clicks. These can be good for singular commands, but I often find it can become confusing if you are teaching many different commands. So, having a clicker, a toy with feathers (a wand can also be fantastic!) find out what treats can bribe them, and you will be on to a good start! Starting off with smaller and easier to train behaviours is also good practice, as this begins to acclimate them to the training process, your expectations and making it fund and exciting. You can also try more complex training, too, though you may need to teach varying parts of a behaviour over time using this method.

Please touch base with use if you have other questions around training, or even your own videos or ideas!