Trainer Popovich says your cat, too, can learn all the tricks

Anyone who has seen his Comedy Pet Theater in Las Vegas knows Gregory Popovich can train cats to do the unbelievable.

Train a cat? Isn't that like training a goldfish? Seeing Popovich perform with his troupe at Planet Hollywood on Las Vegas Boulevard is believing. His cats perform in skits, jump through hoops, fly and stand and do acts on their hind legs, all within safe limits, he says.

The trainer writes about his methods in "You Can Train Your Cat" (St. Martin's Griffin), due Oct. 13. His message is that you, too, can teach your cat to stop clawing furniture or waking you up in the middle of the night or displaying other annoying behaviors, if you take time to get to know your cat, learn how your cat likes to be rewarded, understand how your behaviors affect your cat and then work with your cat. And keep working with your cat.

"Each kitty has a different way of being rewarded," says Popovich, a son of animal trainers with the Great Moscow Circus. "No two cats are alike."

Popovich rarely uses food treats as rewards. Praise is his main motivation, and he saves it for when the cat achieves a goal. He says he changes the pitch and volume of his voice dramatically when rewarding. After the praise is made, he resumes his normal tone and he walks away. "I never shower the cat with effusive praise except during training," he says.

He strongly disagrees with critics who say the Vegas act is unfair to cats. He says he doesn't push his cats. Instead, the shows allow for a cat to decline participation.

"Cats are very independent. You cannot push them," he says. "They will not do a trick they do not want to do.

"Because I do the show every day and some cats have bad days, to make my show happen every day, I have two or three kitties lined up do a trick. If Kitty doesn't want to do it, I go to another kitty. You can tell by the look in the cat's eye if it will do it."

Feline expert Beth Adelman of Brooklyn, N.Y., agrees cats can master just about anything. Popovich's cat even pushes dogs in baby strollers.

"You can train a cat to touch anything on command," Adelman says.

Popovich is a fourth-generation circus performer and also a master juggler. And the cats themselves? All of his pets are from local animal shelters.

Popovich says friends in Las Vegas taught him about shelters in the early '90s when he first came to the USA. "We did not have shelters in Russia. I could not believe my eyes when I walked into the shelter and saw so many animals needing homes."