There is a widely held belief that cats cannot be trained. This is nonsense. Professional animal trainers in zoos regularly train tigers to open their mouths for check-ups and to hold still for vaccinations (yes, it’s true). So you can very much train your cat to go into their carrier, take a pill or give you a high-five. I believe in you!

But what if the cat in question happens to be blind? Clicker training for blind cats is much the same as for any other cat. With some minor adjustments and a little bit of creativity on your part, you can teach your blind cat just about anything.

I started training Shadow and Loki as soon as they joined us. Odin, who came to us a little earlier, was already getting a daily clicker session. I did the same for the blindies, mostly because nobody told me I couldn’t. We’ve been training for a couple of years now and they know a bunch of tricks as well as several useful behaviours – what we call medical training or cooperative care. Just a few examples of things we learned:

• Sit, lie down, spin
• Rear up
• Shake, high-five, wave
• Bite a target on command
• Rest their chin on my hand
• Go into the carrier
• Follow a target stick
• Go to place mat
• Jump up or down from surfaces on command

The most challenging part of clicker training a blind cat will be the clicker training part, and not the blind cat part. If you are not familiar with clicker training just yet, I recommend you read up or watch some videos on the basics. There are a couple of useful resources linked at the bottom of this post. The following box provides a very brief overview.

R+ and clicker training

Modern, ethical, science-based animal training uses positive reinforcement, often shortened to R+. Simplified, R+ means that behaviour the trainer wants gets a reward. Any other behaviour gets nothing – no reward, but also no punishment. The animals are not coerced into doing anything. In fact, even taking part in the training session is completely optional. It is the trainer’s job to make the training session fun so that the animal will want to join. 

Clicker training is a common form of R+ training. The clicker is a communication tool: a small device that makes a clicking sound at the push of a button. We start by teaching the animal that every click means they get a treat. Once this is established, the clicker is used to mark the precise moment the animal does what the trainer wants. It’s entirely possible to use a different signal than the clicker and a different reward than a treat. 

Some of the key tenets of R+ and clicker training are:

• Keeping the experience positive
• Breaking the desired behaviour into very small steps and rewarding those
• Giving the animal choices and control

And some of its benefits for cats:

• Teaching your cat important life skills like taking medication without stress
• Enriching their lives through learning and problem solving
• Increasing bond and the understanding between the cat and the trainer

For clicker training blind cats, there are three things to keep in mind. They are:

• The cats are blind, not stupid
• Every cat is different
• All you need is a little bit of creativity

Blind, not stupid

The most important thing I want you to take away from this post is this: blind cats can learn. Even more, they love to learn! You just have to let them. Sometimes, we humans get carried away by our good intentions. Pity for the “poor blind kitty” makes us “help” the cat in situations the cat was perfectly able to handle by themselves. The result can be a cat who’s a) bored out of their mind and b) ill-equipped to handle any kind of obstacle or change. 

If you share your life with a blind (or otherwise disabled) cat, please, please abandon this mindset. It will make both you and your cat unhappy. Blind cats are joyful, curious, resilient, capable, smart, independent animals – because they’re cats! And if you’re starting to clicker train your blind kitty, remember this: it’s not a question of whether they can learn something. It’s a question of whether you can figure out how to teach it to them!

Every (blind) cat is different

As Dr. Susan Friedman likes to put it, behaviour is a study of one. Every cat you train is an individual with their own personality, likes, dislikes and quirks. A method that works for one cat might not work at all for another – blind or not. Our blind siblings Loki and Shadow respond to training in their own distinct ways.

You are the best judge of your blind cat’s personality. Watch them closely – clicker training makes you great at this, by the way! How do they react to things happening around them? When they hear a certain sound, do they approach? When something touches their whiskers, do they reach out to sniff it? How can you use these reactions in your training?

Be creative

So if blindness itself is not a problem when clicker training your cat, what is? The main challenge in clicker training a cat with a sensory disability (i.e. blindness) is communication. Specifically, blind cats can’t see the hand signals most trainers use when training seeing animals. This does not – and I repeat – does not mean that you can’t train them. It just means you need to be creative about your methods.

