August 2006
Monthly Archive
Behavior30 Aug 2006 06:32 pm
Even though you can bond with your animals very quickly, I’ve found that it takes years to really know them. You think you do, and then they do something so out of character you wonder if they’re sick.
I am usually very aware of where the boys are at pretty much any moment of the day (that I’m home). Usually I know if they’re inside or outside, and if inside, where inside.
The other day I couldn’t find Gizmo anywhere. This happens with both occasionally. Once or twice each has been locked into a room, and once or twice they’ve actually managed to escape the house altogether. This time I was pretty sure Gizmo was inside the house, but I couldn’t figure out where.
Until I spied him inside the doghouse. He never goes in there; occasionally Simba does, but even that’s pretty rare (they do lay in the basket on top of the dog house). He’d apparently been curled up in there for quite some time.
We also have what we call the space capsule, or bubble — sort of a vertical carrier. Simba occasionally likes to curl up in there, but Gizmo never does. Until later that day. It’s almost as though they’d exchanged brains for the day.
Last night Gizmo came in while we were eating dinner, closely followed by Simba. I was a little surprised, as I don’t feed them until we’re done, and at this time of year Simba generally stays outside until I call them in, although Gizmo will frequently come in earlier to check out if food is forthcoming.
I then realized that Gizmo had feet dangling from his mouth . . . another lizard. I put a glass under his mouth, and to my great astonishment he dropped it into the glass.
Then this morning Simba came in, but I didn’t actually see him, which meant that he hadn’t fully come into the room. Once again, unusual. I went to check on him, and he was happily munching away on something. I never did find out what it was. Another lizard, I suppose. At least so far he hasn’t thrown it up.
And that’s the bottom line: no one knows your animals better than you. If your intuition says something is wrong, even if nothing seems to be wrong, listen to it. You know when something isn’t quite right, even if you can’t quite put your finger on it.
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Health23 Aug 2006 06:18 pm
On a cat forum I frequent there was a recent discussion on how to take a long trip with your cat. The person stated that they thought “cages” were cruel, and that her cat has traveled sitting in her lap.
I asked her to please reconsider. Although it was over 20 years ago, I still vividly remember the time I took Cleo to the vet as a kitten — and she crawled underneath the brake pedal. No one was hurt, but it’s surprising that I didn’t have a heart attack! I learned my lesson.
The poster replied that the cat would be on a harness, attached to a seatbelt, in the back seat. That does, at least, keep the cat contained and away from airbags. The poster was quite surprised that several people asked her to crate her cat in a car, which the poster considered to be cruel.
Both the boys and Chester are crated in the car. I have bought a harness for Chester, but I haven’t yet used it. Chester loves to go in the car. He gets extremely excited the minute I lift his crate up from the hallway. I never had to train him to go in the crate at all — in fact, I have to train him to stop from going into the crate immediately! I guess it only took a few trips of going to fun places to get him to like his crate.
“Dog and Kennel Magazine” writes that:
an unsecured 60 pound dog could hit a window, backseat or another passenger with a force of 1,200 pounds in a 30 mile-per-hour collision.
Accident reports reveal that dogs have been thrown through windshields at high speeds when the vehicle rear ended another one, or struck a tree or pole. Other dogs have seriously injured the people riding in the car as they bounced and tumbled around the interior
They go on to say:
Your dog, probably dazed, possibly injured, can’t wander away from the scene of the accident. She’ll receive treatment much sooner if you or others don’t have to go looking for her.
We do have good friends that allow their dogs to ride free in the car. I hope nothing ever happens to them. Chances are, nothing ever will. Even we have been guilty of holding Chester on our laps a time or two when we had guests and didn’t have room for his crate. But it only takes one accident for tragedy to strike.
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Behavior21 Aug 2006 03:28 pm
Let’s face it, both cats & dogs have much better sense of smell than we humans. And you can use that to your advantage.
We are going to be trying out a second dog in a couple of weeks, and since I have zero experience with multi-dog households, I’ve been reading as much as possible.
And that’s when I stumbled across this very interesting piece of advice from “Managing a Multiple Dog Household“:
Here’s one thing you might try if you have one perpetrator and one victim.
Do you wear a particular cologne or hand lotion? Try applying your scent
to the victim for a week or two and see what happens. Dogs are VERY
scent-oriented. You smell like love, warmth, food, water, all the good
things in life. Making the victim dog smell like you might have the effect
of stopping aggression and building friendships. This works with cats,
too.
