As a pet owner you learn to communicate with your dear pets — communication plays a vital role to strengthen your

relationship with your pets including cats. Read on to know some teams that will tell you the ways to communicate with your cat.

Talk back to your cat

Cats are always learning how to communicate with us. The more that you communicate with your cat, the faster it will learn.

• Use a slightly raised tone

of voice to indicate friendliness and a lowered tone of voice to indicate displeasure or aggression.

• Using repetition will help your cat learn to anticipate consistent activities. You may want to repeat a word such as sleep or bed each time you go to bed. Eventually, your cat will begin to associate the repetitive word sound with your actions and may even get to the bedroom before you.

Non-verbal cues

Cats can be trained to understand words, but they will instinctively understand non-verbal cues. Creating a warm environment with clear expectations and few surprises can help strengthen your initial bond with a new cat.

• If you blink slowly when making eye contact with your cat, it will usually respond by coming over to be stroked. This is seen as a very non-threatening gesture.

• Try not to stare

directly into a cat’s eyes. It tells it that you are unfriendly

or aggressive.

• If your cat wants to go somewhere such as next to you on the couch, but it seems unsure, pat the space and use a soft, reassuring voice to invite it to join you.

• Be consistent in your intent and expression. A common blunder many pet owners make is to say “no” but pet the cat at the same time. This is very confusing to the cat. So for example, if you want your cat to go away, a firm “later” and gentle push, without showing affection, will let the cat know that its presence is not desired at this time.

Most cats will try two to three times to invade a person’s space, often from different directions. When saying “later”, be patient.

• Never yell or physically discipline a cat. This frightens and angers the cat, and is counterproductive. Instead, to show displeasure, you can add a hard edge to your voice. The cat will pick up on that and sense unhappiness.

Deliver commands

Being consistent with the wording, tone, and other accompanying signals while giving your cat training commands will help both of you agree on and understand clear expectations.

• Develop a command tone to use with your cat when it is doing something that you consider to be wrong. Use a voice that comes naturally to you and can be replicated easily, but that is also distinct from your everyday talking voice. If you use this voice sparingly but seriously, your cat will learn to associate the voice with the idea that it is displeasing you.

• Make a quick and sharp hiss or spit sound as a “no” command. This is similar to the sound made as a correction or warning in “cat language” and using it can communicate your intent more clearly to your cat.

• Cats can be trained to respond to commands, much the same as dogs. You can even teach your cat to shake your hand.