Teaching Persians Good Behavior

Your Persian is beautiful. You could spend hours just looking at him and watching him. The problem is seldom the way he looks…the problem with Persians – or any other breed of cat – is their behavior.

The first thing to realize is that Persians are not dogs. While a dog will do anything in his power to please you, a Persian wants to know what it is that you are going to do to please him. You own a dog…a Persian owns you. Once this has been established and acknowledged by you, you will be more likely to be able to teach your Persian some good behavior.

Cats have their own unique personalities. Each one is different. Some are naturally well behaved, while others are not. Often, the environment determines whether or not they are well behaved. For example, if the Persian gets a lot of attention from you and has plenty of toys to entertain him, you can expect good behavior for as long as that attention continues. However, if you take that attention away, the cat will most likely start acting out in a way that is unacceptable to you.

Note that you cannot really discipline a cat – or any other animal. Animals don’t learn from discipline. They learn from negative results associated with what it is that they are doing. If your cat is swinging from your drapes, and you yell and swat at him, this tells him to fear you, and not to swing from the drapes when you are in the vicinity…he will save drape swinging for when you are not around, but he will still be swinging from the drapes. Squirting with a water bottle doesn’t work….again he associates this with you, not with swinging from the drapes.

However, if the drapes fell each time the Persian felt the need to swing on them, and he hits the floor enough, he will associate that negative result with the drapes, and not with you – and this is what you want. This is how he will learn to stay off of the drapes.

If you want you’re Persian to stay off of the furniture, or to stop scratching the furniture, you have to make the furniture unattractive. There are many products on the market that you can treat your furniture with that will make it unattractive to your Persian.

Each time you find a way to redirect your Persian attention or behavior, you must provide an alternative. If he is swinging from the drapes and scratching the furniture, a good alternative is a cat tree that provides plenty of scratching posts and rope type swings that he can swing from. It takes time, attention, and a little ingenuity on your part, but you really can turn a Persians bad behavior into good behavior that you can both live with.