Today is J-Day!

[stewball]

That's scarey

 

[Winchester]

The change is her is wonderful. I got home yesterday before Rick did, so I had to take her out. While she did carry on in the house, we got outside and she quieted down quickly. And I think her carrying on inside was more of a "Man, I gotta really pee!" kind of thing. We got the choke collar on and she danced all the way down to the front door.

Rick thinks it was a bear. For her to go so still, so quiet, and then turn around and head for the house, there's a good chance it was something bigger than she is and something that unnerved her. (Thank goodness we don't have boars here! 

 Wow!)

Rick was bowling last night and I was watching The Big Bang Theory. Got about halfway through the show and Jackie came over to me. And I knew. I said, "Aw, Jackie, must you? Must you really?" And she started doing the Gotta Pee Now! dance. I got my shoes and my sweatshirt and quickly dressed. And out we went. 

Only now, she's been trying to "hump" BooBoo. Now he is a (neutered) male and she's a spayed dog, so I'm not sure what's going on there. But he doesn't like it and I need to make sure she's not hurting him because of his arthritis. I stop it quickly whenever I see it. I Googled it and it's not really sexual in nature, maybe kind of dominance thing? I don't know, but it needs to stop. Last night, he was sleeping in the corner of the couch. She jumped up, got behind him, and started in. He was not amused and neither was I. I told her NO and put her in the crate. Why would a big dog try to "hump" a cat?

 

[Kat0121]

 
The change is her is wonderful. I got home yesterday before Rick did, so I had to take her out. While she did carry on in the house, we got outside and she quieted down quickly. And I think her carrying on inside was more of a "Man, I gotta really pee!" kind of thing. We got the choke collar on and she danced all the way down to the front door.

Rick thinks it was a bear. For her to go so still, so quiet, and then turn around and head for the house, there's a good chance it was something bigger than she is and something that unnerved her. (Thank goodness we don't have boars here! 

 Wow!)

Rick was bowling last night and I was watching The Big Bang Theory. Got about halfway through the show and Jackie came over to me. And I knew. I said, "Aw, Jackie, must you? Must you really?" And she started doing the Gotta Pee Now! dance. I got my shoes and my sweatshirt and quickly dressed. And out we went.

Only now, she's been trying to "hump" BooBoo. Now he is a (neutered) male and she's a spayed dog, so I'm not sure what's going on there. But he doesn't like it and I need to make sure she's not hurting him because of his arthritis. I stop it quickly whenever I see it. I Googled it and it's not really sexual in nature, maybe kind of dominance thing? I don't know, but it needs to stop. Last night, he was sleeping in the corner of the couch. She jumped up, got behind him, and started in. He was not amused and neither was I. I told her NO and put her in the crate. Why would a big dog try to "hump" a cat?

I think you're right. I think it could be a dominance thing or she's just trying to find her place in the pecking order. My dog accpeted that Lilith was the alpha pretty much immediately. Then again, Lily didn't give her much choice.

I think it's fantastic how much better she's gotten. In time, she may stop the barking when you get home unless it's a beagle thing. My dog never barks when we get home. She barks when the neighbors get home (or leave) but never when we do. Kudos to you and Rick for doing such a great job with her and for all your patience. She's a very lucky dog. Hopefully, the improvements continue.

 

[denice]

My cats have done this off and on since they were kittens.  In our case it's the male 'humping' the female.  It's looks just like they are mating down to Patches biting the back of Alice's neck.  Sometimes she takes it and sometimes she lets him know that she is not amused.  They were both fixed long before that behavior started so I know it isn't sexual in nature.

 

[stewball]

I think it may be a sign of affection.
IMO cats dominate dogs.

 

[Winchester]

 
In time, she may stop the barking when you get home unless it's a beagle thing. My dog never barks when we get home. She barks when the neighbors get home (or leave) but never when we do. Kudos to you and Rick for doing such a great job with her and for all your patience. She's a very lucky dog. Hopefully, the improvements continue.

I do think it's a beagle thing. Beagles like to bark....it's the nature of the beast. And that's OK. She really only barks when we come home or when people come to visit.

She doesn't bark at deer; we've been outside when deer have been in the backyard and she goes about her merry way and pretty much ignores them. Our deer are fairly tame, too, and they're pretty used to us being outside with them. They may leave the yard when we're out, but they don't go far and they come back as soon as we leave the back yard.

Rick's sister dog-sat for us last night, so we could go down to see our grands' school Christmas play. It's a two-hour drive one way, so we got home late last night. Jackie was very happy to see us, but we could tell that she was fine since somebody was with her while we were gone. 

We have a gate up at the entrance to the hallway coming back to the bedrooms. Well, she came through the gate again early this morning. Evidently, she smelled "fresh" kitty poop. 

 The first place she hit was the bathroom and Rick got out of bed and found her chomping the poop. He put her back out in the living room, she breached the gate again and went back into the bathroom. What IS it about dogs and poop? Disgusting!