I have, in fact, used this principle myself. Both dogs & cats, for instance, identify each other via scent, not looks. And that’s why cats often throw a hissy fit when one of your animals come back from the vets: they smell of the evil vet place.
When the boys had dentals this year, Simba started attacking Gizmo when I brought them home. He was pretty serious about it, too. I grabbed some Rescue Remedy, put some on both, and they immediately settled down.
In fact, when Chester had his surgery recently, I hadn’t thought much about the evil vet smell. Until I read about how someone’s cats got very disturbed after their dog had surgery. And Chester had to stay overnight.
Although the boys are used to him going & coming from the vet without a problem, and were used to the same with Puss, I decided discretion is the better part of valor. I rubbed the boys with Rescue Remedy, and I rubbed Chester with it, too, when he came home (it’s good for animals recovering from surgery, anyway). We never had any problems. I don’t know if the Rescue Remedy made the difference, but it sure didn’t hurt.
I had never thought about using scent on victims, though. And that is a very interesting idea.
Technorati Tags: sense of smell, multi-dog households
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Fun18 Aug 2006 01:01 pm
How come dogs have wet dog smell, but there’s no wet cat smell? Seriously, dogs smell funky when they get wet — but most cats have no odor when they get wet.
Which is rather odd, considering that many dogs like the water, and most cats loathe it.
Dogs look kind of silly when they sit and lay down. Maybe that’s why people love them. They spread their legs way out for balance, showing everything they’ve got, or they stick their legs out behind them. Cats look “neat”, as my mom liked to say. They look like they’re deserving of adoration and worship. The Eygptians certainly thought so.
I could get lost gazing into my cats’ eyes. It just looks like there’s all the wisdom of the universe stored in there, if only I could decipher it. Dogs eyes are adoring, usually, but they just don’t have the same mesmerizing effect. At least for me.
It seems that many dogs’ ultimate aim in life is to lick our lips, preferably when our mouths are open. Cats, on the other hand. are seldom caught dead even going near your head. Unless you have a cat with a hair fetish, like Simba.
A wagging tail on a dog usually (but not always) means they’re relaxed and happy. A wagging tail on a cat usually (but not always) means they’re getting ticked off at you and you better watch out or it could end bloody.
Just a few observations of life with cats and dogs.
Technorati Tags: wet dog smell, cats’ eyes
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Behavior16 Aug 2006 01:40 am
Why is it that animals often seem to instinctively know when we’re trying to help them? Like the story of the lion and the thorn. Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be cautious around an animal that’s hurting, even if it’s your animal.
Today, in the very brief time he was outside the vets, Chester managed to step in some gum. He squished it onto his paw.
I did a quick search of the Internet, and one suggestion was to put ice on it, which supposedly helps to harden it and make it easier to get off.
I got a few ice cubes (Chester loves ice cubes, especially in this hot weather), put them in a glass, gathered up Chester, and put him in my lap.
Now, normally Chester hates to have his paws handled. He tolerates it, but he gets wiggly and tries to snatch away his paw. He actually stayed quite still as I held an ice cube to his paw; in fact, he just seemed to snuggle against me. It was as if he knew I was trying to help him.
Maybe the fact that we had to ice his leg after the surgery (which he really didn’t like) helped. Maybe the fact that he’d just had acupuncture helped. Or maybe he just knew I was trying to help.
I managed to drop one ice cube on the floor while manuvering things around. Chester found that when we were done and crunched it down.
It didn’t really seem to help all that much, although I was able to pull a lot of it off. Another suggestion was peanut butter. That really didn’t seem to do anything at all, but Chester sure enjoyed it.
There’s stil a little bit stuck here and there in the fur around his pads. I need to try and cut it off.
Today was Chester’s second acupuncture treatment. The first treatment the vet tech stayed with us the entire time to hold him. He was very wiggly, and kept moving around — and dislodging needles.
This time he was pretty good. The vet tech pretty much continuously fed him treats while the vet put the needles in, but then I was able to hold him without any assistance. He stood the entire time, about 20 minutes.
Technorati Tags: gum, ice, ice cubes
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Yup, it may be the dog days of summer, but fall is definitely in the air. My boys have begun to lay on my lap in the mornings again.
During the summer, they want out. Every morning. Right away. There must be tasty bugs out in the kennel to hunt. Gizmo is always good about coming back inside for breakfast, but Simba must be persuaded. In fact, I usually feed Gizmo first, and if I’m lucky, Simba comes in after Gizmo finishes.
Some days now Simba comes in for breakfast with no prompting at all.
