OR, alternatively, teaching a highly driven dog that cats are not for eating.
Simon is extremely interested in cats. TOO interested. He becomes fixated and obsessed with them. It's slowly getting better now that he's around them more, but he would dearly love to harass them. He hasn't hurt them, but he likes to mouth them, and poke them with his nose, and thankfully they're used to dogs and know not to run, otherwise I think he'd hurt them if he caught them.
I do not let him do that, by the way. But he has been out in the yard and the cats like to do cat things, which is whatever they d@mn well please pretty much, so it's been a bit difficult to control every single interaction he'd had with them.
I've been doing a combination of LAT with them, which is sort of working and sort of not. I have not found anything he'd prefer to staring at the cats through whatever barrier it is between them, nor from his obsessiveness over where they were. No food I've tried is enough to distract him except momentarily. When it does work, we have a party, but it's never for long.
And I've been correcting him when he's inappropriate with them, rewarding when he's being appropriate. I let him sniff them, just to get over the whole curiosity thing, because I don't think he's ever actually been up close to cats before, and then reward if he turns away, looks at me, etc.
Is there anything I'm missing? One of the cats hates him, and is immediately confrontational, so I avoid letting him even remotely close to him. The other cat couldn't care less and ignores him, and this is the cat I allow him to sniff, on my terms. If he's "bad" or unmanageable, I correct him, and then crate him and let him think about it. I may not be going about this the right way, I've never had a dog that couldn't live with cats, or at least peacefully coexist before, so this is all new to me.
Even all the Schutzhund dogs that have paraded through here for a week or more for in home boarding were never this interested in the cats.
Simon is extremely interested in cats. TOO interested. He becomes fixated and obsessed with them. It's slowly getting better now that he's around them more, but he would dearly love to harass them. He hasn't hurt them, but he likes to mouth them, and poke them with his nose, and thankfully they're used to dogs and know not to run, otherwise I think he'd hurt them if he caught them.
I do not let him do that, by the way. But he has been out in the yard and the cats like to do cat things, which is whatever they d@mn well please pretty much, so it's been a bit difficult to control every single interaction he'd had with them.
I've been doing a combination of LAT with them, which is sort of working and sort of not. I have not found anything he'd prefer to staring at the cats through whatever barrier it is between them, nor from his obsessiveness over where they were. No food I've tried is enough to distract him except momentarily. When it does work, we have a party, but it's never for long.
And I've been correcting him when he's inappropriate with them, rewarding when he's being appropriate. I let him sniff them, just to get over the whole curiosity thing, because I don't think he's ever actually been up close to cats before, and then reward if he turns away, looks at me, etc.
Is there anything I'm missing? One of the cats hates him, and is immediately confrontational, so I avoid letting him even remotely close to him. The other cat couldn't care less and ignores him, and this is the cat I allow him to sniff, on my terms. If he's "bad" or unmanageable, I correct him, and then crate him and let him think about it. I may not be going about this the right way, I've never had a dog that couldn't live with cats, or at least peacefully coexist before, so this is all new to me.
Even all the Schutzhund dogs that have paraded through here for a week or more for in home boarding were never this interested in the cats.