Cat training

Posted by R. Berg on April 28, 2002

In Reply to: Swinging Cat Reprised posted by Marian on April 28, 2002

: : I found an interesting reference to room to swing a cat in the Peter Ackroyd Biography of London. He mentions a reference from Edward Lovett's Magic in Modern London, 1925 in which "a woman in White Chapel told an investigator that when moving house, it was customary to swing the cat around the room to induce it to stay."

: : It's not clear whether that was supposed to make the cat stay in the old place or the new. What is clear - at least to me - is that none of these people seem to know much about cats!

: I was once shown a method of inducing a cat to stay AWAY from a heavily traveled street in front of the cat's owner's house. It involved a curbside swinging of the kitten, by the scruff of its neck, out over traffic as cars zoomed past. It was certainly terrifying for the animal but it produced the desired effect--she stayed entirely away from the street after that.

I hope she found a nice home on another street.