Scaredy Cat, Part 3: From Fear to Friend

My fiance's dog Lola is scared of cats. I have a cat. This presented a problem when we decided to move in together, especially when you consider that we live in a relatively small space with few places for either of them to escape. The relationship needed to be fixed.

We've already talked about the need for management. Management is an ongoing thing that really can't stop. This is especially true when you have a large, powerful, or tenacious dog. Dogs can and do kill cats. As you read today's post about changing emotions, keep in mind that management needs to continue happening alongside this training.

The way we change emotions in non-human animals is through classical conditioning. I've written about classical conditioning before (see here), and you can also click on the "classical conditioning" tab at the bottom of this post and in the side bar to the right. The TL;DR version: we are going to teach our dogs that cats are awesome creatures who bring delicious foodstuffs like chicken and bacon and potato chips. We do this by letting the dog see/smell/hear the cat, and then giving her something super delicious.

Before I go any further, this post is about dogs who are AFRAID of cats. Some dogs don't get along with cats due to predatory behavior. If this is the case with your dog, strict management and a consultation with a professional trainer is in order. And then more strict management, likely for as long as they are both alive.

Doing behavior work with cats can be difficult because cats aren't crazy about being restrained. Most cats are not leash trained or crate trained, cutting out two major ways we tend to restrain pets. But, even for those who are, I don't think it's fair to restrain the cat. Not only has my kitty lived with me longer than the dog has even been alive, kitty knows that he is smaller, and therefore more vulnerable, than the dog. I don't ever want my cat to feel unsafe. Not only does that create acrimony, but it also predisposes the cat to go on the defensive and attack the dog... kind of defeating the purpose.

Rule 1: The cat must always feel safe.
Rule 2: The cat must always have a choice about whether or not to participate.
Rule 3: Management always happens in parallel to training.

Thankfully, we have a very easy way to start the classical conditioning process without stressing the cat out: through smell. The first thing I did with Lola was to rub a cloth all over my cat to get his scent on it. Later on, when the cat wasn't around (because we weren't all living together yet, but also because management, remember?), I presented the cat-cloth to Lola to investigate. After about five seconds, I put the cloth behind my back, gave her an amazing treat, and then brought the cloth back out for her to smell again. I repeated this process until Lola was no longer interested in the smell and was instead demanding cookies.

I repeated this sequence several times, and each time we did the exercise, Lola was less interested in the cloth. At this point, you may want to use a new/different object to hold the cat's scent so that you are actually conditioning your dog to the smell, and not the cloth. I didn't do this, but wish I had.

The next step happened when we all moved in together. We created a "safe room" for our kitty. This room had his litterbox, a water dish, his food bowl, a comfy bed, and some cat nip. I always do this when I move with a cat; it seems easiest for them to adjust if they only need to see one room at a time. However, this gave us the bonus of allowing Lola to be able to smell and hear the cat - but not see him. This is important because it helps keep the dog under threshold by limiting the amount of cat stimuli she's exposed to. Then we just fed them on the other side of the door from each other to help create good feelings.

You'll note that I said that both animals were being fed during this process. Classical conditioning should be done for both animals whenever possible. For our kitty, being barked at was pretty unpleasant, and we wanted to minimize any stress or grumpiness on his part.

Rule 4: Condition both animals to reduce stress on the cat.

The next step was to allow the animals to be in the same room together, feeding and praising them both for calm interactions. For the safety of the cat, the dog should be wearing a leash. If you aren't holding the leash, you should be able to reach it quickly in order to intervene. If you're at all worried that the dog will grab the cat and you'll need to break up a fight (or worse), you're moving too fast. Slow down, take a step back, and then come back to this step when you don't think your dog will eat your cat.


Rule 6: Don't take chances. Cats are small and vulnerable to a physical attack. Move slowly. 

