the cats and the puppy

[leslie123]

We've had Sulley for a month now, he's around 14 wks, give or take. We have two cats, 9 and 10 yrs old. When we first got Sulley there was hissing and a little bit of swatting, and the pup would pretty much back down. The cats have their own space they can go to if they really want to get completely away from him, and we also added a cat tree with higher platforms for them recently. The first two weeks or so were going fairly well. They weren't playing together, but they were tolerant of each other in the room anyway. The problem is that I assumed Sulley would become less interested in them and start to ignore them, but it seems he's just more and more interested all the time. He's getting quite large and when he does his little play bouncing around one of them its just getting more and more frightening for them. His legs are very long and he has a very high pitched play bark too. I'm worried that he might accidentally hurt one of them with either a big paw or a nip. He does not nip at them agressively at all, but he does still mouth on anything he can. Sometimes he snaps his jaws at the air though, not toward them, but he will lift his snout up and do it. My daughter always says he stopped barking and forgot to stop moving his mouth. I have worked on "leave it" and he does well with food leaving it. Occasionally he will back off the cats on that command as well, but the last week or so, he's really focusing on them when he sees them. The last two days I introduced "turn away" to see if I can't get him to look away from the cats when they walk across the room. Luckily they walk very slow and go behind furniture so its not enticing him to chase. I've got a very short lead and I was thinking of having that on him when we're all in the family room, cats and all. That way I can remove him when he goes after them right away. I just have to figure out where I'm going to remove him to. Is that a good approach? If so, how long do I have to stay out of the room with him? If there is a better way to handle this, as always I'm wide open to suggestions/help. I need for my cats and Sulley to at least be able to ignore each other if they can't be "friends". Its tearing me up to see them at odds.

[***Melissa***]

I have never had to deal with something like this before, but from what I have read it goes something like this:

Find the dog's threshold, ie, where the dog will sit calmly and just look at the cat or ignore the cat, but not react to the cat. If the dog reacts to the cat, go further back untill you find the distance the dog can be from the cat without reacting.

When he's not reacting - treat (any reward the dog likes). The idea is to get the dog to think "calmy seeing cat = good stuff".

Then after a while, move closer and closer to the cat, doing the same thing. If the dog reacts - go back, it means it was too much to soon. It will probably take some time though.

You can search jacksdad's posts - he has a reactive dog and there's real good info in his posts.

[emmabeth]

You need a many-pronged approach to this.

In addition to the advice in the post above:

Work on impluse control (see the Youtube vid 'Its Yer Choice' which is linked in the articles section), work on it with toys too (play games where he has to wait before he gets released tochase a thrown toy, build up to 'wait' whilst toy is thrown (hand on collar to start with), sent to chase a different toy, then released to chase the first toy).

Distraction - pre-empt the behaviour and offer him something else instead, game with a toy, go with you for a treat and a short training session..

Time out - if he messes up and chases, use the trailing leash you have on him and give him a time out, out of the room, close the door for 10 seconds. Invite him back in again, he will probably go straight back to cat-annoying, repeat teh time out.

At first you will find yourself evicting him from teh room, counting ten and letting him back in, over and over and over. Thats fine, its actually good, each time he makes the choice to chase the cat... he gets put out. The penny WILL drop for him if you keep up the consistency and dont give in, he will realise that EVERY time he tries to chase the cat not ONLY does he not get to chase the cat but he gets put out of the room as well.

Only keep him out of the room for10 seconds, longer than this and he forgets what happened and why and goes to wreck something else! It is the constant repetition and consistency that sorts this out, not the length of time he is out for.

[leslie123]

Thanks so much. I am on the right track then. I have been working on the impulse control already. I watched those its yer choice vids a couple weeks ago so we started with those techniques then. I moved it outside a couple days ago so now we have outside noises too and it went really well. I only did it about 2 or 3 mins and ended with him doing brilliantly. We've also been adding just a little bit of impulse control to playing with toys. Sometimes I can body block and he'll get the message right away also. I generally do that if he's lost control and just can't tear himself away from them. I body block, then distract him off to play with something else. Funny thing happened with the trailing lead. My husband actually made it out of some heavy rope we have and an extra swivel clasp. I had it on him while we did our morning off to school stuff this morning. Took him about 15 mins maybe to chew it right off and he just had the clasp hanging from his collar. So, need to get that replaced. What Melissa suggested we did more in the beginning and I have to admit we kind of stopped for whatever reason. I do think it will help though. We have to have at least two of us and we treat the cats and Sulley at the same time with lots of calm petting and praises for all. Just to cover all my bases I think I'm going to start visualizing Sulley calming walking up to the cats, sniffing them, not getting swatted at and calmly laying nearby. Can't hurt, right? I'll keep you posted, hopefully in the success story forum soon!