Crouching Kitty, Hidden Boardgames

I have a long history of playing games with animals in the house. Sometimes it's uneventful, like when you have a dog snoozing under the table. Sometimes, though, we're playing with cats in the house. I remember regularly sliding my child hood cat, Spook, off the Monopoly board (he sat right in the middle where the Free Parking pot was). My mom and I would argue over who would have to get him off because sometimes he would retaliate. I had mostly forgotten about this until playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons in my friend's house. He has two cats. One is sweet and quiet. So quiet that his name is Whisper. The other is sometimes fun and friendly, and sometimes all claws and teeth. Anyway, we set up the game, complete with minis and maps and dice. While in a particularly intense battle, Summit the cat leapt from his perch, scattering the minis and dice. He looked very proud of himself. And when his dad shooed him off, the claws came out. Spook lives on!

Flying Couscous, Smiling Bug

Here's a story from my friend, Kelsey. Her dog, Bug is a little terrier mix who smiles when he's nervous. Probably because he did it once and everyone laughed and stopped being mad. He does it on command but he also does it when he thinks he might be in trouble. When dogs are a part of your lives, you often find them in the way or tripping over them. In my house, this usually results in a bad word and then an apology and hug to the dog in question. One day, Bug's mom was standing in the kitchen talking to her fiancé about what they were going to have for dinner. She was holding a bag of couscous and tossing it back and forth from one hand to another. Bug was standing nearby watching the bag go back and forth. As happens from time to time, Kelsey missed the bag. It went flying across the room and right into Bug's face. He immediately began to smile, pacing from one side of the room to another with a smile plastered on his face. Naturally, his people were laughing riotously and telling him he wasn't in trouble but this just resulted in him continuing to smile. Eventually he was showered with love and hugs and all was right with the world. The couscous was cooked and everyone was happy.

Buddy Proofing Folly

Buddy is a sweet lab mix you mostly just wants to snuggle or play with his friends. He's very comfortable in his home but when he stays with me (or anywhere) he has some pretty serious separation anxiety. I tried a number of things with him, including leaving him in the house, in his room, with a friend, without, with toys and food, without. Nothing worked. I almost always came home to a river of pee, the closet door opened and stuff pulled out and eaten. He could open drawers, even the refrigerator. This led to an eventful and lengthy process of attempting to "Buddy Proof" the dog room. I moved the dog food into the closet that locked, got a tension mounted curtain rod to keep the other closet door from moving, spun the refrigerator around. He still managed to open the drawers and pull kibble out of there. I was really worried that he was going to hurt himself getting into things or eat something that would make him sick. Every time I came home, I would find a new challenge and fix it. After months of trial and error, I finally found a method that works. Everything food related is barricaded in the closet and Buddy gets a frozen Kong when I leave. When I come home now, his room is clean and his face is smiling. And if it's Buddy proof, it's dog proof.

Heidi's New Bling

Heidi the Weimeraner has some interesting habits. One is that if she is left at home when people are not with her, she will without fail, get into the trash if it's available to her. Her mom warned me and I took it to heart. Normally I lock it in the bathroom but sometimes I forget. These days, I have a locking trash bin, so even if it's left out, it's pretty hard for her to break into (though she did manage it once). When she first started staying with me, I had a normal trash can with one of those lids that flip around. I still locked it in the bathroom but like I said, sometimes I forget. One day, I came home to Heidi, with a beautiful new necklace. Her big weimeraner face was smiling and her little tail stub was wiggling and the trash lid was hanging around her neck. Ohhh Heidi

Mad Max

This one is also from the history books, from the same household as Morgan. Max was a roommate's dog also. He was an Italian Spinone that had one of the biggest senses of humor that I've ever seen in a dog. He would eat all his food except for one kibble and then guard it from the rest of the dogs until his mom would yell at him and tell him to finish and he would. Then he'd dance away, super proud of himself for his shenanigans. The best story though, is how much he loved it when we used citronella collars. We didn't need them very often, but with 5 dogs in the house sometimes things would escalate and we needed some backup in our zone defense. Max thought this was the best, as long as he wasn't the one wearing it. We noticed that the other dogs would avoid him when they were wearing the collars. We thought that was weird but it was pretty subtle so we figured we were making things up. Until one day, we walked into the room and he was so excited to see another dog with the collar on that he ran right up to them, ducked his head under theirs and made a very quiet woof. The collar went off and sprayed the dog wearing it in the face, missing Max completely. He danced and smiled and scooted away, leaving us in fits of laughter and with a decision to stop using the citronella collars.

