Fishing Cat Training | The Big Cat Sanctuary

What we're going to be doing today, we're going to be doing a training session with our little fishing cat, Aquarius. When it comes to training, all of the cats have one primary trainer and I train Aquarius. So what I'm going to be asking him to do is touch his nose to this lovely little red target ball here and what that allows me to do is move him around in any different direction that I need him to. I can get a really good idea of how he's moving and if there's any issues there. When he does the behavior that I've asked him to do, I'm going to bridge him with this little whistle here. It's essentially similar to how you would a clicker trainer dog. So it tells him that he's done the behavior that I've asked him to do and he then gets a reward for doing that. After I've asked him to touch, I'm going to be asking him to hold his nose on this red target here and that allows me to keep him still for a little bit longer and it means he's not quite moving as much. And what then I can do from there is potentially contact train him to allow me to vaccinate him at a later date without having to call the vet on site. It's a lot less stressful for him because all of our cats hate the vet and they know who he is. So Aquarius is who we're going to be doing it today. So enjoy. Hold. Touch. Training is really, really valuable for us here at the sanctuary. What it allows us to do is it helps us give better health care for our animals. We can train particular behaviors that we want to see. For example, we can contact train our cats to administer vaccinations, which then means it's a lot safer for them and it's a lot less stressful. We can also do dental and claw checks as well, which would otherwise have to anesthetize the animal to do. So it's much safer in that respect as well. And the cats really enjoy it. It's really stimulating for them. It's fantastic enrichment. And a lot of the time, they're actually there waiting for us when they see us coming.