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C03 THINK CAT...
...homing in on the highly specialised yet enigmatic nature of the pet cat!
An Advanced Award for owners, vet nurses and other professionals who want to understand more about feline predatory and social behaviour, and the fascinating relationship between cats and their owners.

Written by Professor Peter Neville

OCN Accreditation - Advanced Award 12 Credits. Click Here for details of accreditation.

Cats make great pets! Beautiful, graceful, serene and perfectly designed to be a top of the food chain predator. In fact, the cat is probably the most successful small mammalian hunter ever in terms of numbers, but only since she moved in alongside man. The secretive, shy wild cat then became a comfort and affection-seeking feline missile and tapped into our desire to stroke her lovely fur ever day and enjoy all that fun playing with her. The cat is good for us, simply by having one to look after and enjoy a lifelong relationship with, our own psychological well-being, social skills and immune system all get a wonderful boost and every pet cat can be a welcome antidote to the stress of our busy lives and a very valued member of the human family.

And yet, while cats are rarely kept as rodent controllers anymore, their highly evolved hunting capabilities remain intact, largely unaltered by selective breeding or our willingness to feed them and save them the trouble of being a predator for a living. We love them for their companionship now, the cuddles, the purrs and the playfulness, and often do not approve of their ‘natural’ gifts of small furies and birds. And nowadays we may wonder about their impact on some wildlife prey populations in our world. As ever, the cat exposes a wide range of human emotion and response to whatever she does.

This constantly updated five unit course (+ study) explores the dichotomous nature of the cat, from her remarkable and very recent decision to move in with us and her subsequent rapid spread around the world as a village animal, through ages of persecution, and then into our homes and hearts as our most popular modern larger pet. By understanding how this all occurred and how and why a solitary predatory should want and now, in many cases, need to form a close relationship with you, you can learn to understand your cat even more than she has allowed you to do so far! This course will also help you explore the more subtle aspects of feline behaviour, and the nature of the cat’s social relations with each other, and the knowledge gained will surely help you derive even more from that special relationship and help other cat owners to do the same.

This course will also help you start to explore behaviour problems in cats that have difficulty assimilating into their homes, or who respond to the stresses of living with us or other cats in ways that aren’t always convenient for us, such as scratching or urine spraying indoors when part of their attraction is that they are normally so clean, well behaved and so very relaxed.

Armed with this introduction, you will be able to help others tackle similar problems, but the information is largely designed to provide a sound basis for further study in the field of feline behaviour therapy. (For example, successful students of this course automatically fulfil the qualification requirements for the CDP COAPE Diploma Course in Practical Aspects of Companion Animal Behaviour and Training).

Click on the thumbnail on the right to see a student endorsement of Think Cat!

History of man's relationship with cats, understanding owner attitudes.

Feline senses and design as a hunter.

Predatory cats: the ecological impact of this top-of-the-food-chain hunter.

Feline social behaviour: Developmental biology and behaviour, understanding feline/human and feline/feline relationships.

How to approach feline behaviour problems and treat inappropriate elimination.

A research based project of the student’s choice.

For Students located in Africa
COAPE’s CO3 and CO4 courses are now available in South Africa for anyone living in Africa wishing to study Animal Behaviour and Training. The courses are hosted by the ThinkingPets Behaviour Practice and are qualifying courses for the COAPE Diploma which will be offered in South Africa in 2010.

Please click on the graphic for details and to visit the ThinkingPets website

Correspondence.

Each Unit of the course notes is e-Mailed out to students as a separate e-Book. Students also have access to the COAPE Student Resource Centre where additional support and course material are available online. The Resource Centre gives you access to a range of rich media content to complement the formal course notes, including video, sound, graphics and pictures, web links, and additional written content.

We supply you with a specially designed ‘template’ on-line to assist you in writing your coursework using your own computer and preferred word processing software. Your coursework is submitted to your tutor via the internet, marked and returned back to you the same way.

Nine months with two runs per year:
1: February 1st to October 31st.
2: September 1st to May 31st the following year.

OCN registration deposit £45 + Course fee £395.

Please click on the 'Enrol' button below for details.
NOTE: You are NOT COMMITTING YOURSELF TO ANYTHING by clicking on this button.

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