From the History Books

I've been hanging around dogs for a long time. There are a number of stories from "way back". This one is from the days when I had roommates. Morgan was a super sweet lab/rottie/pit mix who loved her family but wasn't necessarily thrilled about others. She was also super intense about the laser pointer. She loved it to the point that we couldn't play it very often because she would obsess over it. We called it her "buggy" and if you asked if she wanted to play with the buggy her big eyes would pop and she would run in circles. When she chased the light she would muzzle punch it and nip it with her front teeth. This was adorable... but also dangerous! She would do this no matter where the light was. Floors, walls, couch, your leg. This was OK if you knew were paying attention. But occasionally, you would fall asleep on the couch. One of your clever roommates would quietly get up and grab the laser pointer... and point it at your leg. You'd wake up to a little pinch and a dog that is really confused about why you just yelped in alarm. Roommates are jerks.

Bait and Switch

MJ came into my life shortly before a big trip to England in 2012. For a variety of reasons, she could no longer stay in her home. Her owners boarded her with me while they tryed to find a new home for her. As most people know, I am a sucker. Especially for heelers. I had sworn that I'd never get two dogs that were the same age, that my next dog would be a puppy, etc etc. But here I was with a 7 year old heeler (Sneakers was 9 at the time) who was anxious and shy. Good with dogs, terrified of people. But when she put her face in my lap and rolled her pretty chocolate eyes up at me, I was sold. So I reached out to her owners and asked if they'd consider allowing me to adopt her. They were thrilled. We worked out the details and I sent them a signed adoption agreement. I went back into my living room and sat down. I patted MJ on the head and told her she was all mine. She looked back at me and immediately picked a fight with the dog standing next to her. And that my friend, is a bait and switch. Many hours of training later, she is now a generally well behaved pooch and great member of the family. Check out some pictures of MJ and her transformation.

High Five, Little Kitty

We've had some unfortunate kitty stories here already, in large part because those are the funniest. Contrary to popular belief though, I like cats, especially cats that act like dogs. Here's a story about a cat named Duck who thinks he's a dog. Duck's mom is pretty cool. She and her husband foster kittens regularly and have always have their own cats with, well, let's call it interesting origin stories. When I met the kitties officially, Mom showed me how Duck performs tricks. He "touches" your hand and other things that you point at. When I was visiting the cats, I had forgotten that his command was touch and so I asked him to high five. He looked at me for a moment and then put his little paw on my hand. He got lots of pets and a treat for that. Then we did it over and over again until I got a halfway decent pic. One smart little kitty!

Here's another picture heavy post. A lot of times, dogs that stay here end up making friends with each other. Sometimes they ignore each other but many of them are used to having a human to themselves and very much want snuggles. Since I'm the only human here most of the time, that means they have to learn to share. This results is some pretty adorable photos of them snuggling each other while they try to get as close to me as possible. Here are some photos.

Even MJ can't resist Elway's cuddle game

Salty thinks maybe she isn't doing this right

Miss Lauren we both want to be close to you so we're going to be close to each other and smother you together

Hostage Situation Part 2

I'd like to say that I've mastered all cats and am confident that I will never be held hostage again, especially after 2 times now. But I am definitely not confident in that statement. I want you to keep in mind, that last week, while scuba diving, I literally swam with sharks. Sharks! But these house cats, they're not messing around. Here's another hostage story.