You can gradually increase the amount of time the two spend together, keeping in mind that good management should be going on when you aren't present either physically or mentally. You should continue to tell both animals how amazing they are (and back that up with deliciousness whenever possible) for a long time. Classical conditioning needs to happen for a long time in order to solidify a strong positive emotion.

At some point, though, you will want to begin introducing some operant elements- some purposeful commands that you can give (the dog; cats are trainable, but it's such a pain to do it) that will help direct the dog on what to do. This can be used to get out of some tight spots, or when mistakes happen (and they will). I'll talk about that in my next post.

Scaredy Cat, Part 2: The First Step is Management

My fiance's dog Lola and my cat Nicky will be living together soon. Lola's scared of the kitty, and while they don't need to be best friends, they do need to tolerate living in the same space as one another since neither is going to be finding a new home. I've begun the process of rehabbing their relationship, and I'm bringing you all along for the ride.

As the title implies, the very first step in behavior modification is management. Management is all the stuff we do to prevent a dog from doing things we don't like. In Lola's case, I don't want her fixating on and barking at my cat. There are three reasons management is so important that it's the first thing I'm discussing.

The first, and most important reason, is safety. As much as we don't want to believe that our beloved pups could hurt another animal, the truth is that the vast majority of the time, the dogs in our lives are stronger than the cats. Something as simple as over-zealous play could have fatal consequences. But even when your pets are similar in size, kitties with claws can be mighty nasty... and cat bites are nasty cesspools of germs.

Second, we want to prevent rehearsal. You know that saying, “Practice makes perfect”? Yeah, it's just as true for dogs as it is for humans... and it includes both desirable and undesirable behaviors. You don't want your dog to get better at chasing your cat, and I don't want Lola to develop a habit of barking at my kitty. Worse, by allowing your dog to continually harass your cat (and vice versa, because let's be honest, cats can be big jerks sometimes), you will undo all that hard work you're going to be doing.

Finally, management allows us to keep the dog under threshold. Keeping a dog under threshold keeps him in his rational, thinking mind and prevents him from going off in an overly-emotional, overreacting, irrational state. You can't train a dog who can't learn, so we need to keep him under threshold.

So, how does one effectively manage a dog/cat relationship? Well, as so much in dog training, it depends. It depends on what your dog is doing, how severe it is, how the cat is reacting, and what your living situation is. The bottom line is that until your dog and cat are completely comfortable together, you must either be actively working to improve their relationship, or you must be preventing them from interacting. And don't fool yourself: some dog/cat pairs may require management for their entire lives. (Dear g-d, I hope that's not Lola and Nicky.)

Here are some management ideas. They may not all work for your given situation, and I may not have listed every possible solution, but it should be a good start.

Crates are a time-honored way of keeping dogs out of trouble, and they are definitely one method of management I've been using with Lola. The downside of crates is that while they restrict the dog's movement, they do nothing to stop the cat from coming right up to the bars and taunting the dog. While everyone is safe, this doesn't prevent the dog from practicing some undesirable behaviors or from going over threshold.

Baby gates can be useful... depending on your cat. Since they can be pretty agile, it's often no big deal for kitties to go right over a gate. For that matter, there is no baby gate that my dog Pyg hasn't defeated. Bottom line, I would not depend on baby gates to be the sole form of management.

Better than gates are closed doors. Since our furry friends do not have opposable thumbs, most of the time a nice closed door is the best way to keep dogs and cats apart. Just make those doors are firmly latched!

Leashes can be used, either as a tie down to a heavy piece of furniture, or as an umbilical to a person... but only when you're present. I would honestly not trust a leash alone to protect everyone. Slipped collars, chewed leashes, and stronger-than-expected dogs all leave this as less-than-ideal when it comes to unattended pets.

Hopefully this post has given you some ideas... and if so, I'd love to hear them. There are some truly brilliant minds reading my blog, and we all learn when you share!

