He will sit on command. We did this by rewarding him with food when he sat, at the same time saying “sit” and making a hand gesture. He will now sit away from a food source, as we have also used caresses as a reward.

He will use his scratching box on command. We did this by making scratching sounds and then giving him a vigorous backrub when he used his scratching box (instead of the couch).

Unfortunately, the positive training has not been entirely successful in training him out of unwanted behaviors.

He is quite agitated about getting fed. We thought that by getting him to sit before a feeding, we would allow him to calm down. This has worked, partially, but he still agitates a great deal, meowing and shepherding us to his bowl at every opportunity.

He also continues to scratch the couch. As with Juno’s behavior, it seems that the cat knows that he is transgressing the rules.

“I know the dog books we have been reading emphasize that you shouldn’t anthropomorphise dog behavior, attributing intent when it isn’t there.”

I think maybe it’s not always anthrompomorphizing but perhaps teaching the dog Human contexts — the baby found by wolves is taught the wolf behavior(if the wolfboy stories are true), so why can’t we raise them as humans and see how much of our behavior they can learn. Whereas, the wolves have low expectations of a human child, we have high expectations for the dog child. I think high expectations are better. Sometimes a dog can do unexpected things… I wonder about that story of a women who was choking, was knocked to the ground by her dog who jumped on her chest in the dogy version of the Hymlich method for forcing food out of the windpipe.