10 Techniques to Discipline your Cat and 4 Ways to Avoid

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Cats are the most unpredictable of pets. One moment, they’re sweet and affectionate, and the next, they are plotting world domination from atop your kitchen counter. As cat owners, you may have accepted this as your life. However, you can discipline your pet towards better behavior with patience.


In this article, we will discuss our tips and tricks for training your cat to manage its bad behavior without punishing it. This training doesn’t require you to be a drill sergeant but rather guides your pet through positive reinforcement. Let’s go into details:

What Undesirable Behaviors Cats Often Project? 

Despite spending most of their time napping, cats often project undesirable behaviors. These behaviors can swing from mildly annoying to downright destructive. Also, these behaviors can vary a lot depending on your cat’s personality. 


No matter whether your cat has an attention-seeking attitude or a naughty personality, they can show destructive behavior to fulfill their needs. Some common behaviors most cats show are:


  • Jumping on counters or furniture: Why not observe their kingdom from a high ground?
  • Chewing electrical chords: Apparently, your cat thinks it can be your new electrician
  • Scratching and Biting: Maybe your cat is a secret ninja
  • Waking you up in the middle of the night: Isn’t 3 AM the perfect time to play?
  • Putting dead animals on your doorstep: Because you deserve a gift now and from your cute hunter.
  • Failure to use the litter box: Hypothetically, the whole world is a litter box, isn’t it?


While some good intentions might be behind these actions, they can hamper your life in unexpected ways. So, there must be ways to manage such behavior. Worry not; we will discuss these disciplinary ways in the next section.

How Can You Discipline Your Cat?

While many cat parents want their cats to stop undesirable behavior, felines may never actually stop those actions. The best you can do is to train them to minimize mischievous behavior. 


As proud cat parents, we have seen good reinforcements work better than punishments. While some may spritz water or yell and beat their cats, we prefer using a reward system to help our cats learn between good and bad deeds. 


Here is our guide to how you can discipline your cat to follow your commands:

1. Use a Firm, Consistent Tone

Using a serious voice to stop your cat from doing something undesirable is the first step you should take. You can use a deep voice to say “NO” or “STOP” to help your cat learn what behavior is undesirable. 


You can use this measure whenever your cat decides to sharpen its nail on your new couch or scratch and bite you while playing. You should pick a voice command and utter it without shouting. Use this command and tone consistently till your cat recognizes the sound and grabs its attention.


Consistency is the key to disciplining your cat in this process. Once your cat starts paying attention to your firm voice and stops doing whatever mischievous thing it was doing, you give your kitty a treat. Thus, it will stop doing those bad behaviors more often. Every time your cat obeys your command, shower it with cuddles, pets, and treats.

2. Train with Noise

As cats are not apex predators, they can easily get rattled by loud noise. You can leverage this trait of your cat to train for discipline. However, you will always have to keep some tools around you so you can make those sounds whenever your cat starts scratching, biting, or trying to murder you by moving the glass bottle from the top of the shelf. 


In this method, you can shake a tin filled with coins or clap your hands loudly whenever your feline is chewing cables or jumping on counters. Cats are sensitive to loud noises, and the sound will distract them from their mischievous activities. 


When you repeat this kind of noise whenever your cat is being destructive, your pet will learn to associate the sound with its behavior. Thus, you can train your cat to follow orders.

3. Aluminum Foils and Double-Sided Tapes are your Friends

Cats have sensitive paws, so they are very careful about where they step or scratch. So, if you want to protect your countertop, couch, or carpet, which are prime spots for your cat to scratch, you can make those surfaces uncomfortable for your cat.


So, how do you do it? You coat those surfaces either with aluminum foil or double-sided tape. You can easily find pet-friendly double-sided tapes in pet supply stores. These materials will make the surface unappealing for cats, so they will stop scratching there.


Remember, scratching is a normal behavior for cats. They need to groom their nails for healthy growth. So, you should give it some scratching posts and keep them around the surfaces it likes to nail. This will help your cat keep its nails healthy and your furniture stay protected. 

4. Unappealing Smells Work Too

Similar to sounds and touches, cats are very particular about scents. So, if you want to create a boundary for your cats, you can use smells that are unappealing to cats.


Cat absolutely hates the smell of eucalyptus, citronella, aloe, citrus, and any strong-smelling perfumes. You can collect any of those essential oils, sock them in cotton balls or pads. Then spread them around your house where you don’t want your cat to go. 


If your cat pees outside of its litter box, here and there, in your house, this can be a very effective measure to stop that behavior. Thoroughly clean that space and put a cotton ball soaked in eucalyptus oil. Your cat will not go to that corner again. You can utilize this method whenever your cat comes into heat.

5. Keep your Kitty Isolated

If your kitten consistently behaves badly, it might be trying to get your attention. By isolating it, you can teach it that bad behavior does not gain attention. This situation is more true in multiple pet households as they can consider one another competitors.


