What do you do when two friends become mortal enemies? That's what happened to a poster on the Cat-Clicker mailing list recently. She had two cats, an aging female and a young male, who had been, well, if not friends then friendly cohabitants, until the older cat had surgery. Now for the last several months, the owner has had to keep the cats separated because trouble starts quickly if the two are together.
The poster had made a good start. She was keeping the cats separated, and then using clicker training to reward behaviors she liked. She clicked the male for sniffing the female's bed and remaining calm. She clicked him for lying quietly when the female was in the room. She had even progressed to clicking him for remaining calm while she walked the female on leash near him. She was feeling hopeful that this was going to work, but then he attacked the female again, and now she's back to wondering if there's any hope for these two.
The members of the Cat-Clicker list assured her that she was on the right path. What she lacked was patience. She had been clicking only two weeks, but the two cats began fighting back in March. It was going to take time to instill new behavior patterns. Keeping the cats separated except when she was working with them was key to that, because she needed to prevent them from inadvertantly reinforcing the aggressive behaviors.
In addition to discussing how to reintroduce the cats and reinforce the behaviors she liked, the list also discussed whether there was a place in this scenario for punishing undesired behavior and what the appropriate method of doing that would be. One argued that some behaviors are dangerous enough that they needed to be stopped right away, which justified using a physical interrupter/aversive like a spray bottle. Many other listers agreed that there are times when positive punishment would be appropriate, but they vociferously disagreed that it was asppropriate in this scenario. Alternatives included stricter management, more proactive actions by the trainer, short time outs (negative punishment), and strong reinforcement of an incompatible behavior.
In the end, the poster left with a slew of new techniques in her arsenal and a new understanding of the time it takes to rehab aggression issues.