Scaredy Cat, Part 1: Introduction to Rehabbing a Cat/Dog Relationship Gone Bad

This is Lola:

And this is Nicky:

And Lola hates Nicky. Well, "hates" might be too strong of a word, but she is definitely not a fan. In fact, she finds the kitty to be downright scary. In true Basset fashion, Lola expresses herself by barking. A lot. And loudly. Not only does she bark constantly, she's decided the best way to do so is by getting thisclosetohisface. Nicky, unsurprisingly, finds this annoying and retaliates by swatting her with his fully-clawed paws. Which just makes her bark some more.

Oh, and did I mention that Nicky and Lola will be living together soon? Yeah. Clearly, something needs to be done here. Luckily, I've done tons of work helping dogs overcome fear in the last five or six years, so I'm up for the task.

I have a three-pronged plan in mind:
1. Management (click here for a somewhat-related post on management)
2. Classical Counter Conditioning (click here if you need a refresher on counter conditioning)
3. Teaching Operant Behaviors (click here to find out why)

My plan is to write one post for each of these prongs, as well as our progress along the way. If you have a dog/cat relationship that needs help, please let me know what kind of problems you're running into and I'll try to include information to address those concerns!

Minnesota Animal Welfare Conference: Suzanne Hetts on The Differences Between Cats and Dogs

I swear I didn't stage this.

I don't write about him much, but I have a kitty. Nicky is a 13-year-old boy I've had since he was a kitten. Although I consider myself more of a dog person, I also can't imagine my life without at least one cat. This is probably why the last segment on of this conference was probably the most interesting and most useful for me: promoting successful relationships between dogs and cats.

Suzanne pointed out that about half of the pet owning households have both a cat and a dog, but unfortunately, very few are concerned about the quality of their cats' lives, and even fewer do anything to prevent problems and improve things after the fact. She believes this is because owners are too accepting of the cat feeling unsafe or scared, possibly because they don't recognize hiding behavior as abnormal.

Although cats and dogs can get along, they are very different species. This starts with domestication. Where dogs were likely domesticated around 14,000 years ago, domestication only happened in cats about 4,000 years ago. That 10,000 years of co-evolution means that dogs are more predisposed to social living with each other and with humans. Cats can and do exist without social groups. They don't really have friends, instead having what Suzanne called “preferred associates”- others that they spend time with. They don't really have packs and they don't have hierarchical social structures.

Body language is another huge difference, especially it comes to ritualized behaviors like greetings. While cats greet one another nose-to-nose, dogs... don't. They might be okay with it, but we all know their go-to place is at the other end. Cats also indicate that they are friendly and approachable by holding their tail up with a curve at the tip. In dogs, this is a threatening gesture. Cats also don't have a ritualized invitation to play. While dogs will play bow first, cats often just pounce. This can be misunderstood by dogs and lead to an unfortunate altercation.

Chemical communication, while poorly understood by researchers, is another area of believed difference. Not only does it seem to be more important to cats, but they use it as a distance increasing behavior, while dogs use it more of a “I was here!” thing. Rubbing and scent marking (which, to be honest, I'm not sure how to distinguish from chemical communication) plays a huge role in social attachment in cats, and dogs... don't seem to do this.

Finally, dogs have active and passive submission behaviors, and cats don't. When a dog rolls over on his back, it's a reconciliation gesture. When a cat does it, it's a defensive behavior that will likely culminate in an attack. What's more, cats do not “make up” with each other.

To have a harmonious home, you need to have good early socialization, complementary personalities, and good experiences as adults. Let's look at each of these.

First, he best bet lies in socialization, when an animal learns his species identity, who to hang out with, and who he should eat. Unfortunately, cats have a short socialization window which starts at about 2 weeks and has already ended by the time they come home at 8 weeks. What's more, kittens have an earlier fear period that happens right at that time. Fear periods mean that bad experiences during that time have a bigger impact.

Next, you need to have complementary personalities. Unfortunately, there aren't really temperament tests for cats... not that they're perfect in dogs. Beyond that, though, Suzanne doesn't think that meet-and-greets really give you any useful info.

