This year a French study found that cats know when their owners are talking to them, adding to a growing body of evidence that cats might be more bonded to us than we think. So if cats rival dogs as man’s best friends, could we train them in the same way? I asked behaviourist Daniel Cummings from welfare charity Cats Protection.
Recently it was demonstrated that cats can, to some extent, read human emotions, leading some to suggest they could be therapy animals for their owners. Could a cat be trained to be a support animal?
Oh yes! I would say such training is universal across all species. It’s mostly positive reinforcement – so rewarding the animal when they do the right thing, until eventually they learn “if I do this, something good happens”. You could do that with a dog, cat, alligator, elephant – you could even maybe try it with some invertebrates.
