BEAVERTON, Ore. — In neighborhoods across Oregon, kids are lacing up their shoes, wearing backpacks and grabbing leashes for their cats. A new 4-H program is exploring what it means to train, trust and bond with feline friends.
With funding from the Human Animal Bond Research Institute, the research team — led by OSU Extension 4-H faculty member Kristen Moore — is seeking young participants and their family cats to join a two-year program combining science, empathy and a whisker of curiosity. The research team includes Moore, assistant professor of practice and 4-H program coordinator for Washington County; Monique Udell, associate professor and director of the Human-Animal Interaction Laboratory; and postdoctoral scholar Saethra Darling.
The program builds on a pilot study that paired children with disabilities and their pet dogs. That study, published in the Human-Animal Interaction journal in 2024, showed promising results: Kids built a sense of ownership and formed closer relationships with their pets. Now, the team is working on a similar study with pet cats, encouraging more Oregon families to participate.
“Cats have a lot more potential than we often give them credit for both as partners but also as companions,” Udell said. “We’ve done a lot of research that not only shows that cats can be trained, but also they can have these rich, complex social lives and the kind of relationships we can develop with cats is often a lot deeper than we think.”
“The bond that people can have with cats is a really strong attachment bond that serves a purpose for both species,” Darling added. “That bond can be really valuable and devastating to lose… Myths on social media, like ‘your cat doesn’t love you,’ aren’t just false; they can lead to mistreatment.”
Building trust with pet cats
The new youth-cat training program officially began in December and will continue through 2026.
Here’s how it works: It’s called a “train-the-trainer” model — OSU researchers train 4-H volunteers, and those volunteers guide local 4-H clubs in their counties, using a specially designed curriculum to teach kids about cat care, communication and training.
The team wants to understand how working with animals can help kids grow — building responsibility, empathy and social skills.
The focus is on what’s called “fear-free” handling. That means kids learn to understand their cat’s body language, help their cat feel safe in new environments and go at the animal’s pace. From there, they move on to teaching fun tricks and useful skills with positive reinforcement — things like sitting, coming when called or getting comfortable in a backpack or on a leash.
“We’re meeting cats where they’re at,” said Moore, the grant’s principal investigator. “It’s really about reading their body language and understanding whether their cat is stressed or feeling a certain way, so you are not forcing your own agenda on them.”
Once the cats are comfortable, the program introduces positive reinforcement training. Kids learn to teach their pets simple behaviors like sitting or responding to their names. For those who want to take their training to the next level, there’s even the potential to become certified through Pet Partners, a national therapy animal organization.
The project is about more than just training cats. The team wants to understand how working with animals can help kids grow — building responsibility, empathy and social skills.
“Traditional research on cat-human relationships tends to focus on simple things like petting,” Udell said. “We’re taking it further, allowing children to be more active participants and bringing it into communities. That’s what makes this program unique.”
Since launching in December, the team has trained five adult volunteers and hosted two youth workshops in Washington and Polk counties. So far, 10 kids and their cats have signed up — and the team is looking for more.
Kids between the ages of 8 and 17 can join, and they don’t have to be part of 4-H. Cats can be any age as long as they’re healthy and vaccinated.
Training can be fun
Already, the program is generating joy and new findings about their pet cats for families.
In one club in Washington County, kids decorate their cat backpacks with custom-made buttons and earn stamps for each neighborhood walk they complete with their cat companion. Moore’s daughter is in the program. She said her daughter and her neighbor’s kid would regularly knock on each other’s doors to ask, “Wanna walk our cats together?”
Moore said children have started noticing new things about their pets — like how a slow blink means trust or how to redirect a cat scratching the furniture. She said her team received an email from a parent saying their teen came home from a workshop glowing:
“Thank you for bringing the cat people to Polk County! Alex had the best time tonight and when they got home they told me, ‘It was awesome! This is literally my new life.’ I think they have a new career path. As we know, Alex does not give praise lightly or get super excited about things very often. I’m so happy that you appreciate them, too!”
Moore said the team hopes to create a free, open-source version of their curriculum eventually so that other communities nationwide can offer the same program.
“4-H is always a learn-by-doing program,” Moore said. “We are bridging this research to 4-H with experiential learning that is rooted in the community like the whole train-the-trainer model is the adult mentorship that 4-H already does.”
“I’m hoping this will be a really fun opportunity to learn about cat training and achieve something that maybe not a lot of other people have — like having a trained cat at home,” Udell added. “But also to learn a lot about how to engage with others in a way that’s mutually beneficial, whether they be the animals in our home or other important people in our lives.”
Interested families can learn more about the cat training program on the OSU Extension Service website and sign up by emailing Moore at [email protected].
