When I came home one day to find my roommate (who was gonna be moving out in a week) had rescued an abandoned kitten maybe only a couple of weeks old which of course he wasn't going to take with him, I said "Yeah thanks buddy"....but while I was sitting the couch figuring out what to do it crawled up onto the back of the couch and then onto my shoulder and just perched there, and that was that.
So in the interests of raising it right, when I'd open up a can of food for dinner, which sound it learned to recognize in about 3 days, I'd also repeat the name I'd chosen for it ("Swee'pea" after the baby in the Popeye cartoons) a few times all the way to the point of putting it on the floor.
Couple of weeks later I had the opportunity to test it: Cat was "stuck" in a tree. Kept saying its name while opening a can of food, then went back inside. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later, it came prancing into the kitchen meowing, and was rewarded with dinner.
After that it'd come when I called,
most times.
And for about 3 months she loved to ride on my shoulder as I walked around, until she got a wee bit too big....