Biff and Albert aren’t ordinary cats. These super felines reside and work at the WVU Hearts of Gold Service Dog training facility at the Davis School of Agricultural and Design and Natural Resources. Biff and Albert receive free room and board, dry cat food and snuggles from cat-loving students. In their free time, they deter rodents from invading the facility.
Though their job may seem easy, it can be stressful. Biff and Albert are tasked with snuggling up to young canines in training in order socialize and introduce them to a diverse environment. The goal is to make the young pups realize that its not only a dog’s world. If you’re going to live a life of service you can’t go chasing cats. This room and these cats are a big part of the proving ground.
This last semester Biff and Albert had a special friend and student, Kiara Cogar. Kiara was enlisted to help Biff and Albert learning new tasks. Read her story below:
Socializing Cats and Dogs
During my semester with the Hearts of Gold Service Dogs, I had the opportunity to work with two cats who live full time at the facility, Biff and Albert. Biff and Albert’s primary role at the facility is to socialize with the dogs, especially the puppies so that they become acclimated to being around cats and playing appropriately with them, as well as not being afraid or intimidated by them.
Since I was not yet qualified to work with the dogs, Lindsay and Savannah thought it would be an interesting project for me to begin working with the cats, using similar behavioral techniques that the program uses to train the dogs: positive reinforcement, shaping, prompting, and luring.
Litter Kwitter
Common behavioral intervention in cats is training them how to use the toilet instead of the litter box. Although it may seem absurd to the unknown eye, toilet training in cats is widespread, and the patent for inventions that aide the process has existed since 1984. The invention is trademarked by many different names. Based on my research for the most effective systems, I selected the Litter Kwitter.
The Litter Kwitter (litterkwitter.com/) is an easy-to-use, no-nonsense sort of stepped-toilet training system that consists of a white ring that attaches to the toilet seat and has three disks that sit inside. The first disk is red and holds about 5-6 cups of litter. The second disk is orange, and has a small hole in the middle, and contains about 3-4 cups of litter. The third disk is green, has a much larger hole in the middle, and holds about 1-2 cups of litter. This stepped system allows for the cats to gradually fade out the amount of litter they are using by switching to the next steps.
The Litter Kwitter provides a training guide to allow you to maneuver the system quickly and easily. It puts a heavy emphasis on positive reinforcement, which is how we train our dogs to learn commands.
The Training
Since this sort of training was entirely unusual to these cats, I started their training by shaping. I would allow them to become accustomed to the target stick, and each time they touched the red ball at the end, there would be a click, and then they would be treated. This process allows them to associate performing the task with a clicker and treat reinforcement. Then, I would lure them onto the toilet using the target stick and click and treat. They caught on to this very quickly. They had no issues using the Litter Kwitter’s step 1, no hole, red disk phase. However, they are having problems with accidents throughout the room they are kept in during step 2.
Some limitations I faced with this work was 1) not being able to use a continuous schedule of reinforcement, as I do not live with the cats, and 2) time restraints, as I only had six full weeks to use the system, when it at a minimum takes eight weeks.
Kiara Cogar
Kiara Cogar is studying political science and psychology at West Virginia University. She graduates in May of 2019.