Five of our litter boxes have hoods; the sixth box does not have a hood and that's because Muffin and Mollipop try to intimidate each other when the other is in the litter box. We have found that a hoodless box works best for those two, so we need to keep one box without a hood. We have a gate up at the hallway and then another gate at the entrance to our bathroom; the cats can get back the hallway and into the bathroom, but Jackie cannot do so unless she knocks the gate down....and she's figured that out.

So this morning at 4:30, Ms. Pepe decided she was ready for breakfast and started to meow. Not too long after that, Jackie breached the gate (twice) and started eating kitty poop for her breakfast. We decided to just get out of bed at that point. I was feeding the cats their breakfast this morning and Rick was dressing to take Jackie outside. I asked Rick, "When did we lose control of this place? When did they stop paying any attention to us at all?" Rick looked at me and said, "About 22 years ago, when Whisper came to live with us. Honey, it's been all downhill ever since!" 

 

 

[artiemom]

Pam, I am so glad to be reading all these good things happening; except for the poop breakfast! yuck! 

I enver had a dog, so I cannot comment. 

It is very heartening to read the successful, if not tortuous time you have had with Jackie. I really do think that dogs are the exact opposite of cats. It is a very different lifestyle when you have a dog, especially a rescue. 

I agree with Rick, once you bring a loving pet into your house, you lose all control. They are the Master!!!

keep giving us updates. I feel I am living my life through these updates...you are so good and kind..

 

[Kat0121]

 
We have a gate up at the entrance to the hallway coming back to the bedrooms. Well, she came through the gate again early this morning. Evidently, she smelled "fresh" kitty poop. 

 The first place she hit was the bathroom and Rick got out of bed and found her chomping the poop. He put her back out in the living room, she breached the gate again and went back into the bathroom. What IS it about dogs and poop? Disgusting!

Oh that's so gross. To the best of my knowledge, my dog has never gotten a snack out of the litter box but if one of them tosses up their breakfast or dinner, she'll gobble it up in a second.

Henry's stomach was pretty sensitive for a while when he first came to live with us and some of the higher quality foods that he wasn't used to were too rich for him so they'd come right back up. By the time I grabbed some paper towels, a bag , something to clean the rug with and came back, the rug would already have been licked clean.

 

[NewYork1303]

We have always had similar troubles with our dog eating cat poop. The living room is blocked off with chairs and the door to the bathroom where the cat litter box is has elastic tied around the knob. and secured to the door frame. This makes it so the door only opens a cats width and a human can easily pass by taking the loop from the door handle and going through the door. The dog is unwilling to try to shove her way in since she knows that she will become trapped inside and will have to touch the door with both of her sides which she refuses to do.

A good way to stop dogs that knock over dog gates is to buy the kind that screw into the wall. Of course this means fairly permenant alteration to your home so I totally understand if you don't want to do that.

 

[denice]

I swear dogs will eat anything.  I got kitties after having had dogs for years.  I thought kitties would be the same way, not.  I grew up on a farm and the dog had free run, dogs will also roll in anything and come home smelling really bad.

 

[Columbine]

Leah had a cat poop obsession when she was younger, but we eventually managed to train her out of it. Sadly, the same can't be said for rabbit poop, sheep poop, fox poop, horse poop.... :nausea: Worse is when she decides she fancies some 'perfume' and has a thorough, joyful roll :wife:

Double gating (one gate in front of another) might help. Not sure what else to suggest.

 

[Kat0121]

 
I swear dogs will eat anything.  I got kitties after having had dogs for years.  I thought kitties would be the same way, not.  I grew up on a farm and the dog had free run, dogs will also roll in anything and come home smelling really bad.

So true. My DH found a petrified frog in our shed once years ago. He decided that I really needed to see it (

) so he kept it on the front steps until I got home and he could show it to me. After I saw it and said, "OK great. Now get rid of it" He put it back on the front steps. When DD walked the dog that night, the dog found the frog and ate it like it was a potato chip.

NOTHING good comes from that. The next day, she erupted from both ends in her crate. DD found her like that when she got home from school. She was in middle school at the time so she called DH at work and when he got there, they had to take her, crate and all out to the driveway to hose everything off.

When I got home a couple of hours later, he told me what happened and said, "at least YOU didn't have to deal with that."

I said, "why should I? YOU are the one who left the petrified frog where the dog could find it and eat it, NOT me."

me   

 

 

[jcat]

Do you have a table or shelf you could put the open litter box on, out of Jackie's reach?

Beagles are notorious escape artists, so it's not surprising that she figured out how to get through the gate. They've been known to chew through wooden fences, wrap chains around poles in order to break them or climb chainlink fences. Beagles and Huskies are why there are dog enclosures closed at the top.

 

[Winchester]

No, we don't have a place to put a litter box on top of much of anything around here. And we have to be careful because of BooBoo with his arthritis....for him to jump isn't a good idea sometimes.

I'm trying to be more vigilant about keeping the litter boxes clean. If there's nothing in that box, maybe she'll get tired of looking. Maybe. It could happen.

 

[artiemom]

I do not know if you would want to try this idea which I saw at the one of the Petstores. 