I met Merlot the cat with Marie the trainer. Her dad called Marie in because he was at a point where he was unable to have friends over or have pet sitters come because his cat chased everyone away. We went to see her, and she did indeed charge us and chew on our shoes and try everything to get us to leave. She settled in a little eventually but when we went to leave, she chased us out. Well, OK, I could handle this. After a few more training sessions, Dad went out of town and Kim and I were left to care for Merlot. I went first and when I got there, I couldn't find her. I looked everywhere, no Merlot. I peaked into her hiding spots, not there. I finally looked at the dresser drawer just inside her bedroom and saw her. We made eye contact and I reached in to shut her in the room while I got things sorted (this was the plan from the start). As soon as my hand crossed the boundary of the doorway she launched. I yelped and tried to shut the door but I was too far from the handle. I leapt into the nearby bathroom and shut the door in her face. She sat on the other side, paw under the door, swiping back and forth. After about 10 minutes she retreated to her room. I snuck out of the bathroom and shut the door so I could clean her litter box and feed her. I reported to her dad that all was well, aside from an initial awkward interaction. I got similar reports from Kim on her visits (though she was able to just immediately shut her in the bedroom instead of being held hostage!) My last visit, I went through the normal protocols and everything went well. I went to open the door when I left and walked away (as I had been doing all week). I heard a noise behind me and whipped around to see her sprinting full on at me. I helped in surprise. She yelped in surprise and froze ("I'm totally not chasing you Miss Lauren, I would never do that") and I backed out of the apartment. We've seen Merlot a few more times since then, though now we have a cat whisperer named Brooke who sees her. Stay tuned for a guest post from her about how she's winning over Miss Merlot!

Doga

Sometimes, I have too much going on to get to the gym. I'm sure many of you can sympathize. When that happens (and I'm on my game) I do a workout video or some yoga at home. This usually goes pretty well, my dogs know to stay out of the way. There are a few that will try to snuggle with me but sometimes, they want to help. Baxter in particular, is a big helper. Not only does he have to be nearby (sometimes looming over me, sometimes laying along my side but proximal one way or another). This post is going to be more about pictures than words. But here are a few of some of the more "intrusive" helpers.

Beanz says, "This is a great spot. I fits I sits"

 

Killian: Miss Lauren I think yoga would help my brain relax

Feets are for faces for Baxter!

Chiweenie Vs. Weimeraner

As we talked about last week, Killian is a weird little dog. Here's a story that shows his confidence, completely the opposite of last week's tail.

 

One day, the dog door was open and I was outside scooping poo (this is a common occurrence as you can imagine). I heard Killian barking a lot which is usually a signal that he's being a jerk. I went to see what was up, wondering who he could possibly be bullying since the only visiting dog was an 80 pound weimeraner named Heidi. I came inside to find Heidi standing in a corner, braying like an agitated donkey and Killian barking and stopping her from the leaving the corner. I called him off and he went outside, prancing and proud that he "bested" such an intimidating foe. Heidi immediately came over for some reassurance that she was OK (she was). Poor Heidi, bullied by a 10 pound chiweenie. They got along well after that. Apparently, Killian decided is position was secure and Heidi had no intention of challenging that.

Oh Chip! What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

Killian is a weird little dog. I expect a lot of stories from him. He is my foster dog and comes from a hoarder situation where he was barely touched by people. While he's generally comfortable with dogs, he's terrified of being touched by people. He's also a bit of a bully when it comes to dogs who don't stand up to him. Usually the dogs are a little bigger than he is and a little nervous with dogs. Here is one of his more memorable stories from his first week with me.

I picked Killian up the week before the Super Bowl. I worked with him a little but he was still pretty terrified of new people. I threw my annual Super Bowl party and made sure he had a place to retreat to. To my surprise, he hung around in the living room quite a bit. Mostly trolling for food and snacks from everyone. He handled things pretty well until just after half time when we heard something a bit strange. It sounded like a potato chip bag being crumpled but the sound was moving through the house, as were teeny tiny foot steps. Suddenly, a floating potato chip bag came flying into the room and ran through the back of the house. As it retreated, we could see it was powered by little chiweenie legs. Well, now we know why the potato chip bag is moving, but how am I going to get close enough to this tiny dog who doesn't trust me at all yet to rescue him? Fortunately, he was running laps trying to figure it out. I stood near a doorway and snatched the bag off his head as he ran through. He stopped and looked around at the entire party laughing. To his credit, he shook it off and took up a position in the corner to observe the rest of the day. He definitely got some chips after that ordeal!

Sorry for the delay everyone! I had a big trip at the end of January and it consumed a lot of my time! Posts resume Tomorrow 2/2 and will continue weekly from there!