While cats (and dogs) usually do shed most during the fall and spring, it’s not due to temperatures — as I used to think — but rather the length of days. According to “The Cat Newsletter”:
The shedding is largely influenced by daylight, and this is called “photoperiod”. The number of hours a cat is exposed to sunlight in a day (photoperiod) triggers the shedding process. In addition, shedding varies considerably with breed as well as husbandry practices (i.e. bathing, grooming, activities, etc.).
The days are getting shorter, and it is triggering them boys to want to be inside more in the mornings. Before I know it, I’ll be stalked again (they follow me around as I get my breakfast ready, jockeying to be the first one onto my lap).
Technorati Tags: summer, fall, shed
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Recently, someone had posted on half priced cat trees with low shipping. I couldn’t resist.
Unfortunately, the tree is rather wobbly, even with some of my old hand weights on the base. That is probably one of my biggest gripes with trees. I don’t know if it’s just because the boys are relatively large, or what, but I have yet to find a reasonably priced tree that’s really sturdy enough for them.
They don’t use it much. I train them on it, which usually makes them more willing to use something. I also leave toys hidden inside the basket and the middle portion. I know they sometimes use it during the night, because the toys will sometimes be on the floor when I get up in the morning.
I’ve yet to see them scratch on it, though, unless I entice them first. But we haven’t had it that long. Sometimes it takes them months before they decide to claim something. And it may be that I need to try another location.
As I’ve mentioned, we recently bought a mattress topper for our bed. It’s memory foam on one side, and a quilted microfiber topper on the other side.
Apparently the box is perfectly cat-sized. Simba thought it made a great resting place.
Simba also thinks the mattress make a comfy place to nap. He doesn’t lay there all the time. It seems he’s most interested in it when I strip the bed, and then again after I put the freshly laundered sheets back on it. The other day I almost had to make him into the bed.
It is pretty comfy. I get on there and I don’t want to move myself!
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Another miscellaneous photo update. I’ve got a bunch of photos I’ll be posting over the next few days. Some have a theme; today’s don’t.
Chester got adorned with one of our dwarf crape myrtle’s flowers here — right on his nose! Dwarf my eye; that thing is as tall as our house.
This one and the next one are not my most flattering photos by a long shot. But they’re still cute.
When I go out in the mornings with Chester, I sit and read for a while, and then we train for a while, and we repeat that pattern a few times. Anytime Chester comes and sits near me, I reward him with a neck rub. My husband thought my “guard dog” was cute and snapped this pic.
We went to visit our friends on July 4th. As you can see, they have two Westies.
The Westies were on the couch next to me, and Chester was off somewhere, probably looking for a toy or a rawhide. Apparently he couldn’t take it, though, when he saw me surrounded by dogs. He’s frenching again.
While most dogs do like me, every once in a while one will take an immediate dislike. When visiting a friend, once, I foolishly reached over he dog’s head to pet her, and from then on she just avoided me like the plague.
I often talk about how Chester likes to sunbathe. Apparently it’s a common characteristic in Chihuahuas.
Even though the temperature often reaches 100 degrees here in the summer, Chester still asks to go out around noon. Sometimes he needs to pee; sometimes he just wants to lay in the sun.
He particularly likes to curl up on this corner of our patio. I assume because it gives him a pretty good view of most of the yard.
Just a good view of Chester’s glorious tail. Who would have thought that rat tail would turn into something so beautiful? I just adore feathered tails.
Many behavior books warn you against the evils of playing tug. If you let the dog win, it thinks it’s the leader, or so the theory goes.
Many books on positive training methods think it’s perfectly okay to play tug, as long as you control the game. If you ask for the tug toy, the dog must give it up. If the dog tries to initiate the game on his own, no go. And if teeth contact skin, game over.
Look at how much fun Chester is having! Before Chester’s surgery, I would use a game of tug as his reward for training, sometimes, instead of a treat. It took a while for him to really get into it, but now he is. We’ll play some tug, do a little training, then play some more. It’s a great way to practice “give” or “trade” or “drop it”, too. I wouldn’t recommend it for an aggressive dog, of course.
Technorati Tags: miscellaneous photo, sunbathe, Chihuahuas, evils of playing tug
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Health10 Aug 2006 01:12 pm
Chester has been surprisingly good about the amount of time he must spend in his crate. Of course, it’s still early days and we have over a month to go yet.
The hardest time is usually first thing in the mornings. He has so much energy, and no outlet for it! I take him out early to potty, and usually I put him on a chair as I’m grabbing his leash, poop bags, etc. This morning he jumped off the chair.
