Shlomit Flaisher-Grinberg
Saint Francis University

Background:

As a behavioral neuroscientist, I always loved rats. I have seen them master complicated cognitive tasks and wanted my students to have the opportunity to learn, first-hand, just how social, clean, and clever they really are. Thus, I was thrilled when my department chair asked me to teach the “Psychology of Learning” course. Integrating rat-training experiences into the curriculum, my students used learning methodologies to teach their rats to “play soccer,” ride tiny scooters, and complete agility courses, among other tasks. During the semester, my students also learned to care for their rats, and many grew to love them. In fact, many students decided to adopt their rats at the end of the semester.

The Transformation:

Even though the course was effective, and students’ feedback was positive, there was always this one nagging thought I couldn’t get rid of. I was breeding (or purchasing) rats for the course, while animal shelters were overloaded with abandoned, neglected, abused, and betrayed animals. Having created an upper-level shelter dog-training program a few years ago (Flaisher-Grinberg, 2023), and knowing that every year, more than 3 million cats enter animal shelters worldwide (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, n.d.), I wondered if I could replace the course’s focus on rat training with shelter cat training. I assumed that like the training of rats, the training of cats (and assessment of the training efficacy) will contribute to students’ working knowledge of psychology and enhance their scientific reasoning skills. I envisioned that unlike the training of rats, the training of shelter cats would provide students with an opportunity to apply psychological content to practical, ‘real-world’ problems and empower them to make a difference in their lives and in their communities (American Psychological Association, 2022). Specifically, I wanted my students to use learning concepts to socialize shelter cats and train them towards behaviors that could advance their wellbeing and adoptability (Kogan et al., 2017). I hoped that the ability to improve the quality of lives of shelter cats, while supporting animal shelters in their effort to care for sheltered animals, will also promote my students’ personal and professional development, and therefore produce an impact that will span people and animals alike.

Course Set-Up:

My first step into the transition included the creation of a partnership with a local animal shelter, which was willing to entrust us with their cats and agreed to support the program by providing some of the cats’ needs (crates, blankets, litter boxes, litter, toys, and food). This task was easy, given that we have previously established a reciprocal and mutually beneficial collaboration with one of the animal shelters around us, centered around my students’ efforts to train shelter dogs and write grant applications on behalf of the shelter. Next, I secured permission to house shelter cats on campus premises and attained relevant protocols. This task was more complicated and took almost a year to conquer. Specifically, I worked with our Business Office to ensure insurance coverage for our course, with our Office of Risk Management to create appropriate liability agreement documents, with the Students Health Center to generate allergy screening/management procedures, and with the Biology Department to identify a classroom appropriate for the course. I submitted detailed care protocols to our Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and an internal grant application ($1,000) to our Office of Advancement. The grant allowed me to purchase cats’ carriers, leash/harness kits, click sticks, “place” mats, and training treats. Later, I was able to sustain the program financially via the addition of minor lab fees to students’ course enrollment ($20/student). Given that my institution has a small vivarium, I was able to transform the rats’ space into a cat-dedicated room, supplied with cat trees, hiding boxes, and toys. Finally, I recruited a group of TAs, trusted with cleaning/feeding protocols (for additional information about the course, see Flaisher-Grinberg, 2024).

Course Delivery:

The integration of cats into the curriculum was accomplished via a variety of classroom activities, four lab sessions, and a 3-part research assignment. The labs focused on the demonstration of 1) habituation processes, 2) classical conditioning, 3) operant conditioning, 4) generalization and discrimination procedures, and the research assignment was built around a student-generated cat training project. During the labs (and the following weeks) students learned to gently handle the cats, respect their personalities, and interact with them in a way that enabled both cats and students to calm down and enjoy each other’s company. The cats learned that the carriers, “place” mats, click sticks and harnesses predicted the availability of treats, and later, that entering the carriers, sitting on the “place” mats, following the click sticks, or wearing the harnesses, awarded them with treats. Concurrently, the TA team utilized similar methodologies to facilitate cats’ nails trimming, ears cleaning, and teeth brushing. Since many cats associate their carriers with aversive consequences (e.g., a visit to the vet), are wary of wearing a harness (even if for a nice walk outdoors), and despise being groomed, I hoped that these tasks will be beneficial to both the cats and their future adopters. With the intent of introducing my students to the growing field of animal-assisted interventions (e.g., the incorporation of animals into human-oriented therapeutic/educational processes, Fine & Weaver, 2018), the final lab session took place within the institutions’ clinical educational facility set as a simulated hospital. During the lab, the cats generalized previously learned tasks, demonstrated via their ability to walk in a harness into the medical environment, sit on their “place” mats by “mock patients”, follow the click stick to execute entertaining tricks, and spread love and happiness all around. For their research assignments, students selected a research question (“Can a cat learn to…?”), designed a training methodology, chose assessment parameters (e.g., latency to complete the task, number of correct responses, etc.) that were evaluated before and after the training, collected and analyzed the data, wrote an APA-style research paper describing their project, and disseminated their findings to their classmate via a 10-minute presentation.

