Mine does. I'll bet you get annoyed the way I do. "Make up your mind, Kitty! Whose house is this, anyway?" Of course, Kitty's silence tells you exactly whose house it is. If you feel the need to contest the obvious, however, don't despair. Cats, in general, can be trained. Somewhat. Here's how I discouraged the standing-in-the-doorway-until-your-owner-is-pulling-his-hair-out tendency in my own little furball:

My cat is the second indoor-outdoor cat I've had, so I was already familiar with this annoying habit. When the little guy took up residence with me, I decided that I wasn't going to play butler 10 times a day while the mosquitoes and flies flooded into the house. And I had a plan.

First of all, I had to be sure I could control the door closing process from start to finish, including stopping it at a second's notice. Next (really at the same time; more on that later), Kitty needed to understand the phrase, "Good boy!" With cats, positive reinforcement is essential. I was careful to praise my cat whenever he went through the door without hesitating. It's helpful, by the way, to use the same tone and style of speech every time you tell your cat something. Whether it's a military commander impression or baby talk, pumpkin will learn what you sound like when you talk. It can't follow commands unless it knows you're addressing it.

Now cats have reasons to hover around, aside from the obvious goal of telling you who's boss. They are descendents of wild animals, and a wild animal has to know how to stay safe. Leaving the burrow without looking around first is often a one-way ticket to a larger animal's stomach. As both predator and prey, a cat needs to keep its wits about it. It's important to understand this, so you understand just how powerful an instinct you're trying to overcome. It also helps you "get inside its head." Manipulating your cat's behavior is an art as well as a science.

Not to brag, but I think I used a really good way to start the manipulation. Whenever I thought my cat wanted to go out, I'd say to him, "Go on out," and then open the door. This helped to convince him that when I asked him to go out, the natural reaction would be to go out. After a while, it blurred the distinction between his desire and mine, which is what needs to happen to effectively train a cat. If you can't think of a circumstance where your goals converge, you're probably not going to win any obedience. It's a little like politics that way.

Positive reinforcement is important, but it's not enough for the task at hand. You need a stick to go with the carrot--er, mouse, that is. Since I was trying to change what Kitty does when going through doors, one type of negative reinforcement was easy to identify: I could just close the door! I can already hear your complaints, so I should explain that the idea wasn't to turn Kitty black and blue. Instead, I wanted to make him think the door might close on him if he didn't get through it in a few seconds. Here's where expert control of both the front door and the sliding back door comes in. You have to walk a very fine line between accidentally hurting Kitty and giving away the fact that you can choose not to close the door until he's in the mood to go through it. You also have to give the cat a little time to see where he's going. I chose three seconds as my target opening and closing time.

The rest was easy enough to plan: I would open the door, count to three out loud, then close the door. If Kitty wasn't out by the count of three, I'd close the door anyway. If he was out, I'd still finish counting before closing the door. I wanted to make sure it appeared as if the door would always be open for the same amount of time. It may have been easy to plan, but sticking to the plan was anything but.

Furball was plenty smart enough to sense a lack of conviction on my part. Since I couldn't start out being completely inflexible without damaging said cat, I didn't have complete confidence in what I was doing. It was a little like a poker game, with me holding my cards close to my chest and acting like I was holding a full house. "One...,Two...,Three!" What's that, Kitty? You aren't convinced that I'll follow through? Well here comes the door!

Kitty would often sit just inside the door, cautiously (or insolently) stepping through just before the door closed. I would suddenly stop a heavy door just in time to keep his front half connected to his back half (ewww--what an unpleasant thought! Never mind, it never was really that dangerous.) Don't underestimate the tenacity of a housecat, though. My Kitty kept testing me for weaknesses, trying to get me to slow down for him. The only way to convince him of my sincerity was to make sure the door at least lightly touched him if he was too slow. Usually, when the first hairs made contact with the door, he'd speed up in a hurry. Victory! Victory in the battle, that is, not in the war. The tug of war continued, but now I had the initiative.

From there, it was a process of getting stricter and more consistent in my timing. Sometimes Kitty would get stuck with the door between his shoulders and haunches, but he never had an injury that didn't heal within a day. Believe me, I shared in his pain.

Eventually, I convinced myself and my cat that the door could only close behind him in this manner. A year or five later, pauses in the doorway rarely lasted more than a second or two. Another five years, and I could just count in my own head and pink-nose would go right through by habit. Voilá!

My cat seems to have had a naturally sweet temperament, but that wasn't quite enough for me. I wanted a cat that I could pet whenever I wanted to.

Everyone knows that cats are sometimes aloof. It also seems to be common knowledge that cats don't like to be petted or even touched while they're eating. It's not always true, though. My kitty is living proof. When fuzz face first arrived, I set about teaching him to associate certain phrases with activities he enjoyed.

The way to a cat's heart is through its stomach; at least that's what they say about dogs. With this in mind, I started training my cat to accept my presence at his meals. Aside from other training goals, I also wanted him to be comfortable being petted more or less any time. I figured that if he'd let me pet him while he ate, the rest would be gravy. (This was pretty much true, as it turned out.)

To kill two birds with one metaphorical stone, I began to say "Good boy" while he ate, in a tone that you might use when praising a dog for catching a frisbee. Hey, it's a cat. It takes a lot more to get them interested in "blah blah blah Muffin, blah blah blah blah..."

After he was used to being praised for simply eating, I would sit next to him at his bowl and pet him gently. When he was used to that, I would stand facing his bowl, right next to it and with my feet apart, before he got there to eat. To get to his bowl he'd have to go between my legs or at least touch one of them. Using an incredible amount of patience and enduring painful leg cramps, I waited for his hunger to overwhelm his apprehension. Finally, he came up to me, sniffed one of my legs, and brushed against it. Some of you may not know this, but this was essentially marking me as his property, because cats have special scent glands behind their mouths; sometimes you'll see one doing the same thing to furniture or fence post. I don't think people can smell it, though.

After this display of community spirit, he started eating. I started petting at the same time. He stopped eating momentarily, but I just continued to praise and soothe him, and he soon started eating again. After doing this for a few weeks, he not only allowed the dinnertime petting, but decided he liked it!

Here's where things took an unexpected turn. Kitty started to wait for me to notice that he was ready to eat before he would approach the bowl. If I didn't perform the ritual I'd set up for training, he just waited. It was really cute, so I couldn't help but to get up and pet him. He would often start purring at this point. Success! --And then some.

Now, many years later, I'll go to his bowl, bend over, and put my hands in the ideal petting position. He'll walk between my legs near the food bowl, and into his servant's waiting hands.

Today, he still finds me and gets my attention before most of his meals. It's still cute, but it's pretty annoying when I'm busy doing something else. Baby Boy isn't above meowing pitifully, scratching the carpet, or playing wildly and then noisily sliding across the floor to get my attention, either.

So here I am now, with the cat I trained so carefully. He's now paid me back by training me to pet him when he's hungry, and he calls on me to perform this duty at least one time every day. I guess I can't really complain.

Go ahead and do what you will, but remember this story if you ever want to train Felis cattus a fun little trick. You never know where it might lead.