Maisy's Brothers

Although I vaguely reference Maisy's “brothers” from time to time, I realized that I've never directly posted about them. This makes sense, of course; the focus of this blog has always been dog-related, and Maisy's brothers are decidedly feline. Still, they are an important part of my life, and Maisy's as well, so I thought today I'd take the time to formally introduce them.

Nicholas J. Cat

Or Nicky for short.

Nicky is an 11 year old orangish-beige tabby cat that I got from the humane society as a kitten. He lived with my parents for awhile when I lived somewhere that didn't allow cats, but he gladly gave up life as a farm cat to return to the city when we bought our house in 2007.

Nicky struggles to get along with Maisy, although I'm not sure whose issue this is. Nicky breaks a lot of Maisy's rules- no staring, no scratching, no jumping on the counter- so their relationship is definitely tense. She snarks at him in situations that she'd completely ignore from her other brother.

Nicky has a recurrent skin issue (eosinophilic granuloma complex), and has had recurrent urinary blockages, requiring major surgery. He spent two years as part of a diet-trial study at the University of Minnesota. That was very interesting, as his food was labeled “Investigational Cat Food- Green.” It was a double-blind study, and neither I nor the researchers know if he was on the placebo or not. I'm looking forward to reading the study when it's completed (the clinical phase will last at least another year).

Nicky is a very friendly kitty. He sleeps on my head most nights, which is terribly uncomfortable for me as he also drools. A lot. I hate waking up with an earful of kitty spit in the middle of the night. I love my Nicky kitty, even if he is kind of a pain.

Malcolm J. Cat

I have no idea why they have the same middle initial.

Photo by Robin Sallie.

Malcolm is somewhere between 5 and 8 years old. We adopted him as an adult from the humane society in 2007, and his age is a guess since he'd been a stray prior to that. He had already been neutered and was in good shape, so he probably escaped (he's an accomplished door-darter) and was never found by his people. I feel kind of bad about that, actually, since he's a really cool cat.

Malcolm is definitely my husband's cat, and I often see him curled up in his lap. Malcolm also gets along with Maisy very well, and although they don't play together as often as they did when they were younger, he can still be seen chasing Maisy through the house. She loves that!

Malcolm, too, has some health problems. During a wellness exam, the vet discovered a heart murmur. Subsequent ultrasound by a kitty cardiologist showed aortic insufficiency- some of the blood slips backwards, and it has to be pumped twice, leaving him at risk of cardiomyopathy.

Malcolm is my clicker cat. Although I haven't spent much time at it, I have done some targeting with him, and successfully shaped him to enter a carrier on his own. It's so different from training with Maisy, but very fun! I would love to teach him some basic obedience stuff and a few tricks, but I never seem to have the time.


Anyway, those are Maisy's brothers. How about all of you? Does your dog have any feline friends?

A Day at the Vet's

Last week, Maisy's feline brothers both had appointments scheduled with the vet for wellness exams. For a variety of reasons completely unimportant to today's story, those appointments happened during the middle of a work day. When I arrived home to pick up the kitties, Maisy danced around my feet, clearly excited by the prospect of an unexpected outing. I told her sorry, it wasn't her turn, and she looked so crushed that I simply couldn't leave her behind. I figured I could run her in the office, grab a weight, and then put her back in the car.

When we got there, the receptionist told me it was fine, Maisy was welcome to hang out in the exam room while the boys had their appointment. I took her up on this offer, figuring that if Maisy was a pain, I could run her out to the car.

But she wasn't. In fact, she was amazing. Not only did she settle down and lie there calmly while we were waiting for the vet to come in (as evidenced by this incredibly poor photo), but she also was calm and quiet during both exams.

Okay, yes, she got seriously excited when the vet first came in the room, but I just kept her on a short leash and ignored her. So did the vet, for that matter- her patients were the cats, after all. Maisy quickly realized that this was actually a rather boring trip, and laid down quietly at my feet.

I know this probably doesn't sound like much, but this is Maisy we're talking about. Although our the vets at this practice are incredibly gentle and good with fearful animals, they still do things that are uncomfortable. I'm sure Maisy remembered that. There was also barking going on outside our exam room, and I'm sure she could smell unsettling odors.

On top of that, Maisy's never been a dog to hold still. Or at least, she wasn't. Anxious dogs often seem restless; they pace or at least move around a lot. Maisy was no exception, and even at home, she used to have trouble settling down.

