Training & Behavior

Nora is fat. There, I said it. The vet said it gently, the way vets say everything gently, and wrote a number on a card that made me wince. So we started weighing her, which with a cat means a wrestling match, a thrown scale, and a sense that we are both being punished for my kindness with the treats.

Then I had a thought, because the dog gets on the scales fine for his weigh-in and gets a biscuit, and cats are not less trainable, just less forgiving. I put Nora's scale on the floor and taped a bit of chicken on the far edge, so she had to step on it to reach the food. She stepped on it. The scale read. She ate. Nobody fought.

The second week I moved the chicken to the centre, so she had to stand still, not lunge. She stood, for a second, long enough for the number to settle. The third week she got on without the tape, because the scale had started to mean chicken, and a cat who has decided a thing means chicken will do the thing. I clicked my tongue, the way I do with the dog, and she sat. On the scale. On purpose.

It is a trick now. She gets on, she sits, the number locks, she gets chicken, she leaps off like she has performed. The vet is pleased. The weight is coming down, slowly, because a cat diet is mostly me putting the biscuit tin somewhere she cannot hear me open it at midnight. But the weigh-in, which used to be a small war, is the easiest part of the week.

I like that it became a trick, because tricks are how cats agree to things. You cannot tell a cat to cooperate. You can only make cooperation worth her time, and her time is worth exactly one piece of chicken. The scale is just the stage. The deal is the food. She has always understood deals. She ran the house on them before I caught on.

The dog watches the whole thing with mild jealousy, because his weigh-in is boring and hers gets chicken and applause. He is considering a career in it. I may let him, though he already does his own and just stands there like a lump, no style. Nora has style. She sits, she holds, she exits. A small professional.

If your cat is round and the vet wants numbers, do not chase her with the scale. Make the scale pay. One piece of something she loves, a calm hand, a week of repetition, and the weekly weigh-in becomes the one part of the diet you both look forward to. She is down a notch since we started. The chicken is up a notch in the budget. Worth it, to watch a fat cat choose to step on the scale and wait for her applause.

The dog has opinions about the chicken, naturally. He sits by the scale now too, offering a paw, because he has decided the cat's trick is a job he could do better, and the cat, smug, ignores him, which is the most cat thing she does. I may give him a turn, a plain weigh-in with his own biscuit, so he stops sulking by the mat. Two animals, one scale, a small queue of beings who have decided the bathroom is where the food is, which is not what I planned for the room.

The number keeps dipping. Slowly, the way cat weight comes off, because a cat on a diet is a cat investigating the bin at midnight and you cannot watch a cat every minute. But the weekly check keeps me honest, and the trick keeps her complicit, and between the two the notch moves down a little each month. The vet said steady is the only way that lasts, and the trick, by being something she likes, made steady easy instead of a fight I was losing at midnight.

I never thought a fat cat would teach me a training method, but she did. Show the animal the good thing first, let the scary thing ride along, repeat until the scary thing is just the stage. The dog got there with the coat, the cat got there with the scale, and I got a house of two creatures who step onto things on purpose because something nice happens there. Nora sits, the number locks, she leaps off like a performer taking a bow, and the fat, which was the whole problem, is now just the slow project we do together, with chicken.

She is down another notch since the trick stuck, the vet said so with a smile, and the smile is the part I keep, because a fat cat is a worry and a slimming cat is a small daily win you can weigh. The scale sits by the door now, a normal object, not a trap, and Nora hops on like she is clocking in, which is the whole point, a creature who feared the thing now seeks it because the thing pays. The dog watches, jealous, and the chicken budget climbs, but the cat is lighter, and the trick, which started as a way to dodge a fight, became the easiest part of the week.