A very straightforward example: the high-five. It’s a fairly easy trick for most cats. A brief online search will give you a number of different methods for teaching it, one of which will certainly work for you and your blind cat. The only problem: how do they know where to put their paw if they can’t see your hand?

I taught Shadow and Loki to high-five and shake by sound. When I hold out my hand for them to shake, I gently rub my thumb over my fingers twice. Do it now. Hold out your hand, palm up, fingers together. Gently cup your palm so that you can reach the fingers with the tip of your thumb. Hold your hand up to your ear and run the thumb over the fingers. Do you hear it? Great! So does your cat!

We use similar signals for several other tricks. I rub the tips of my thumb and fingers together to indicate the direction of a spin. A more noticeable rub of the full fingers against the base of the thumb indicates the location of a chin rest. I snap my fingers for “up”, rub my flat palm on the floor for “down” and clap my hand for “wave”. Close your eyes and try all of them. Can you hear the difference? So can your cat! You do not need bells and whistles – literal or figurative. Just your hands and a little bit of creativity.

Training tricks – yay or nay?

I have met a couple of people who deeply disapproved of training cats to perform tricks. They felt it was demeaning to the animal to do things that they perceived to be only for human amusement. I can see where they are coming from. However, I train tricks mostly for the amusement of my cats. Clicker training yields its benefits only when you keep working on new behaviours, or improving known ones – there has to be some level of challenge to it so that the cat continues to learn. Tricks like jumping can also help your indoor cat get their exercise in.

Still uncomfortable about teaching your (blind) cat to do tricks? Simply focus on “life skills” and cooperative care behaviours in your training. The cat will derive the same benefits from clicker training regardless of what you work on.

Bonus: learn from others!

It’s easy to say “be creative”! It’s not easy to actually do it when you’re at the end of your rope and you don’t know what else to try. Believe me, I have been there.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be creative on your own. Talk to other trainers – even if they don’t train blind animals. Watch YouTube videos on training methods, read books or listen to podcasts. They may not be about blind animals either, but they will make you a better trainer and improve your improvisation skills. I also recommend searching for advice for training blind dogs – just make sure the training is based on positive reinforcement. 

And if you’re ready for a real deep dive, I recommend doing a course or joining a community of trainers. I benefited enormously from The Conditional Cat course by JR Henderson, linked below. JR is an extremely knowledgeable trainer, and was immediately able to see past the blindness and help me find solutions.

If you don’t want to go quite so deep yet, you can join a forum or community where you can exchange ideas with other trainers – or you can even write to me. For my German-speaking friends: I will be giving an interview about clicker training blindies at the Online Katzenkongress 2024, where I will go into more detail on our signals and methods. If you sign up, you can watch the video for free on October 24th, or buy the congress package and have a full year of access to all the videos. I did it last year, and I would recommend it even if I wasn’t in it. If you go through my affiliate link, I’ll get a kickback, which I solemnly swear to spend on Churu. 

Links and more

Helpful resources to get started:

• Online Katzenkongress 2024, featuring us and many, many other trainers and experts (in German, affilate link)
• Cat School YouTube channel and enrolment programme

If you already know the basics, but would like to know WAY more: 

• The Conditional Cat: Cat Herding 101 course by JR Henderson. I cannot recommend this enough!
• Animal Training Academy podcast and community
• Stale Cheerios blog

The gear we use:
(This is just the stuff I like – you may prefer something else!)

• Clicino Clicker Ring 
• Bog-standard target stick; make-up sponge and bell stuck on the target end for the blindies (tutorial)
• Our placemats are decorative pillow cases from Ikea
• Our treat bag is the TrendPet TwinTreat Plus

The treats we use:
(This is just the stuff our cats like – yours may prefer something else!)

• VetConcept Lammfleisch-Happen / Lammfleisch-Scheiben (low-value)
• VetConcept Knabberwölkchen Lamm (mid-value)
• Inaba Churu Chicken puree (high-value)