There are either pills or treats (I forget) that you can give your cat to make their poops less palatable to dogs...

seriously!!

I cannot remember if I saw these at Petsmart or one of the on-line stores: Fosters & Smith,---maybe....I also get a catalog from them so I could have seen it in the catalogue. 

If it was me, I would hate to have to give my kitties something to solve this problem, but it could work..at least temporarily, so that the cycle can be broken.

If you wish, I can look it up later....

I am rushed now because I am on my way to church--up early --too early....

 

[misterwhiskers]

I think it's this stuff? For-Bid

http://m.1800petmeds.com/mt/www.1800petmeds.com/For+Bid-prod10475.html

 

[Winchester]

Thanks Artiemom and MisterWhiskers, but I won't give anything to the cats that I don't have to give, if that makes any sense. I'm just trying to be more vigilant about cleaning out boxes and scooping and all that good stuff. But thank you.

Well, Jackie has gone after the cats....three times now today. We don't know what's going on, if she's trying to play with them or what. All three times, Rick yelled at her and made her go to her bed. The third time tonight, she went after Tabby, who really didn't care in the slightest....Tabby didn't seem concerned at all. But the third time Jackie did it, she knew she did wrong and she went to bed pretty much on her own. Rick was livid, but I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt here and hope she's trying to play with them. The first time was right after supper when she went after Muffin as Muffin walked into the living room after eating her supper. Muffin was really upset and took off behind the couch; Jackie was going after her when Rick yelled. Later on, Tabby came running into the living room, ran past Jackie, and Jackie went after her. Rick yelled and made Jackie lie down. The third time, Tabby went after Jackie, Jackie went after Tabby, and Tabby simply yelled, "Psyche!" and took off...honestly that's exactly the way it looked. And Jackie put herself to bed as Rick yelled at her. 

So I don't know if Jackie's really going after the cats to be mean or if she's trying to play with them or what. But the cats weigh around 10 pounds; Jackie is 4 times that. It's worrisome.

We had a lot of people here this weekend and she was wonderful with everybody. No peeing in the house at all. A constantly wagging tail and she was pretty much the hit of the weekend. Every body paid lots of attention to her; she had her bandanna on and she made it a point to let us know when she had to go outside. The worst part was trying to keep her out of the kitchen while we were eating our dinner. She was fine around the grands, who are used to dogs....they have Maggie, our grand-dog. But the whole weekend, whenever Rick left, I was always here with her, so she hasn't been alone since late Thursday afternoon. As long as somebody is here with her, she's a happy camper. And it doesn't who that somebody is; she's fine with both Rick or with me. 

Rick and I both work tomorrow (Monday). But he's off then the rest of the week. I don't know what's going to happen when we resume our normal post-holiday routine again. Simply by us both being here, we may have set her back again.

 

[Columbine]

It's very possible that Jackie was trying to play. Leah does it from time to time. My gut instinct is that if Jackie had been going to go after the cats in hunt/chase mode, she'd have done it when she first moved in.

I know that doesn't help when she's upset one of them (and I really do feel for Muffin :heart3: ), and of course she has to learn it's not ok, but knowing the motivation behind the behaviour can make a difference.

For what it's worth, Cali used to get Leah in trouble just like Tabby did - he'd roll around in front of Leah, and sometimes even pounce her...knowing full well that she'd respond and get yelled at Asha tries the same thing from time to time too :lol3:

It IS worrying when dog goes after cat, but it sounds like Jackie's already learning that it's not acceptable behaviour. If she's consistently told 'NO' (or whatever) every time she shows that kind if interest, she should stop doing it pretty quickly. If Tabby or someone can give her a good swipe when she tries it, so much the better

Hang in there

 

[Winchester]

Thanks, Columbine. I do think (or maybe I just want to think) that it was Jackie's way of trying to play. I hope so.

 

[Kat0121]

 
Thanks, Columbine. I do think (or maybe I just want to think) that it was Jackie's way of trying to play. I hope so.

I think she was just trying to play, too. My dog is what I call "aggressively affectionate".   When Henry was in his safe room, I would leave his door closed during his meal times so he could eat in peace. The dog would park herself right by the door and as soon as I opened it, she ran in to greet him as if they had been apart for years. She'd sniff him all over and then lick every inch of his face. He was pretty tolerant but one day he'd had enough and he hissed at her. She had no idea what to make of that  and backed off. She calmed down. He set boundaries for her. They are pals but she's not so aggressive about showing her friendship anymore. He's got one heck of a hiss. 

    He never swatted her (unlike Lily who gladly will just because it's Tuesday or whatever 

) I think he understands that she was just being friendly but at some point, he had to draw a line in the sand. 

Lilith put Bailey in her place very early on. She taught her that SHE is alpha and Sophie is her second in command and that was that. She'll follow them a bit when they do their mad chases around the house but she can't keep up with them.  She's 13 and arthritic so she mostly watches in amusement. 

If Jackie saw the cats as prey or something to chase, she would have been doing that since the beginning. The cats just need to teach her who is boss.