Huskies and cats

[utahraptr]

We've had Haley for almost 2 weeks now. The first night we met her, we learned real fast that she has a thing for cats - and not a good thing! There were cats at the shelter, and she wanted to get to them, she was screaming and pulling the leash. The dog control person was so embarassed - she didn't expect Haley to act like this, as Haley's previous owners said Haley had lived with a cat. But apparantly she does not like them and would attack them if she caught them.

We got Haley home and found similar reactions to other animals - she started to throw a fit at the neighbor's chickens/goats. We stopped that real fast by taking her inside anytime she started to fuss about hearing the neighbor's pets, so now she goes outside and ignores them. If she does look or seems interested, I have her sit so she listens to me, tell her to leave it. And she has been very good aout it (I would never take her over there to see the animals, but at least she can be outside without throwing a fit now).

However, we had a horrid vet visit on Friday. I walked Haley into the vet, she was interested in sniffing around and was great getting on the scale for her weight. It was all going well. Until a woman walked in with a cat in a cat carrier. Haley heard/smelt the cat, and went nuts! The vet immediately got us into another room, and I practically had to drag Haley there, while she shrieked! And then in the other room, she paced and whined, and dug at the door. THe vet had to muzzle her so she could work (Haley was there to get caught up on shots and get scheduled for spaying). She didn't calm down again until we were back in the car and on the way home. I can't blame poor Haley, I know it's in her nature to go after smaller animals, and it doesn't help that her previous owners turned her loose to find her own food. I'm thinking she caught cats, since she seems most interested in them and acts like she would gladly kill one. The vet was not suprised by Haley, she knows a lot of huskys that don't like cats (except maybe as a snack). She just suggested obedience/socialization classes.

Is there anything I can do to get her to calm down when she sees a cat? I don't want to drag her away while she screams. I'm working on training her, I've gotten her to sit and lay down now and am working on stay (getting her to sit and stay there until I release the command. If she stands up, I tell her no and have her sit atain. If she walks, I tell her no, bring her back, and get her to sit. And that goes on until she finally sits still and waits for me to say ok and let her go). I'm trying to work on her outside manners, getting her to listen to me there as well as inside - mostly with sit since she really knows that. She'll begin obedience classes soon now that she's up to date on shots, so I should have some help with her training then (I'd like to get her spayed first though, her appointment is in Oct, but I'm trying to get it done earlier as she's coming into heat soon). But, I really need this cat thing to stop. I don't care if she hates them, but I can't have her screaming and going crazy when she sees one, especially at the vet or the park (people actually walk their cats at the park, so if Haley were walking and saw that, she'd go nuts!).

For now, I'm avoiding cats like the plague, if I see one I get Haley away asap. We have no cats around home and cannot have them in our house as Jay is allergic, so it's not really a problem here. But it's a big deal in public places.

[Bec]

It sounds like she's got a fairly decent prey drive, you can use that to your advantage.

What do you use to reward her when you are training her, food, toys, a tug?

[valkyries]

my Topaz is the same she realy dont like cats an pulls like mad to get to them, the only time we raly have trouble is at the vets so the muzzle goes on, now if we have to take her my husband or i stay outside untill the vet calls her in, then we can walk her straight into the vets room with no time for her to see any other pets in there xx

[BingBlaze n Skyla]

are you teaching the 'on by' command its used for racing dogs 2 carry on running even if they see something they want once the commands bin sed they will ignore it and carry on maybe u cud do this run past n say 'on by' n once uve gone past the cat with her succesfully ignorin it u can stop and praise her and give her a favorite treat or something?

[Sarah]

good idea nix i use on by with my boys - bit hit and miss still depending on what it is but we're getting there lol

Try focus work at home you want her undivided attention and when you get it give big rewards - I use cheese or ham as an example - the reward she gets has to be worth her while -a clicker may help as well

Good luck and keep us posted xx

[utahraptr]

We use treats and praise when she listens and does hat we are trying to get wher to do. We say good, pet her, give her a belly rub, etc. We have some berry and apple dog treats, some regular dog bones, and fruits/veggies (she loves carrots!), but I'm trying to teach her without fully relying on treats, so any other ideas would be appreciated! I can also give her some meat if you think that would work better for training (maybe some pieces of turkey or chicken).

