Training Niko to Sit

I wanted to teach Niko to sit with clicker training. He's quite a fast learner. Part of that is because 'sit' is very instinctive for a cat, especially because he has to look up at me often to see the treat or whatever I'm holding. Head goes up, butt goes down. Another interesting part of this is that the sit precedes him pawing at my hand. I caught that one early and didn't reward any pawing but it is interesting to note. I taught Sophie to sit but it quickly degraded to sit and scratch and then I gave in and fed her because I wanted to stop her from scratching. Bad bad trainer.

I figured out that for Niko play is a much better reward for him and he quickly got to the point where he'd sit when ever I removed the toy. Um, good, except I don't want to have him sitting all the time. So I switched to something totally different which is to target a little plastic red rectangle I have. Hmmm, red may not be the best color if what I read about dog color vision applies to cats. Dogs see blue and yellow best, so red is not a good color for them. Anyways, he's not picking that up quite as quickly. Then, I decided I'd just put sit on cue and put away the target. So I tried to catch him before he sat and gave the hand signal. Some successes and some instances of me saying sit while he was already starting. But then he'd also turn away and act bored. I'm tempted to write that off as him being a cat although to be fair, it probably had more to do with him not getting what I meant. I also quit when he sat when I took the toy away without being cued. We'll see how far I get putting this on cue and under stimulus control.