Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:46 pm Post subject: Our Puppy (7 months old) is chasing our cats - help!
We have a Black Labrador Puppy who is currently 7 months 3 weeks old who's name is Myka. She has been with us since she was 10 weeks old.
The problem we are having is that she keeps chasing our cats and basically harrassing them. Its making them very unhappy and is also rather dangerous. She will even try and pluck their flur which isn't good.
We see a dog trainer once a week for help with her and she has given us some tips for this problem. However it does not seem to be working and we wondered if anyone else has experienced these problems and what they did to solve them?
The tip we were given was to say Ahah loudly and she should re-act to this and then stop what she is doing. If she doesn't then we remove her from the situation and give her time time.
The problems we are having with these tips is that it worked initially and not long term. Its like she has figured out the techniques and then ignores them. The problem with removing her from the situation is she now avoids this by running away and acts like its a game. She also doesn't seem to learn from the time outs.
We'd be grateful for any help and tips on this matter, as we really want to get her better with the cats so its safe for them. We have another dog (Golden Retriever) and he is great with the cats, she on the other hand is not. With our other dog we didn't even need to train him with the cats, he was good from the start.
Thanks again
Rose
EDIT: Just wanted to add, I think the removing her from the situation is working because she isn't always chasing the cats. Sometimes she is fine and the other times she is really terrible. She leaps at them and this could seriously hurt them. Its all so dangerous for our cats and we are worried she will hurt them. They do have an excape route as we have a stair gate on the lounge but some of the cats (we have 6) will just sit there terrified to move. I think its because when they move she chases after them.
____________
Click on www button for Myka´s website. Myka is a much loved family member and we hope to train her to become my assistance dog too!
Does she know a leave it command? I would teach a leave command and then if she looks like she's going to start harassing them, tell her to leave and call her over for her tasty food reward. She will hopefully learn that goes things come out f your pockets if she leaves the cats alone
____________ Sam, Coal & Finn
It�s never too late to be what you might have been
All photographs remain copyrighted to me with al
Be firm and a very loud NO will do the job. She sees it as a game at the moment which is fun but a loud NO and I mean loud and the understanding its wrong will soon solve the problem.
We have pens with Rabbits in and if the dogs dare run in they are told in loud terms it is wrong from a puppy up until there last days many years later.
They know right from wrong. Just push the boundaries sometimes.
CJ will still occasionally chase my cats, he`s nothing like as bad as he was and will touch noses with them now and again, although this is when they are at a higher level then he is.
My stair gate is at the bottom of the stairs, the cats have the choice as to whether to come into the living room or not, they do come in now, a lot more, they wouldn`t when Cindy was here cos she was worse than CJ for chasing.
As long as they have an escape route they should be fine, the more timid ones you`ll need to help if they freeze, give it time Myka will get better as time progresses, I don`t think my cats and CJ will ever be bosom buddies but they tolerate each other now and will even walk past one another.
Are you doing things like throwing balls for her to play with? If you're out for a walk, will she sit to let a cyclist, jogger etc whizz past without moving? If not, I'd work away at this sort of thing too, not just the cat chasing in isolation. She's discovered that leaping after something that moves is great fun, but you can teach her that staying still is also great, using a seriously high value treat.
With my first pup I let the cat in but held pup's attention with cheese. If she 'watched me' and not the cat, she got the cheese. I used to roll balls past her, make her sit/stay for cyclists etc etc and reward to the max when she ignored the distraction.
Sometimes a big fat hairy scary NOOO don't you flaming well DARE!!!!!! is needed. And I mean business. Pup needs to learn it is just absolutely unacceptable to mither the cats. Say it in the voice you'd use if she was about to crash through the crown jewels!!!! Then, when she stops to think 'what was that about?!' you get your happy clappy good cop voice on and praise her for inadvertently not chasing.
I know exactly how you feel I think. When one of mine was a youngster she did injure my cat by pouncing on him and playing too rough. He's a canny thing and probably just froze. A combination of really working on teaching 'leave it' plus getting that bit firmer with her really helped. My bad cop voice was a bit too wishy washy back then I think. She and my two cats are firm friends now. They're curled up together sleeping right now. Keep going, you'll get there
Just to clarify I didn't say to treat for a no command. I said to treat for a leave command if obeyed. Two totally different things. Telling this dog no isn't working and rather than racking up the punishment or yelling how about rewarding a positive behaviour of leaving the cats.
____________ Sam, Coal & Finn
It�s never too late to be what you might have been
All photographs remain copyrighted to me with al
Just to clarify I didn't say to treat for a no command. I said to treat for a leave command if obeyed. Two totally different things. Telling this dog no isn't working and rather than racking up the punishment or yelling how about rewarding a positive behaviour of leaving the cats.
Thanks Sam. I understood that but just sometimes think we are a little soft at NO and once they understand NO means you are not messing around it has a multitude of uses like not eating my boots almost every day given the chance
our pup is 7 months and still occasionally chases one of our two cats. we can normally stop this with a NO or AAH AAH, or LEAVE IT. if you get this in early enough she is pretty good.
oddly enough she doesn't chase our female cat, we have a brother and sister who were rescue cats.
the female cat simply looks at our pup who then turns her head away and pretends there is no cat there. goodness knows what she has done to her when we weren't looking.
I have Jessie who is the same age as Myka, we have 3 cats but they are semi feral and are my yard cats (although spend most there time in my garden or on my kitchen window sil) my cats are more like tigers and are a bit ferocious so my dogs are petrified of them (even my terrier who attacks anything that moves !) so the cats arent an issue
However the chickens Jessie does occasionally chase - not often but sometimes and its always a quite half hearted chase anyway, she just gets told very sternly to leave and she always does. so i think the leave command is very important.
sometimes it just takes the cats one time to just stand up for themselves and not run for the dogs to respect them
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You cannot download files in this forum
Our Puppy (7 months old) is chasing our cats - help!
which isn't good.
[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a118/LucyJK/_DSC7456.jpg[/IMG]
