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Like dogs, cats can learn tricks with clicker training. The sound of the clicker comes super fast, faster even than the short amount of time it takes for you to get a treat reward from your hand to a cat’s mouth for doing something right. In that way, the clicker lets your pet know that a treat is coming and keeps him motivated. There’s literally no time for his attention to wander. Here are some ways to optimize the training.

The rule of thumb for the number of litter boxes you should have is the number of cats in your home plus one. You’ll truly have a happier cat if you follow that advice. No cat enjoys using a dirty “toilet.” But what if you live in a small apartment or have a larger space but truly have no room for a second litter box?

Like people, cats have taste receptors for sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, and a fifth taste, umami. Their sweet receptors are pretty insensitive (which is why cats aren’t big sugar cravers). But it turns out their receptors for umami — responsible for the savory flavors of foods like meat — are quite sensitive. No surprise, since cats need flesh food to survive.

Your cat has been diagnosed with diabetes, but neither insulin injections nor weight management have been able to keep her blood sugar under control. Why not? Your pet may also have Cushing’s disease, a condition that causes an overproduction of the hormone cortisol. That, in turn, stimulates the production of sugar, working against efforts to keep down your cat’s blood sugar. Sometimes, in fact, Cushing’s disease causes  diabetes.

You know how cats like to knock things off counters and table edges? It’s for that reason that you should never place a holiday snow globe where your cat can get at it. If in her curiosity she keeps batting at the glass globe filled with snow-covered pine trees or Santa in his sleigh, it could fall and break — and she could end up licking the spilled liquid and becoming gravely ill. That’s because some snow globes contain ethylene glycol, the same odorless but sweet-tasting chemical that’s in antifreeze. It doesn’t take a lot to prove fatal.

Contrary to popular belief, there are cats who may actually enjoy being bathed occasionally, says Tufts veterinary dermatologist Ramón Almela, DVM. They like the water if it is applied soothingly. And they like the attention.

It turns out that cats have a much better sense of smell than we do, and not just because they have 40 times more odor sensors in their noses. It’s also about how air makes its way through the feline nose. Scientists have just figured out that when a cat breathes in, the air gets separated into two different flow streams.

Wool and other fabrics, plastic (including plastic casing surrounding electrical cords), rubber, pins and needles, newspapers. These are just some of the items that might be chewed on and swallowed by cats afflicted with pica, which is the eating of non-food items. The word pica is based on the Latin word “picave.” It means magpie — a bird with indiscriminate dietary habits.

There are a number of negative things many cats experience but that yours doesn’t have to if you head them off at the pass. Here are four ways to keep a problem from ever happening — or at least to keep it from getting worse.

Q: I have had more than one cat that drools while being petted, particularly when the petting gets them purring. What’s that about? Is it something I should be concerned about?

Q: My cat has developed a reddish-brown sore on her upper lip. It doesn’t seem to bother her, but it looks awful. And while I thought it would go away on its own, it hasn’t. What should I do?

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• Losing Excess Weight Does Much More Than Make a Cat Healthier
• 3 Ways to Help a Scaredy Cat
• Deciding How to Take a Cat’s Temperature
• Dear Doctor