Finally, you need to make sure that the animals have more good experiences than bad. You also need to be prepared to accept mutual tolerance over genuine affection. Keep in mind that individuals vary in their desire for social contact, and that minor conflicts are normal and can be ignored. Serious threats or frequent conflicts, no matter how minor, will erode quality of life for everyone.

Conflicts with cats are almost always about space. They rarely fight over social status or resources, so cats that are on the receiving end of resource guarding by a dog finds this unexpected and stressful. Cats who live with other living beings really thrive when there are plenty of spaces- especially vertical spaces- that they can retreat to. Conflicts between dogs and cats usually result from excessive curiosity from the dog, which can lead to predation. Dogs can also just start with a predatory response to the cat. Either way, the result is fear and a reduced quality of life for the cat.

Finally, forcing experiences for any animal never works. “Showing” the animal that the other won't hurt him does not work, and often backfires and makes things worse. Interactions need to be carefully managed until everyone is familiar with each other.

Bottom line: It is not okay for any individual to be afraid of or harassed by the other. Having a peaceable kingdom is possible, and the best way to accomplish this is by proper introductions. This is such an important (and lengthy) process that I will spend the next entire post on it. 

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?

Crystalling

to crystal
crys-tal [kris-tl], verb, -talled, -talling.
To worry excessively over a minor ailment, typically pet-related. 

Maisy, bored stiff at the vet clinic.

I am a terribly worrier. About everything, really, but things tend to intensify when it’s pet-related. It’s so bad that a good friend actually created a word to describe the condition.

To be honest, I think my vet might think I’m a hypochondriac-by-proxy. Not long ago, I took Maisy in for an appointment, convinced that she needed a dental. She didn’t; in fact, the vet was actually impressed with the condition of her mouth- and by how cooperative she was (good girl, Maisy!).

A few months ago, orange kitty was limping. I took him in, and the x-rays (of course I did x-rays) showed that he has some arthritis- shocking, I know, in an 11-year-old cat. I did the same thing with Maisy not long after- she’s had an intermittent limp for years. It goes away with chiropractic and massage, but I wanted x-rays to check things out. Thankfully, there was nothing.

I’ve spent money on urologists and ultrasounds. I’ve hired cardiologists to do echocardiograms. I know where the three closest animal emergency clinics are, and I’ve spent more money than I knew was possible on lab work.

Most of the time, I don’t feel bad about this. I love my pets, and I prefer to take care of issues when they’re still small. I was recently seriously embarrassed, though, when I scheduled a behavior consult for the cats. They were fighting all the time, and I felt bad that they were obviously so miserable. I took behavior logs and about a billion videos. And as it turns out… they were playing. I cannot even begin to describe how mortified I was. Here I was, making a complete fool out of myself to a woman I really admire. Thankfully, she was really nice about it, saying that she respected how much I care about my pets.

Heaven help me if I ever have children, though.


Today’s post was inspired by Rescued Insanity.

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.

Behavior Logs

When you schedule an appointment with a veterinary behaviorist at the U of M, you’re asked to do a number of things. First, there’s a 12 page history form, which I found both frustrating (I don’t do well with rating things according a numerical scale), and perplexing (Is Maisy my best friend? Does she understand me better than anyone else in the world? What are they hoping to learn about us by asking these things?). You also have to get video of the problem behaviors, and while I thought this would be the hard, but ended up with nearly an hour of footage within two days. But the most difficult task, at least for me, is completing a behavior log.

The idea seemed simple in theory: every time Maisy showed a problematic behavior, I was to note the date, the circumstances, who was around, where we were, what she did, and what I thought caused the behavior. Since I love charts and checklists, I mocked up handy chart in Excel and printed it out.

Filling out the chart was difficult, though. I knew which behaviors I wanted to track, but underestimated how tricky it is to categorize some of the things Maisy does. For example, where’s the line between being startled by something reasonable and overreacting? How large must the reaction be, or how often must you see it, before you can write down that she was jumpy?

