What happens if we use aversive methods to educate cats?

It is well known that many people use the typical water spray to keep their cats from climbing on the table, smelling food, scratching the sofa, etc. They talk loudly to frighten them, slap them away, etc. But are these methods - or others - good for your cat? And what could happen if you use them? What is best for cats?

Cats are very sensitive animals, whose instinctive behaviour, when kept inside four walls (in case they don't go outside), needs to be released somehow. If they can't because they are punished in any way, they can accumulate stress that will end up causing behavioural problems such as:

-    Stress-related out-of-tray urination due to interstitial cystitis (the so-called urinary infection)

-    Out-of-tray urination on the people or in the places where the people that cause them stress are most likely to be

-    Fear and, therefore, stress and previous cases of improper urination.

-    Re-directed aggressiveness: this usually occurs when cats want to direct their stress towards the scare which has been inflicted upon them and, not being able to do so because they don't know exactly what it was (spray, loud noise, etc.), they start attacking their human. Very often, when the cat is frightened, it runs away and hides from the situation. So why do other cats attack us? Usually because those cats already have a past history of stress, and that scare or moment of greatest tension is "the cherry on top of the cake" that triggers it all off.

-    Aggression redirected towards another animal in the house, causing a possible fight and a new problem.  

-    Direct aggressiveness towards us if the cat knows that we are the cause of their stress.

What is best for them?

-    We must always bear in mind that a cat is a cat and that it needs to release their instinctive behaviours in some way.

-    Most importantly, give them everything they need, in the proper way, using alternatives. How? By providing them with fun surroundings and interactive toys, which I will talk about in the next post.

-    By rewarding positive behaviour: for example, when they release that instinctive behaviour with the tree scratcher and not the sofa, it's time for rewards. When they do it with the sofa, distract them with a treat and give it to them when they go to the scratcher.

-    Practical example: If we want to educate cats not to scratch the sofa, we can put the scratcher in front of or near the place where they were scratching, so that they can sense that the scratcher replaces the sofa.

Alba Serrano, dog and cat psychologist and Master in Clinical Ethology from the UAB, @enlamentedelosanimales.