Two-year-old “Veronica” arrived at the Brown County Humane Society shelter in July as a stray, sassy and inhospitable to other cats and to people who only wanted to pet her.

But, now, in the presence of vet tech Lindsey Levine, the cat locks eyes with her human, follows her hand, and performs tasks in exchange for treats. While Veronica is chewing and circling, she even allows Levine to stroke her coat a couple times before looking for her next reward.

The Brown County shelter is one of 66 organizations in the country to receive a grant to train homeless cats this spring. The program is called Cat Pawsitive, and it’s funded through GreaterGood.org in partnership with Jackson Galaxy of the television show, “My Cat From Hell.”

Five Brown County shelter staff members began putting five cats through their paces in February. As they get adopted — as four of them already have — staff members pick a new partner to train with.

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The point of the program is to reduce cats’ length of stay at the shelter, which averages about 30 days, said Shelter Manager Caity Robertson.

“So, like her, who hisses at you when you come near her, who’s going to adopt her?” Robertson said about her training partner, “Layla.”

“But if a cat high-fives you through the cage, you’re more likely to make a connection, or with eye contact where they’re looking at you. And you (as shelter staff) can say, ‘Oh my gosh, this cat knows this really cool thing; let me show you.’”

Only one shelter visitor has said it was “weird” for a cat to know tricks and it was “more like a dog,” Robertson said.

Of the 24 cats at the shelter last week, five were Cat Pawsitive students. Which ones are tapped for training can depend on their personalities or their potential.

As they built their training skills, staff started with cats that were friendly anyway, and not outright hostile or “so fearful they can’t function,” Robertson said. Such cats might be more suited to the barn cat program, in which the shelter offers feral cats to “work” on farms. However, staff prefer to enable cats to go to indoor homes.

Robertson’s charge, Layla, has lived at the shelter since Nov. 25. She feared people, so initially, all they worked on was eye contact. She’s graduated to nose-bumping, touching her nose to Robertson’s finger, but she still doesn’t like being touched much.

Robertson felt that Layla had “no chance” of being adopted into a home, so she chose her because she felt that training could have the biggest impact on her.

Other staff will work with cats that are easier to train so that more of them move through the program and the adoption process.

A card displayed on their cages shows potential adopters what skills Cat Pawsitive students have mastered: sit, come when called, high five, head bump, nose bump and hoop jump.

So far, none have stayed at the shelter long enough to learn all of them — which is a good thing, Robertson said.

Adopters are given information on the training their cat has received and how to continue it at home if they wish.

The Jackson Galaxy Project is sending webinars to Brown County shelter staff to train the trainers, and staff keep logs of each cat’s training to share with program managers.

The program will end in April, but the shelter is expected to report back for the rest of the year, Robertson said.

How it’s done

One of the first steps to training a cat is learning what motivates them, Robertson said.

Contrary to stereotype, all cats are motivated by something.

Training starts with “capturing,” or looking for a natural behavior that the trainer can reward the cat for doing. That could be meowing, or sitting, or playing with a toy, or rubbing up against something — anything that the trainer can associate with a reward or “reinforcer.”

The trainer uses a clicker — such as the kind used in dog training — when she sees that behavior, then gives the cat a treat, or whatever it seems to want. Eventually, the cat will associate the sound of the clicker with the reward and do something else to get it.

“The clicker is almost like a bridge between the behavior and the treat, because you have, like 0.2 seconds to reinforce the behavior or they don’t even know what you’re reinforcing,” Robertson said. “The clicker is like a camera; it takes a picture of that behavior.”

Veronica is so motivated by treats that Levine can just use pieces of her food to motivate her.

Other cats don’t care so much about food; maybe they want to play instead, or receive affection as their reward, Robertson said.

Last week, with Veronica showing mastery of eye contact and sitting on command, Levine started the “targeting” phase of training. She held up a stick with a small rubber duck attached to it and tried to get Veronica to touch it to get her treat.

Veronica caught on quickly. Cats could use their nose or their paws to receive the reward, but paws are better for those that are “mouthy” and prone to bite, like Veronica is, Robertson said.

Eventually, Levine could do away with the stick and teach Veronica to touch her hand instead for a high-five.

By the end of her first day of targeting training, Veronica was already stepping through a hoop to reach the duck on a stick and receive her treat.

She’s also working on meowing on cue.

Staff work six times a week with their cat students for about 10 minutes at a time.

When Veronica sees Levine approaching with her orange training blanket, she starts pacing her cage and meowing.

In addition to learning “cool party tricks,” the training gives the cats something to look forward to, Robertson said.

“The longer animals are in a shelter, the more likely they are to get sick, or their behavior declines, or their mental state gets all out of whack,” she said. “For those cats that are struggling, it will make their stay more enjoyable, because they have something to do, have a purpose. … Otherwise, the cat is just sitting here.

“We’re not doing them any favors if we aren’t working on something. If they have to be here, we might as well be trying to help them along.”

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Cat Pawsitive program: thejacksongalaxyproject.org/About-Us/Programs/Cat-Pawsitive

Adoptable cats at the Brown County Humane Society: bchumane.org/available-cats

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