Cat learns to play the piano for treats with smart feeder
The Verge senior reporter Elizabeth Lopatto shares how her food-motivated cat Jeeves learned to play a mini piano to earn meals.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- Elizabeth Lopatto's cat Jeeves plays a miniature piano to receive food rewards.
- The smart piano functions as both an automated pet feeder and an enrichment toy.
- Training began by placing a treat directly on a piano key to encourage paw presses.
- Jeeves now successfully presses a key eight times in a row to dispense her meal.
When faced with distressing situations like the dreaded vacuum cleaner emerging from the closet or her owner getting up from a comfortable lap, a cat named Jeeves finds solace by walking over to her private piano to perform a short melody before receiving a tasty treat.
Created by a YouTuber with years of experience training felines, the tiny instrument features a keyboard spanning just over a single octave. While the cat has not mastered complex chords and often prefers repeating the exact same note rather than composing intricate melodies, the end result remains undeniable: a cat that actually plays the piano.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
The secret behind this feline talent lies in her strong motivation for food, making her much easier to train than the average pet. Aside from her musical abilities, Jeeves easily recognizes phrases like "it's time to feed the cat" for wet food, comes when called, and tolerates nail trimming in exchange for her favorite meat treats.
Beyond entertainment and food delivery, the companion app features a specialized training mode allowing owners to gradually increase the number of required key presses. Lopatto notes that her talented pet has already maxed out this progressive training setting.
"The hardest part of getting her to play the piano was getting her to press on the keys at all"
Elizabeth Lopatto
The most difficult hurdle was encouraging the cat to press the keys initially. The owner solved this by placing a treat right on a key, so when the cat swiped at it, the dispenser rewarded her simultaneously, helping her quickly establish the cause-and-effect relationship.
Pet enrichment devices like interactive auto-feeders have gained immense popularity among modern pet owners. They not only help manage portion control to prevent pet obesity but also stimulate natural foraging instincts, reducing boredom and anxiety for indoor pets when left alone.
Although the piano's app offers features to auto-tune the compositions, the owner prefers keeping her pet's quirky, unpredictable melodies completely authentic and raw, enjoying the unique musical expressions created each day.
Source: The Verge
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