Intermediate
Writing Feature Articles - Lesson
Writing Feature Articles - Handout . a
Name: ________________________________________ Date: ___________________
. a: Feature Articles Packet
(page of
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Cats are trainable — and that’s not a punchline
Program teaches layabout felines to work for their food
The Associated Press
People have low expectations of cats.
Sam Connelly tells of the time that she and her cat Storm observed a Canine Good Citizen test while
they were waiting for their feline agility class to start.
“I’m watching the dogs and I
commented to the evaluator,
’My cat can do all that,”’ said
Connelly. “At the end she
said, ’Want to take a shot?’
like it was a big joke.”
To the evaluator’s surprise,
Storm passed the test,
successfully performing
commands like sit, stay, come,
down, and walking on a leash.
Storm is a cat who does some of these things for a living. He helps Connelly train lost pet search dogs
in Maryland by hiding and waiting to be found.
But training cats isn’t just for professionals — human or feline. The Michigan Humane Society has a
Pawsitive Start program that uses volunteers to train cats in their shelter in useful and fun behaviors like
the high-?ve and walking into a carrier.
“A lot of people look kind of funny at us when we say we train the shelter cats,” says CJ Bentley of the
humane society. Cats need more than just playtime outside the cage to be well-adjusted in the shelter
environment, she says.
Problem-solving power
“It’s not just all about the physical, it’s the mental as well,” says Bentley. “To teach them to be able to
solve problems on their own can reduce the stress. It gives them c ? ???\?H ?] X][???'B?]8?&\????\? ?[ \??] ? ]?YY[?K ?Y? ?[?H^ X? ]?] ? ?8?'?\?[???] ?X?\??&]??X[\?X?8?'H ?^\?Y[\??H?[??Z]?[? ?X?X[\?] H?\????K??] ?\?H?] \?[ HX?]?B?[?[X[ ? ?H ?^\?[?8?'?H [??H ?\?H??[ []?\?H?]??\???] ? ?[? ? ????? Z\???? ??'B???H ? L XX?[??X] \??[???????XX?[??X] \?????Y?H ??B??