One day I had him on the couch with me, sitting right next to me, leashed. He still managed to jump off the couch when the garbage truck drove by.
He doesn’t get a whole lot of chances like that. I’m afraid he’s going to damage his trachea, though, because even though I tell him to go slow, he’s still trying to run. He is always on a leash in the house, unless he’s closed in the bedroom and we’re doing some training.
Here are a few of the things I’m doing to try to make his recovery easier:
- He never spends more than two hours at a time in his crate.
- We go out every two hours, even though I know he doesn’t have to go that often. It gives him a chance to stretch his legs. I do not bring him immediately back into the house after he does his business.
- I train him in his crate before closing the door.
- I also train him outside his crate. Yesterday, in one session, I managed to shape him into going into a soft carrier. It started out as an exercise in creativity (he’s still not very good at offering behaviors, but we’re working on that). I would click and treat every time he put his head in the carrier, but he didn’t want to go all the way in, because of the e-collar, I think, so I ended up by luring him in by throwing the treat to the back of the crate after he stuck his head in.
This morning he ran right and, and in fact laid down and stayed in the carrier for a while. If we ever travel by plane, this is most likely the carrier we would use.
- I try to vary the behaviors we work on each day, so he’s not getting bored constantly working on the same thing. We’ve been working on wait at doors, touching my hand or a target stick, putting his head down when he does a down, kissing on cue.
- He is getting chews in his crate. Merrick makes some great chews, and some of them last quite a while. Plus they have free shipping! I also vary which chew I give him each day.
- I use Rescue Remedy, which you can get at most health food stores or stores like Whole Foods, quite a bit. You can put it in their drinking water, or rub it on their ears (which is what I do). It’s one of those subtle things, but I really do believe it’s been helping.
Technorati Tags: crate, trachea, behaviors
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It’s not what you think, although there is that. Sure, many people don’t like cats because of litter boxes. And they throw up hairballs, not to mention grass. Dogs throw up, too. And they usually don’t use litterboxes (although some do).
So it automatically seems that if you have multiple animals, no matter how hard you try, your home will never truly be clean.
But that’s not what this post is about.
I will admit that I am not the best housekeeper in the world. Cleaning really doesn’t interest me, even though I enjoy a clean house. I’d much rather be doing other things, like enjoying my animals’ company.
My animals seem to have different ideas, too. Recently we got a memory foam mattress topper from Costco. Simba seems to be really enjoying it. Gizmo, oddly enough, doesn’t seem to care about it one way or another.
This morning I stripped the bed & washed the bedding. And Simba bedded down on top of the mattress topper. I was able to work around him to get the fitted sheet on, but I need the entire bed to get the comforter back into the duvet cover. And so I wait. And Simba happily snoozes.
And then there’s vacuuming. Now that’s really a chore! The boys hate the vacuum. Even Simba, who is normally pretty fearless, skeddadles when I vacuum. So I try to vacuum either in the morning or late afternoon, times when the boys are usually outside. But if they choose to be inside at those times, sometimes the vacuuming just doesn’t get done.
Surgery update: Chester seems to be doing well. The incision looks good, although there’s still one or two small red spots, and I don’t know if that’s normal or not.
He is walking fairly normally now. He gets the stitches out & the e-collar off on Friday, assuming that everything is okay. I think we are both really looking forward to that!
I was really dreading his recuperation, I have to admit. While he is okay in his crate, he has never come to regard it as his refuge as so many dogs do. Now he is spending hours every day in his crate, although never longer than two hours at a time.
He has been very good about it, though. The first few days he was tired and in some pain, I’m sure, despite the pain medications. But now he seems mostly back to normal.
I am taking him outside every couple of hours, since he can’t ask to go outside, and also as a break from being cooped up so much. I can’t go out, myself, though, because he still does have separation anxiety and I don’t want to risk him injuring himself. So that’s a bit tiring.
In other ways, though, it’s almost been relaxing. I don’t have to walk him, so I am not out in the heat walking. Since I still need exercise, though, I’m finally getting to use my treadmill again — something Chester does not like one bit.
I’m not sure if he doesn’t like the noise, or if he thinks he ought to be walking with me. I tried using the treadmill while he was crated in the living room today (the treadmill is in our family room), but he started to whine. I moved his crate into the family room (it’s on a dolly), and while he still wasn’t happy — wouldn’t relax much or eat his bully stick — he did quiet down.
Gizmo was terrified of the treadmill at first, but he soon learned to ignore it, even occasionally jumping up on it while I was using it. I am assuming that it’s just something Chester needs to get used to.
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