The Many Ears of Pyg

Pyg has the dumbest* ears. 

This series of photos was taken over a 15 minute period.

No, I don't know why they keep changing.

They just do this.

*Dumbest or coolest? Totally up for debate.

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!

Project Gratitude: Trout the Dog

In September 2013, Maisy became suddenly and critically ill. Our blog readers rallied around us, providing us with the emotional and financial support needed to get through a very stressful time. Although I will never be able to pay you all back, I can pay it forward through Project Gratitude.

Please email me at reactivechampion (at) gmail (dot) com if you have an individual or cause that you would like me to consider donating to.

This month, I'm a day late and a dollar short... or rather, several days late, as 6 days into the new month, I'm just now posting about last month. The dollar short is also literal, as I couldn't donate to project gratitude until I got paid today. Ah, well. It's not like there are really any rules... 

So this/last month, I donated to Trout the Dog. Trout has been sick for awhile now with weird and mysterious ailments. Her owner (and my best friend and also an awesome blogger in her own right) Sara has had Trout into the vet and a specialist a number of times... and everything so far has been inconclusive. They are waiting on one blood test to come back, so fingers crossed we get an answer! 

Now, Sara is the most financially responsible person I know. She is the master of thrift, incredibly disciplined, and plans for emergencies by having a good savings account. Unfortunately, most of that was eaten up by her dog Dobby, who suffered from seizures and ultimately was put to sleep. Sara's done her best, but Trout's care has now exceeded what she had on hand, and to be honest, I'm not quite sure how she's afforded everything thus far. 

One thing is clear though: Sara needs help in order to help Trout. Please, would you consider helping out? 

To Infinity and Beyond: In Memory of Buzz

 These are two of the luckiest people I know- my friend Megan and her dog Buzz:

Buzz totally counts as people.

A dog's life is so short and can be so uncertain that it is rare for one to spend his entire life with one person, but Buzz got Megan from puppyhood to his very last breaths. As for Megan, well, my friend Sara and I like to joke that our dogs will live forever, because the good die young (meaning the naughty live forever? I guess we've never really thought through the logic) but lucky Megan got to have the Best Dog Ever for 16 years.

Best Dog Ever
May 4, 1998 to May 20, 2014

And Buzz really was a great dog, although it was sometimes easy to miss that fact when we had all the dogs together in a group. Buzz was just so unassuming, you know? He was gentle and quiet, content to just sit and watch the day go by, not naughty and obnoxious like some dogs I know.

Ahem, Maisy. Not your treats!

Buzz was Megan's introduction into the dog world, and I have to say, I'm a bit envious. He was tolerant of a teenager's foolishness and tolerant of her mistakes. Not that he was easy, but when he presented challenges (as all dogs do), he would patiently wait for Megan to figure things out. And if she didn't, well, there's stuff over there for him to sniff or look at.

I'll just be over here while you get your stuff together, Lady.

They did find success together in the show ring (I loved seeing 15-year-old Buzz clean up in the Veterans rally class last year), but they also found success together in life. Megan went to great lengths to keep Buzz in great physical and mental shape, and I know Buzz offered her emotional support during some hard times.

God, there is just so much right about this picture.

I can't believe Buzz is gone. And I can't imagine how Megan must be feeling. But I do know they were the luckiest people ever. So godspeed, dear Buzz. We will miss you, and will always love you - to infinity and beyond!

Boxes!

When I first got Pyg, he was done with crates. It's hard to blame him; after being uprooted from his comfortable life in Alabama (well, I assume it was comfortable- he was in a foster home), he was put in a crate on a small, loud, crowded plane. He then went to a crate in a car. And then onto another plane. 

By the time he'd arrived to my house, he'd spent the best part of 48 hours in a crate, and he said NO MORE. He turned his crate pan into confetti, moved it across the room, and then pulled a Houdini and somehow escaped from the crate without destroying. Seriously. I still have no idea how he got out. 

Well. That wouldn't do. I need my dogs to be crate trained. They need to ride in a crate in the car, be crated a dog shows, and will likely need to be crated if he's ever boarded or at the vet without me. 

I started simply, and fed him all his meals in his crate with the door open. We did this for quite awhile. I waited until he was running to his crate voluntarily, and then did it longer. I probably spent two months on this stage. 

Next, I closed the door, but opened it immediately after he was done. At this point, I introduced him to the concept of waiting until he was released. I taught this the way Susan Garrett does in her Crate Games DVD: if he moved towards the door, I shut it immediately. I'd open the door again, and if he waited even a second, I'd give him his release cue. 

Gradually, I lengthened the amount of time he had to wait for his release. There were like two times that he self-released, and promptly chased him down, picked him up, and put him back in his crate. I didn't yell or hit him, but it still made an impression. He doesn't self-release anymore, even if Maisy is released first, or if I walk away. It's probably time to up the ante a bit and leave the room.

We are now working on the amount of time he stays in his crate after he finishes eating. In the mornings, he'll be quiet for about 45 minutes before making some pathetic whines. At night, after playing all evening with Napi, he's tired and just falls asleep and will stay there a few hours until I let him out. He's also comfortable and quiet in the car crate while I'm driving, but gets a bit noisy when we stop. I've started introducing the concept of staying in the crate while I pump gas or run back in the house to grab something. 

Anyway, here's a video I took a few months back (and then promptly forgot). 

My favorite part of the video is how it looks like I'm not wearing pants.  

Missing Maisy

I really miss having only one dog. Not because I don't love the other three, and not even because of the difficulty integrating two households (read: fights). But because I just don't have enough time with my Maisy. The other three need more in terms of training. The other three need more exercise (Maisy's stamina is much lower since she's been sick). And the other three are just... I dunno, needier.

Any time I sit down, this happens:

And Maisy? Well, she doesn't value cuddling nearly enough to share her space with another dog. Or even to resource guard my lap. (Unless I have food. Then she turns into Cujo.)

What Maisy does value is her tennis ball, and whoever will throw her tennis ball. In this case, my fiance. When we're all together, I have at least one and probably three dogs draped across me, while Maisy is dropping a ball at Cesar's feet.

It's more than that, though. I very rarely get one-on-one time with Maisy. She and I share everything with at least another dog now. Our bed, our meals, our walks.

She even has to share her beauty shots!

This is no one's fault but my own, of course, but it's becoming clear to me that Maisy deserves some momma time... and that I deserve Maisy time. I'm hoping that this will be easier once we've moved and are settled. Right now my fiance and I basically live together in two apartments, and it's just awkward sometimes. But really, I know that I need to prioritize alone time with Maisy- and all my dogs, honestly.

POSTSCRIPT
So, I wrote and scheduled this post on Thursday last week. I guess Maisy can read, because Friday night, she was wedged next to Lola on my lap. Saturday morning, she was the snuggliest dog ever. So freaking weird. I don't have this post scheduled for a few more days... very curious to see what Maisy does next.