We also are working on sit/stay when we give her food (have her sit for the food dish), and when we're putting on her harness and leash. She was bad the first couple of times with her collar and harness, she would spin circles and pace, and we had to grab her and try to hold her still to get the collar/harness on. Now we have her sit and stay until the collar/harness is on and we say ok to allow her to get back up. We've worked on that a lot during walks - if a car goes by, or kids on bikes, or if she's pulling bad, we have her sit and calm down. I tell her sit, stay. And if she gets up, I take her back to the same spot and say sit/stay again. She does get it, and was very good on her walk tonight.

For walking, she's still learning how to walk on a leash. The first walk all she did was pull, while I fought to keep up. After that, we started working with her to stop pulling. We're using a training harness that tightens when she pulls and loosens when she's walkng good ( not pulling) and it works great! I have a halty trainer as well, but haven't been successful getting that on her - she pulls at it with her paws until it comes off, or chews at it. So we haven't used it other than trying to put it on her.

If she does well on her walk tomorrow with the training harness and the sit/stay cmmand, I can also add the "on by" command and use that if she finds something interesting that I ant her to ignore during the walk. We had a snake in the road tonight, I had to pull her away from that, and there are plenty of people she looks at and would love to see, so I'll try that command when I want her to just continue walking past and not stop.

I have noticed that at home training with her is hard when Kahtadin is around - he gets so excited when I ask Haley to sit, and he comes running over and gets in front of her or tries to play. We're going to seperate them when we work with Haley, so she doesn't have him as a distraction and she can fully focus on me instead. During walks it's easier, as Jay has Tadi on a leash and works with him, while I have Haley and work with her (Tadi walks so well for a puppy!). But inside, it gets hard when he wants to play or steal Haley's treats. He is learning so fast on his training, and he's such a show off. I ask Haley to lie down, and he comes flying over and lies down in front of her so he can get praise/treats. So we need to work with Haley when she's on her own, and she'll do a lot better.

We haven't seen any cats on our walks around home yet - lots of dogs and people, but no cats. And no squirrels either, just a couple of snakes in the road and birds. She ignores birds unless they're chickens, and she has no problem with other dogs.

[Bec]

Having a solid sit/stay or leave it (on by) command is useful, but waiting until your dog is close enough to what is distracting them to teach them the command or practice it is setting them up for failure.

Each dog has a threshold which is the distance they need to be from a stimulus (like a cat) to react to it. When training for focus around distractions you need to start far enough away from them that the you are just before your dogs threshold, and once they are focusing on you and working well at that distance you can slowly decrease the distance so you are a little bit closer to the stimulus - and therefore improving the dog's threshold and the distance they can be before losing focus.

If she gets distracted by something the quickest way to get her focus is walk her away from it, let her calm down and get her focus back on you.

If she's prey driven, have you tried playing tug with her and using that as a reward? I'd also suggest using higher value food when training, at this stage you want to increase her value of you - at the moment I would suggest that distractions like a cat rank much higher on the value scale than you do!

I use soft and smelly food when training the dogs, roast or boiled chicken, sausage, left over roast etc are all great and can be cut into little training sized pieces.

If you have trouble training them together, keep them separate. Put the puppy in another room or in a crate or take Haley into the backyard and leave him in the house. I like to keep my training sessions as one on one time.

How old is your pup? ETA: I just read he is ten weeks old. Make sure you are very careful taking him out on walks - he wouldn't be fully vaccinated yet, and is far too little to be doing much regimented exercise. I follow the five minute per month rule, if he's two months old I wouldn't be doing more than ten minutes walking a day. You have to be very careful with not exercising them too much when they are still growing or you can damage their joints.

[Sibe77]

Grey is really funny with Cats, there is this Black one around where we are and twice he has pulled like mad to get to the cat, now this cat has no fear it just stands there back arched and does not move, the 2 times they have met they have been touching noses and i mean touching noses you would have to see it to believe it, but nothing else, the cat dont move and grey dont move think the have this bit of respect for each other..lol, what does bug me is that i have to be the one who turns around and go another way past as this cat will not budge!!!!