Say your cat’s name once in a bright voice, then mark and treat straight away — at first no matter what they do. After a day or two, wait for them to look at you before you pay. Then reward from a few feet away so they have to walk over. Keep sessions under three minutes. Say the name once, never twice.
What you need before you start
Five things: a quiet room with no distractions, treats your cat rates highly, a clicker or a short spoken marker like “yes”, a name of one or two syllables, and two spare minutes. Cats Protection adds one more to the list — a physically able, confident cat, since older or unwell cats can find training harder.
Smell does half the work. Pick something strong: warmed tuna water, sardine paste, a scrap of roast chicken. Your cat has to notice the reward from across a room before their name can start predicting it.
If your cat has never heard a marker, charge it first. Click, treat, repeat at a short distance until they look for the treat the moment they hear the click. Pounce teaches that in Meet the Clicker, which it lists as the prerequisite for its Name Response lesson.
Source: Cats Protection: How to train your cat to respond to their name (July 25, 2018)
How to teach your cat its name: 5 steps
- Make the name mean food. Sit near your cat in a quiet room with treats already in your hand. Say their name once, bright and happy, then mark and treat immediately — whatever they happen to be doing. No look required yet. Ten repetitions, about two minutes, then stop. Success on day one is an ear flicking your way at the sound.
- Pay for the look. Wait until your cat is awake but glancing elsewhere, say their name once, and wait. The instant their eyes meet yours, mark, then treat. Aim for a head turn about four times out of five. Getting less than that means you are too far away or the room is too interesting — close the gap and try again.
- Pay at your feet. Stand three to five feet away. Say the name once, mark the look, then place the treat on the floor at your feet instead of handing it over. Walking those few steps to collect it is what quietly turns “look at me” into “come toward me”. Success is your cat covering the distance without being coaxed.
- Change one thing at a time. Sit instead of standing. Move to a different room. Add a few feet. Then practise with a mild distraction — a toy on the floor, another person sitting nearby. Cats Protection builds difficulty the same way, one variable per session. Whenever the response slows down, go back to the version that worked.
- Call from out of sight. Step into a room where your cat cannot see you, say the name once, then wait and listen. When they appear, mark and pay a jackpot — three or four treats at once, so finding you is clearly worth the trip. Nothing within about ten seconds? Call from the next room with the door open, then build the distance back up.
Each step is one short session, repeated over a few days until it is easy. Cats Protection keeps name sessions to three minutes at most and asks you to deliver the reward within about two seconds of the response you wanted, so your cat connects the two.
Source: Cats Protection: How to train your cat to respond to their name (July 25, 2018)
Do cats actually know their names?
Yes, and it has been tested. In a 2019 study in Scientific Reports, Atsuko Saito and colleagues played cats a run of four ordinary nouns, matched to the cat’s name for length and accent, until the cats stopped reacting to each new word. Then they played the cat’s own name. The responses jumped back up.
A hundred and twelve cats took part across four experiments, sixteen of them in the first. The researchers scored small signals: an ear moving, a head turning, a tail twitching, a meow, shifting position. Household cats picked their own name out even when an unfamiliar person said it, and told it apart from the names of the other cats they lived with. Cats at a cat café managed the first part but not the second — the researchers suggested that in a café, every name gets used for every cat.
The useful detail for training is what the cats mostly did: they moved an ear, or turned a head. Recognising a name and getting up to answer it are two different skills, and only the second one has to be taught. That is what step three is for.
How long does it take?
Expect the first ear flick on day one and a dependable response in three to four weeks. Cats Protection is honest about the spread: some cats answer within a week, others take considerably longer, and a few never become reliable about it.
Pounce’s Name Response program spreads the steps above over five short sessions in about a week — two minutes on day one, three on day two, a rest day, then three and four minutes. The rest day is deliberate: this skill settles between sessions rather than during them.
Once the response is solid, thin the treats out instead of stopping. Cats Protection suggests rewarding every other response for a while, then every third, and widening what counts as a reward — a minute with a wand toy, a scratch at the base of the ears, whatever your cat actually likes. The name keeps paying; it just stops paying in food every time.
Age is less of an obstacle than people expect, but an older or unwell cat will do better with shorter sessions and smaller distances. Keep your voice at normal volume throughout: louder is not clearer, and a name delivered at volume tends to arrive with the wrong meaning attached.