Findings:

The course, in its shelter-cats-integrated format, was offered for the first time in the spring of 2023. It was repeated in the spring of 2024 and will be offered again in the spring of 2025. Set as a mandatory curricular item for psychology majors and an elective for students in other majors, the course is well-enrolled, attracting students with interest in health sciences, biological sciences, and a variety of other disciplines. Each iteration thus far included 40-48 students (across two sections), and six cats. Depending on the cat’s needs and personality (e.g., outgoing or shy), each cat was assigned to one or two students’ groups of 3-4 students per group. This structure seems suitable, as students’ and cats’ number accommodate the size of the classroom/cat-room, and since in this fashion the cats receive adequate (yet not overwhelming) attention and students are able to coordinate their training time with their group members to maximize the efficiency of their work. Although protocols allow students with allergies to substitute the course for another alternative within the department’s curriculum, to date, none of the students who took the course had severe cat allergies, and the three that had minor allergies chose to enroll in the course while complying with safety regulations (i.e., wearing lab coats, gloves, and face masks during their interactions with the cats). Most of the cats learned most of the tasks (some cats dislike walking in a harness, while some seem to like it), and students were able to design research projects that involved a variety of tasks (giving a ‘high five’, “playing soccer”, etc.). The students indicate that they truly like their cats, enjoy training them, and are proud of both their cats’ and their own accomplishments throughout the semester. Students attest that they recognize the positive impact that they make on shelter cats and on the local community and that they feel that the course contributes to their educational, professional, and personal development. Representatives of our shelter partner indicate that they are thrilled with the partnership and desire to see it continue and develop in the future. Various faculty, staff, and administrators also enjoy the presence of cats on campus, and I often find myself engaging in conversations about our cats and about pets and animals in general. Importantly, regardless of age, sex, behavioral tendencies, and health status, the cats seem to prosper in the campus environment. Moreover, up to date, all cats in the program have been successfully adopted by their student trainers, other students in the course, campus community and the general community.

New Directions:

Given the popularity of the cats-integrated course, the success of the collaboration with our local animal shelter, and the cats’ high adoption ratio, the fall of 2024 marked the beginning of a new, shelter-cats-integrated program. In the past few months, we identified a small room at the campus library that did not contribute to the air circulation within the library, received all necessary permissions, gathered equipment, and brought shelter cats to live in our own “Library Cat Room.” I trained a team of eight students who previously took my cat-focused course to clean, feed, and socialize the cats, and created ‘meet-n-greet’ sessions (3-4 hours/week) which enabled the campus community to spend time with the cats (the cats are not allowed outside the room). Although the program is very new, the three cats that spent the past few months living in our library environment have already brought much joy to students, faculty, staff and administration. All of them were successfully adopted by the end of the fall semester, and it is our hope that our program will continue and develop in future years.

References:

American Psychological Association (2022). APA guidelines for the undergraduate psychology major. Version 3.0. APA. www.apa.org/ed/precollege/about/psymajor-guidelines.pdf

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (n.d.). Pet Statistics. Retrieved January 31, 2023, from https://www.aspca.org/helping-people-pets/shelter-intake-and-surrender/pet-statistics

Fine, A. H., & Weaver, S. J. (2018). The human-animal bond and animal-assisted intervention. In M. V. D. Bosch, & W. Bird (Eds.), Oxford textbook of nature and public health: The role of nature in improving the health of a population (pp. 132-138). Oxford University Press.

Flaisher-Grinberg, S. (2023). Community-Engaged Pedagogy in the Psychology Classroom: Shelter Dogs go to College. Teaching of Psychology, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00986283231191748

Flaisher-Grinberg, S. (2024). Creating a College-Based Shelter Cats’ Training Program. Journal of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, IAABC. 29(1). Retrieved from: https://journal.iaabcfoundation.org/sfu-cats/

Kogan, L., Kolus, C., & Schoenfeld-Tacher, R. (2017). Assessment of Clicker Training for Shelter Cats. Animals, 7(10), 73. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani7100073