So the fact that she was able to just chill out in a stressful environment, with lots of chaos just on the other side of a door? Amazing. She never once barked or growled or even seemed tense about what was going on. She just... waited. Patiently. For an hour.

I think my favorite part came at the end of the visit, though. Each cat was in his own carrier, and I had one in each hand. I also had Maisy's leash in one. The receptionist asked if we needed help to the car, but I said we were fine. And we were- I walked for half a block like that, Maisy on a perfectly loose leash the entire time.

What a good girl.

Wordless Weekend

Training Tuesday: The “Good Lord Why Did I Decide to Do This?” Edition

Maisy and Malcolm doing the relaxation protocol.

It has been two weeks since I instituted the “no more trials until I finish the relaxation protocol” rule, and as predicted, I’m hating myself already. (Actually, I started hating myself a week ago, but whatever.) Thankfully, I posted it quite publicly, and enough of my real life friends read this that I know I won’t be able to gracefully back out. This is good, because holy cow, this crap is boring. BORING.

It’s also working, thank god, because I don’t think I could sustain the motivation needed to get through this tedium if I wasn’t seeing glimmers of progress.

First and foremost, let it be known that the relaxation protocol, while challenging for the dog under any circumstance, is even more difficult when there are cats involved. Obnoxious, nosy, food-obsessed, den-loving, clicker-trained cats. In other words: they are constantly right there when the clicker, treats and/or crate comes out. Unfortunately, Maisy has a bit of a problem with resource guarding when it comes to the cats. This, combined with the fact that Maisy has self-appointed herself as the resident kitty cop, means that it can be very, very difficult to convince her to relax when they’re around. Which they are. Constantly.

While they slow the process down, their presence is a huge help. For one thing, they make an excellent distraction, though not as intense as what we might encounter at a trial. Beyond that, Maisy has a long history of rushing the cats and bowling them over, so when she is able to control those impulses around the kitties, I know we’re on the right track.

In fact, it was just one of those moments last week that helped me know that she’s making progress. During one session, one of the kitties did something that Maisy has decided is naughty, something that she would usually discipline them for. Her entire body tensed up, and she raised herself just slightly from the ground. But then she stopped herself, evidently thought about it, and quickly lowered herself back down. She wasn’t relaxed, exactly, but neither was she reacting mindlessly!

I’ll admit, I’ve been a bit lazy with it all. I just can’t bring myself to do it every day. We’ve done it 9 times over the last 14 days. It’s not perfect, but that’s not embarrassing, either. We advanced to day three in the relaxation protocol on our last session, although that session was a little rough. If the next one is as bad (she had a hard time staying in a down, although a sit isn’t really the end of the world), we’ll drop back down to day two for a bit. I’m also working on duration in the crate, and she’s currently managing quite well with a treat once every 60 seconds over the course of five minutes.

I could probably push her further faster, but I want to build this foundation strongly and carefully. As a result, I’m spending several sessions on each step, waiting until I see her relaxed before I move on. Some of the things I’m looking for includes being rolled on to one hip, rather than in a sphinx down, resting her chin on the ground, and taking treats softly instead of grabbing them roughly.

For her part, Maisy is loving this. She’s inside the crate before I can even get it fully set up. When I call her out, she jumps back in before I can break it down again. And every night, at about the time we do the protocol, she starts to whine and poke at the folded-up crate with her nose, all while looking at me hopefully.

Speaking of poking things with her nose, I think that my possibly hare-brained scheme, is working. It was quite easy to shape her to touch my leg, although she tends to think the proper location is in the left kneecap. That’s fine, really, and maybe even better than doing it anywhere else. After all, this way she’ll have to turn away from whatever’s bugging her in order to poke me there. It was a bit more work to convince her that she could poke me when I’m standing, too, but she figured that out.

Right now I’m in the process of assigning a verbal cue to the behavior. She’s got it about half the time, and once it’s a bit more solid, I’ll start cuing that behavior when she’s whining to get my attention. On one occasion, she did use the nose poke to communicate that she wanted something from me (a rawhide), so I think this could work. I must admit, I’m really excited about the possibility of reducing some of her whininess, although I’m aware that the poking could become even more annoying. I hope I don’t regret this!

Anyway, overall I’m very pleased with the progress she’s making. It’s slow, but I’m hoping that as she understands it better, we’ll be able to pick up the back a bit. I hope so, anyway, because at our current rate of progress, this will take six months otherwise! Although that sounds like forever, I know that the time investment will be worth it. I’ll keep you guys updated, of course!