Source: Cats Protection: How to train your cat to respond to their name (July 25, 2018)
What if my cat ignores me?
Say it once. Repeating “Mochi, Mochi, Mochi” teaches your cat that the name is background noise and that answering on the fourth try is perfectly acceptable. One clear call, then close the distance and set up an easier repetition.
Check what the name has been predicting. If it is the word that comes out just before the carrier appears, before the nail clippers, or in the voice you use when they are on the counter, it has stopped being good news. Cats Protection recommends keeping the name out of the rest of the day while you are teaching it. If it already carries baggage, the simplest fix is a fresh word used only in these sessions, starting again at step one.
Check the competition. A cat watching birds, mid-meal, or deep in a nap is not ignoring you so much as outbid. Train when they are awake, mildly interested in you, and not freshly fed.
Check the distance. Almost every stall at step three or step five is a distance problem wearing a disguise. Halve it, get two easy successes, then build back up.
Check the treat. If your cat will not take it in a silent room with nothing else happening, either the treat is not worth the trouble or the room is not as quiet as you think.
Source: Cats Protection: How to train your cat to respond to their name (July 25, 2018)
Should I use my cat’s name the rest of the day?
While you are teaching it, keep it for training. Cats Protection warns that scattering the name through the day can confuse a cat who is still working out what it predicts.
Once it is learned, the rule gets simpler: the name can mean anything as long as it never means trouble. Call them to dinner with it, to a lap, to a game, to the spot where you are about to start a session. Use a different word — or no word — to interrupt, to scold, or to announce the carrier.
Nicknames are fine later and unhelpful now. A cat learning that Mochi means something good is not helped by Mo, Mochers and Little Guy arriving in the same week. Pick the one word everyone in the house will use, and agree on the tone: bright, short, rising at the end.
Source: Cats Protection: How to train your cat to respond to their name (July 25, 2018)
When to call your vet
A cat who gives you nothing at all — not an ear, not a glance — with top-value treats in a silent room may not be ignoring you. Ask your vet to check their hearing before you assume it is a training problem.
The Cornell Feline Health Center notes that about 80 percent of white cats with two blue eyes start to show signs of deafness at around four days old, as the cochlea degenerates. Hearing can also go later in life: outer-ear infections caused by bacteria, yeast or ear mites, polyps and tumours, an underactive thyroid, some antibiotics and diuretics, and in elderly cats a thickening eardrum. Persistent ear scratching, discharge, swelling or a build-up of debris in the ear is worth an appointment this week rather than next month.
A deaf cat is still very trainable, just not by sound. Cornell suggests getting their attention with vibration, such as a stamp on the floor or a clap, and replacing spoken cues with hand signals or a light flicked on and off, and it advises keeping deaf cats indoors. Also worth a call: a cat who used to answer and has quietly stopped, especially alongside any change in appetite, movement or usual behaviour.
Practising it in two minutes a day
The work here is small and regular: one short session on most days, always ending while your cat still wants another go. A name that reliably produces a head turn is worth more than most tricks, because it is the handle you use for everything else — calling them in at night, getting their attention without chasing them, starting any other lesson.
Pounce’s Name Response lesson breaks these steps into five guided daily sessions, each with an illustration and a goal for the day, from “Name, then a treat” on day one to “From the next room” at the end. It lists Meet the Clicker as the prerequisite and Come When Called as the lesson it feeds.
A little guidance goes a long way.
Follow illustrated lessons, take the next small step, and keep track of your cat’s little wins in Pounce.
Explore Pounce for iOSSources & how this guide was written
Pounce curriculum: Name Response, with Meet the Clicker as its prerequisite and Come When Called as the lesson it leads into.
- Saito, Shinozuka, Ito and Hasegawa: Domestic cats (Felis catus) discriminate their names from other words, Scientific Reports 9:5394 (April 2019)
- Cats Protection: How to train your cat to respond to their name (July 25, 2018)
- Cornell Feline Health Center: Deafness
- Cats Protection: Tips for clicker training a cat (August 11, 2025)
Sources checked October 27, 2026. This article is educational and has not been individually reviewed by a veterinarian. Our editorial policy explains our approach.