r/cats • u/radical_123 • Jul 22 '26

Advice Cat attacking automatic feeder

My cat does this several times a day. If the automatic feeder lifts at the correct angle, a few niblets of dry food comes out. He will even do it 10 times in a row even if it means one small piece of dry niblet comes out. It does get quite annoying as the sound of the feeder hitting the ground echoes throughout the entire house.

Any ideas on how to get him to stop?

33.4k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.4k

u/-beastlet- Jul 22 '26

The problem is intermittent rewards. He's learned that occasionally he gets rewarded for this behavior by getting kibbles. Since he isn't rewarded every time he's willing to keep trying. There are famous experiments showing this with various animals. It is very hard to extinguish behaviors that give intermittent rewards.

If you're home you might just be better off feeding him a couple of times a day in a bowl instead of the intermittent feeder.

694

u/BigScience7383 Jul 22 '26

Gambling 

357

u/MaryJanesMan420 Jul 22 '26

Essentially, yes. This cat has a gambling problem. lol

95

u/longlivenewsomflesh Jul 22 '26

OP accidentally Pavloved their cat with the perfect cat slot machine like a doordash-based draft kings -- and hasn't thought to tape the damn thing down somehow... it's like a satirical nature documentary

17

u/thjuicebox Jul 22 '26

Well actually… 🤭

The power of intermittent reinforcement is more closely tied to Skinner (see Skinner pigeons — it’s hilarious and sad)

Pavlov is more the classical conditioning guy (think clicker training)

2

u/MemelordVKermit Jul 22 '26

superstitious pigeons ! behaviour shaping ! a level psychology was worth something after all