I also didn’t realize just how often she engaged in weird and potentially troublesome behaviors- I quickly ran out of room on the chart I’d printed up and had to revise it. Besides, should I list each individual jump, or is it better to capture the number of instances in a set amount of time? And of course, what exactly is “normal” quirky and what is “bad” quirky? Which things are worth writing down, and which are inconsequential?

I ended up with a lot of data, and even then, I know I didn’t capture everything. I don’t mean the fact that I couldn’t write down what I didn’t see, while I was at work or while I was asleep. I found that I’m so used to Maisy’s odd habits that I took them for granted. I saw things that I’d never really noticed before. And even then, things still slipped past me; it wasn’t until the last day of charting that I realized, hey, maybe carrying around a stuffed bunny head and whining every night for five minutes isn’t the most normal behavior.

Despite the difficulties, the behavior logs revealed some very interesting things about a dog who I thought I knew very well. After reviewing my logs, I’ve refined the way I describe her, I’ve learned things I didn’t know before, and I’ve begun to see patterns in her behavior. This is just an overview of what I learned:

Maisy is better described as “restless” than “jumpy.”
A lot of what I had previously described as fear was less about being startled by something and more about being unable to relax. For example, during a 45 minute nap one day, there were 11 times that Maisy lifted her head and looked around for up to two minutes following a soft noise. The longest I saw her remain resting during the week was 15 minutes. Maisy just can’t tune out environmental stimuli the way normal dogs can. Yes, she does have moments where she’s startled by something (legitimately or not), but more often, she’s just having trouble tuning out normal things.

Maisy wakes up frequently during the night.
I kept the log on my bedside stand, which is a good thing, because in the mornings, I’d look at it, read my barely legible notes, and think to myself, “I do not remember that happening.” But indeed, she woke me up growling or barking multiple times a night. Considering the fact that she’s so restless during low-key times of the day, this really isn’t that surprising. Still, I’m amazed that I didn’t remember it in the mornings. And hey- now I understand why I feel so tired all the time.

Maisy’s relationship with our cats is far more complicated than I realized.
I was even more surprised that she has so many cat issues. I knew that she does some resource guarding towards them, but I never thought much about it. Those cats are relentless in their quest for food, so I wasn’t surprised that Maisy needed to fend them off from time to time. But I didn’t realize that this behavior has carried over to “disciplining” the cats when they’re naughty. I have no idea if that’s what she’s actually doing, but that’s sure what it looks like. She will rush at the cats and nip them if they do something wrong, by which I mean, stuff that we’ve yelled at them for in the past like scratching furniture and jumping on the counter.

Maisy’s leash reactivity tends to happen when the other dog is already retreating.
I was surprised by how often Maisy’s reactivity happens after the fact- eight out of eleven documented instances happened after the person/dog was leaving, not as they were approaching. (I was surprised that she had so many instances of reactivity, too, but then I realized almost half were deliberate set ups in class so that we could capture video. Still- there were a number of small reactions that I probably wouldn’t have thought much about if it weren’t for the fact that I’m paying such close attention.)


Those first two things really confirmed that this appointment is the right thing to do. Maisy is clearly on edge much of the time. If the veterinary behaviorist recommends medication, I will have no objections to giving it. Given her restlessness, and given the fact that I documented 43 instances of barking or growling over very minor or undetectable stimuli, it almost seems inhumane not to give her some chemical support.

The behavior logs also helped me see some training opportunities. For example, there is a lot I can do to promote a more harmonious relationship between Maisy and our cats now that I know it’s a problem. The logs have also given me a nice baseline. I wish I had them from a year ago, back when we were first starting the hardcore behavior mod work. I’m glad I’ll have some basis for comparison in the future.

All in all, keeping a behavior log, though challenging, was incredibly eye-opening, and I highly, highly recommend that any of you with “quirky” dogs keep a log for a week or so, too.