Your cat might scratch your couch or pee around the house to get attention. When you notice this behavior, remove the cat from the situation and let it spend some time alone in an isolated space like a washroom or bedroom. Twenty minutes alone should be enough for him to calm down.

6. Water Sprays? If Absolutely Necessary

Isn’t your cat responding to the disciplinary techniques despite trying various methods? It’s time you introduce your cat to the evil spray bottle. However, it might require some skills from your end as well as you need to time it strategically.


 If you catch your cat chewing your beloved houseplant or scratching the skin out of your furniture, spray it with water. However, do it right in the middle of the unwanted dead, or your cat will not be able to associate it. 


Spray from the back so your cat doesn’t know the water is coming from you. Also, this helps you avoid spraying water in sensitive areas of your cat, especially the ears. 

7. Booby Traps Could be the Innovative Solution

While setting up booby traps might not come immediately to mind when disciplining a cat, these techniques can produce fast results when done right and carefully. To implement this, you need to cautiously lay out traps that startle your cat when it is being disobedient.


For example, you can place empty tin cans or boxes balanced on top of one another on tables or counters that your cat often jumps onto. When your cat springs into that space, the trap will collapse and scare it for its life. 


However, you need to make it sturdy enough to stand on its own and collapsable enough, so it falls whenever your cat touches it. Additionally, you need to choose the material accordingly so your cat doesn’t get injured. 

8. Encourage your Cat to Behave Properly

No matter what you do, your cat will always be a little mischievous and attention-seeker. However, you can manage their bad behavior by encouraging them with positive reinforcements. 


So, next time you see your cat scratching its scratching post rather than your furniture, give it a treat. This way, your cat will associate good behavior with special, high-value treats. As a result, they will repeat those behaviors and avoid doing the bad ones.


Positive reinforcement training is highly effective for training your cat. It will not only improve its basic behavior but also help you leash-train and even motivate it to learn some tricks. 

What Else Can You Do?

9. Visit the Veterinarian

Underlying health conditions can also be a triggering factor for your cat’s bad behavior. It may pee outside its litter box just because it feels too ill to go to its designated space. If you suspect anything like this, immediately consult your local veterinarian. 


Ailing felines may be feeling pain and discomfort or suffering from parasites, infections, or even stress. Your vet will conduct tests and check-ups to detect if your beloved pet needs any medical treatment. If so, you need to treat the medical condition first before discipline training. 

10. Give those Attention-seekers Lots of Attention

If your cat is waking you up at the most ungodly hours just to play, what should you do? In most cases, cats do this because they are bored, lonely, and full of energy. So, they want you to give them attention and play with you.


While cats sleep most of the day, they stay very active at times. Give your cat your undivided attention at those moments. As a result, your cat will stay tired at night and will not wake you up around 3 am. 


Give your pet cat toys to play with and opportunities to exercise before meals and going to bed. It might still want to play with you some nights, but ignore it and don’t give up on its demand. This way, your cat will learn not to disturb you during nighttime. 



Things You Must Avoid Doing

As of now, you know all the best practices for training your cat to follow orders. However, there are lots of misconceptions and bad advice lurking around the internet that may scare your cat and make it run away. So, you need to be careful about the don’ts of cat discipline. 


Physical punishment undoes all your progress with your pet very quickly. So, you need to avoid doing the following actions with your cat:

1. Spanking or Hitting

Spanking, hitting, kicking, or even scruffing your cat is a very bad idea. It doesn’t tell your cat to stop doing something but teaches it to fear and not trust you. Do not make your home’s environment hostile for your pet.

2. Late to Discipline

Immediately take action whenever your cat is being naughty. Your cat needs to learn what bad behavior is first so it does not repeat it. So, if you are going for the water squirting or isolating method, do it immediately when your cat is being naughty. Otherwise, your cat will not understand why it is being punished. 



3. Inconsistency

Whether or not you are close to correcting your cat’s behavior, you need to be consistent with your method. If you get too busy or forget to be consistent, it will translate badly for you, your furniture, and your carpet. 


If you choose to use voice commands, stick to the same command all the time. Other members of your household should be aware of this and should use the same words to discipline your cat. This would help your cat to understand its bad behavior and it will start avoiding those actions.

4. Not Paying Immediate Attention

Don’t waste time disciplining and training your cat. Whenever you notice any undesirable action from your cat, pick a method from the abovementioned section and apply it. The longer you postpone the training, the harder it will become.

Final Words

So, these are the most effective methods of improving your cat’s behavior. While different cats have different personalities, you know your pet better than anyone else. So, it is up to you to determine how you can effectively train your cat to behave properly.


There is no alternative to consistency. Whatever methods you choose to go with, stick with it and be patient. No matter what, never lose your cool and try to inspect the reasons behind your pet’s undesirable actions. There might also be signs that would suggest a deeper problem that needs immediate action.

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