When we go to live with a young cat, or if we have raised one with a bottle, the day will come when we will realize that little by little it becomes more autonomous, that it no longer depends so much on us to move around the house . The day he learns to go down the stairs.
Although it is something that he learns on his own, it is no less true that he trips and / or falls more than once, so why not help him? Let us know how to teach a cat to go down stairs.
When can you start teaching him?
First of all, we have to wait until it is the right age, since obviously a kitten of just three weeks will not have grown enough to be able to start learning to go down the stairs. But we won't have to wait much longer: with two months or even a little earlier (7 weeks) is a good time to remove the protective barrier and let it roam every corner of the home.
Once you do, we can encourage you to get on and off the sites.
How to teach him to go down the stairs?
To be able to go down and up steps it is very important that the kitten knows that we will be by his side, but that we will only act if necessary. What does this mean? That if he is healthy and in no danger, the only thing we will do is encourage him to… go up, not the stairs, but the scraper.
It is better to first teach him how to get on and off the objects that he more or less already knows, as this will make him feel more comfortable. So, we will put a treat on top of the scraper, in its lowest part, and we will encourage you to go up. Another option is to show him the treat, and direct him to that area. Later, we will do the same but in reverse, towards the ground.
Now we direct it towards the second highest area of the scraper, we give you your prize when it arrives, and we do the same again in the opposite direction. We give you another treat.
For a few days, we repeat these steps until we see that it goes up and down it without problems. Then, it will be time to do the same but on the stairs. Of course, this area of the home can be dangerous, so we will have to be very aware of the kitten and stand no more than one step down away from him.
When we're in position we will show you a treat and encourage you to go down. Most likely, he has many doubts, but from my own experience I can tell you that speaking with him, in a happy tone of voice, we help him a lot to feel the necessary security to go down. Once he does, we give him his well-deserved treat, and we go down another notch. As soon as he does the same, we will give him another one. We repeat these steps until we have descended the stairs.
To teach you how to upload them, we have to follow these steps but in the opposite direction.
Always remember that it is normal to feel very insecure when you learn something, but you would not learn it if you did not have the opportunity to have confidence in yourself. This is what you have to try to convey to the kitten with beautiful and happy words, caresses and the odd treat so that little by little, it learns to go down the steps. It is not difficult, in fact the most normal thing is that in the course of a couple of weeks he learns it, so sooner rather than later we will hear a sound that until now there was not: that of the footsteps of our beloved cat running through the streets. stairs 🙂.