How can I get my cat to support me?

August 6, 2005 7:56 AM

How can I get my cat to support me?

How can I get my cat into commercials and movies? She has a fairly extensive range of things she can do and learned using clicker training. I tried emailing the Boston Film institute asking for their animal trainers but haven't heard anything back yet. I have a video of her doing her stuff on her website. I also have video there of her being vacuumed (Prior AskMetafilter question). That took about 14 days of conditioning before we got to this stage.

posted by Ferrari328 to pets & animals (11 comments total)

Pet Star on Animal Planet might help her and you become more famous, that'll help.
posted by riffola at 8:27 AM on August 6, 2005

Also try local morning news shows, etc, everyone's always on the lookout for "Pet tricks".
posted by riffola at 8:29 AM on August 6, 2005

I don't understand. The first two-thirds of the video were just low-five/high-five. She seems very obedient, but is she well-trained enough to do tv and film?
posted by Optimus Chyme at 8:33 AM on August 6, 2005

Have to agree with Optimus Chyme - I was kinda expecting to see her jump through flaming loops of fire on a miniature motorcycle.

Entering the *highly* competative world of TV and movies requires that you can blow away the competition, have a showreel that makes people think, "THAT's the cat I want in my ad/ movie."

So I'd scope out the competition to see what you're up against first; maybe research animal handlers, pet trainers etc?
posted by forallmankind at 9:35 AM on August 6, 2005

Watching the video, you need to market yourself as well. And present yourself as idiosyncratically as possible-- there might be a market for "wacky european and his trained cat." Don't overdo it, but make yourself a bit of a character.
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:54 AM on August 6, 2005

I'm with the folks above. I was expecting a lot more.

In addition, please don't take this the wrong way, your clicker technique is very poor. For one, it sounds like you're using your mouth. A clicker should make a loud, *consistent* (ie, the same every single time) sound that the animal could hear at a distance. Right now you're up close, so she can hear you, but as you train more advanced tricks where you're far away or out of site, the animal can't hear that noise. In effect, you'll have to reteach her with a new, proper click sound. Spend $5 on a pro clicker.

Next, you're clicking at the wrong time. Your current method is fine for one-off tricks but as soon as you try and train something more complex or chain tricks together or shape them into very specific moves... well, you'll have problems. The animal needs to hear the sound (loud, clear, and consistent) at the exact instant that the desired movement occurs. No "yeah" or anything else in between. For example, if you were teaching high-five, you'd click at the *exact* moment of impact. In your video, for instance, when you say, "You wanna do another situp?" you click as the cat's about to give up (coming down from the sit up), which enforces the wrong action.

Next, try and get away from using verbal commands if you want to get into film/tv. Though it's great to have an animal that responds to verbal cues, I believe (but could be wrong--I don't work in the industry) that hand signals are better. If you are going to use verbal commands, I'd lose the whole question/sentence techniqe. "You wanna do a situp?" isn't a command. It also sounds too much like "You wanna do a ..." whatever. Try and come up with one syllable comands (beg, over, under, top, spin, crawl, tap, touch, go, crouch, etc.). It's easier for the animal to not mix them up as well as for others to use the commands. Most people will say, "sit" the same way, but not everyone is going to say "Do you wanna sit?" the same way. If cats are anything like dogs (and I don't know shit about cats) then inflection and such can severely affect comprehension. Phrases won't be consistently expressed.
posted by dobbs at 11:34 AM on August 6, 2005

dobbs and the rest of you, Thanks for the feedback. I'm using my mouth for the click since she isn't learning new tricks. For what she can do now, I don't really need to click. In fact, I'm trying NOT to click. (I do have a real clicker, that's how we started).

For the "You wanna do a ..", that was trained with a command "sit up" and the rest of the sentence was added afterwards so I can use either a command or a sentence.
posted by Ferrari328 at 11:54 AM on August 6, 2005

Also:

Don't promote your cat with video formats that don't run on Macs. I couldn't see the video...
posted by jpburns at 12:02 PM on August 6, 2005

jpburns, you can watch AVIs on Macs with VLC. It's free from versiontracker.com
posted by dobbs at 12:21 PM on August 6, 2005

Back in the day, I would sometimes work on ads that required cats and/or dogs. Casting for the cat was just like for a person. And working cats have representation. You need to get your cat's photo and CV into the hands of people who cast cats. It is about an easy business to get into as acting for people.

I asked the agency 'talent coordinator' how I could get my cats into the business since working animals make more than I do. Working with cats on a set is a real treat. People, lights, noises and other distractions make getting the cat to do something like "just sit there" difficult. The true pro cats won't get distracted and will make the shoot go smoothly. Spending time trying to get the cat to come out from under the bed is expensive so cats actually get a reputation. Creatives, photographers and directors will ask for particular pets.

My cats never made the big time. Never even got called in. But I hope we some day get the call and I can live off the cat's income while I sleep on the sofa all day.
posted by birdherder at 6:11 PM on August 6, 2005

I can't watch the videos due to my connection being too slow, but there's nothing wrong with your description of what you're doing - it's fine to wean off the clicker, in fact you SHOULD, in my opinion - as far as I'm concerned the clicker is there to train the behaviour and associate it with a cue, it's a training device, not a permanent fixture. Part of weaning off the clicker is adding another marker, often a vocal one (I use "yes", and then when I cue a clicker-trained behaviour, I'll say "yes" and reward, and for a time I use one after the other, same as when I add a cue).

That said, you need some impressive tricks (roll over, cover your eyes, speak, etc.), and you need to "proof" the behaviours (i.e. your cat needs to be able to perform the behaviours reliably in many locations and situations with varying levels of distractions), and the cat needs to be able to perform the tricks with you at a distance, and THEN you need to contact an animal talent agent (Googling for "animal talent agent" shows a lot of 'em). Good luck!
posted by biscotti at 8:59 PM on August 6, 2005