It should go without saying that you should never, ever use violence to attempt to correct unwanted behavior in your cat. And when it is necessary to discipline your cat, never let your cat know that the discipline is coming directly from you. That may sound strange at first, but it is quite fitting, especially since your goal is to create a strong bond with your little feline friend.
If your cat relates discipline, anger, or pain with you, then you run the risk of having your cat fear you when your goal is to have him love you. There’s not much of a relationship when your pet runs away every time you approach. It’s much better to develop methods of discipline that the cat will not associate directly with you. This way, they associate an unpleasant result, and not you, with their unwanted behavior,
In other words, disciplining your cat should be done in a way so that he directly relates the action with whatever he was doing “wrong” - not you.
This is indeed the best way to train cats. This system of making them believe that whatever it is that they are doing wrong will trigger an automatic response that they do not like, but has nothing to do with you, is the only way to teach your cat right from wrong, while at the same time developing a loving and strong relationship with your pet.
For example, if your cat has been clawing and scratching at your new leather sofa, and you start to yell, scream, or express anger towards him – this will do nothing more than show your cat that you are to be avoided. Your sofa will still be his scratching post - but it will happen behind your back. Not quite the result you had in mind, is it?
Now if we’re smart about this situation, we can develop some sort of “booby-trap” that the cat experiences whenever he approaches the couch to scratch. This experience should be agitating, but not painful. Many cat owners use a specific type of sticky coating, or double-sided tape, that makes his paws sticky when touched. And as you may understand by now, he will start to directly relate the couch to an experience that he does not want to feel again. And the good news is that it has nothing to do with you, at least as far as the cat is concerned!
Below is a list of some other discipline tools that you can safely use to deter unwanted behavior:
1. Use loud noises. Cats cannot stand the sound of loud banging noises. In fact, they hate it and will run for cover as if being sprayed by bullets. A very simple solution would be having a tin cans full of rocks or pennies that you can shake every time you see your cat doing something.
2. Use spray water bottles: This is my personal favorite technique. However, do not get too trigger-happy. Your only goal is to give a light squirt to your cat whenever you see him doing something wrong. Although you are the one shooting the water, he doesn’t realize that. All your cat knows is that whenever he approaches the couch he feels shocking spurts of water hit the side of his head or body.
3. Try placing some sort of liquid that cats dislike on the surface areas that he is destroying: A good example of this would be some Tabasco sauce or vinegar. Cats despise the bitternness of the substances and it tastes terrible to them.
4. You can purchase a commercial product called a Scat-Mat, which is a mat that gives the cat a small static shock when the cat comes in contact with it. The shock alarms the cat rather than hurts him, but it is enough of a deterrent to make the cat want to avoid that area.
