i have a question about something i read in ed's introducing dogs to a home w/cats.

teagan has nice prey drive (if you're not one of my cats, rabbits, or guinea pigs that is). she is always tethered to me when out and fairly well behaved, mostly i believe b/c she knows she is glued next to me and can't get them. i've seen teagan accurately judge the optimum time (leash-wise) to go after dogs, and i've seen her act calm around my most dog-friendly cat to reel her in and then watched her body start to vibrate as esme got closer (i shooed esme away....none of the small animals are allowed within mouth range of teagan), so i believe this is what she's doing. she's even calmer if i've got her muzzled.

i had a behaviourist come and one thing he said when we were working on teagan w/my dominant rabbit after she surprised him is that unlike some dogs, she doesn't want to play with or dominant her prey, she just wants to kill. this is my experience w/her as well.

she will bark in her crate if she sees one of the cats in the hall. and recently - luc's water is next to her crate - my foster cat montana, who is old, hyperthyroid and has IBD, weighs around 6lbs, has started wandering by to drink out of luc's water dish. she's done this to him periodicly (i still remember her sneering at him as he shrank back into the wall....he's not scared of the cats anymore though he does respect them).

teagan loses it when montana does this. this morning i stuck montana back in the washroom so i could get teagan out and put the leash on her for a walk, and montana came back out before i got the leash on teagan and calmly drank the water while teagan went ballastic - past the point of reason - though she did let me restrain her and i managed to throw her back into the crate as everything went upside down in the process. all of this occured maybe 2 feet away from montana and she just kept on drinking. i mean, she's losing her hearing, but my god....i guess she has faith in me to protect her, but she could work with me a little more on this

my question is - when teagan really clicks into prey drive, i find it hard to correct her hard enough - and i'm not weak, it's just she shifts into another mental sphere. generally i can catch her before she hits that, though this morning, i wasn't able to. the only time i've ever knocked her out of this mental space was actually when i was walking her on a flat collar and she went all out at a man - i ended up accidentally kneeing her in the head (i was sticking my leg out to block her) and i could see her sort of stop and come to.

so what i'm going to try to do with her in the crate is do the spraying like ed suggests.

my question is - is it okay for her to know it was me doing the spraying? or should i be trying to make it like it's not coming from me (i mean, she's not stupid, but i don't know....i can try to be all subtle about it). i don't think i'll ever trust her around the small animals, but i'd like to keep on getting improvements....i think she's collar/leash-wise, but i think i can get more improvement with her.

Edited by Jennifer Mullen (02/05/2008 07:09 PM)
Edit reason: correcting species!

The subtle thing will work about 2 times and then she'll figure out it came from you. She either: won't care about being sprayed, go balistic at the water, modify her behavior when you have the spray bottle in your hand, or get over the cat thing.
I'm curious to know which one it is.
There was a thread last year about using water to modify behavior, but of coarse I can't find it.

yeah, i just can't imagine that she wouldn't be figure out the water came from my direction and from me.

i'll let you know. getting over the cat thing would be a dream, but i'd be thrilled w/behaviour mod when i have the water bottle.

when we move in a couple of weeks, there will be way more space and it will be easier to keep everyone separate - but she'll still be able to see the cats so there still will likely be reactions. montana deciding she prefers the water bowl a few feet from teagan is a good opportunity in the meantime.

My dog bindi and cody know what the water bottle means, but we use it for little things, like when they get wrestling so Cody will calm down, we use it along with the enough command. They know it is me using the water bottle. Now all I have to do is grab it and they immediately leave the room. However, I am not really a fan of the water bottle because in reality you can't carry it around with you everywhere. I don't know if it would work in high drive situations anyway. Cody or Bindi if they were chasing live prey would probably dodge the water and run right after the unsuspecting prey. If I were you, make sure there is not way they can get to the cats at first, if they do not respond to the squirt bottle. Do some testing first before you rely on the squirt bottle. Which I am sure you probably were going to do that anyway. I'm interested to see how it works, let me know. ( I hope this made sense, in a hurry, hubby almost ready to leave for work, want to send him off, so had to type fast)
God bless you

thanks sharon.

i'm planning on only using the spray bottle when teagan is in the crate. yesterday morning w/montana re-emerging was unusual, the cats generally aren't stupid enough to do that when teagan is on the move (there, leaving her crate).

i'm definitely not planning on counting on the spray bottle to act as a deterrent to an attack....i rely on the small animals being put away, tethering, and muzzling for that. teagan is never allowed out off-leash in the apartment (she jumps the baby gate into the den and will be over by the rabbit condo with murderous intentions....even though she can't get them, i don't allow that). when we move, i will be able to fully shut off all the small animals so that teagan can be out untethered (i'll do that fairly gradually though she's done well at cabins), but if any small animals are out, she'll either be crated or attached to me and muzzled. we're nowhere near letting her loose in the house around the other small animals. yikes! but hopefully the spray bottle will distract her and help teach her she needs to be calm.

well, a sort-of update.

since i live in painting the new house hell (i haven't eaten dinner a single night this week....i'm actually going to go rectify that shortly), i haven't gotten to the store to buy a spray bottle.

but i just took teagan into the den, and the one time i didn't do an area sweep first since i thought all the cats where in the bedroom, mitch is sitting on the couch.

....oh dear.

not sure what it bodes for an actual spray bottle, but teagan did not even notice me dumping an entire nalgene bottle of water on her head.

Is there some reason you won't use an ecollar? It's the tool of choice for me in many situations like this.

You want to interrupt her behavior, and with a collar you can do it from the comfort of your chair, you don't have to yank on her collar or reach for a spray bottle.

i'm moving next saturday to a place w/a yard, and i was thinking about it then.

i guess i've been associating e-collars w/yards and outside.

my other concern is i know in dog aggression/fighting situations you have to be careful w/it b/c it can trigger more aggression - i guess that's not true of prey aggression? i've had pretty major behavioural changes w/her, but not so much in the realm of prey reactions....

i guess i should be asking some of this on the e-collar forum. i had been wondering about it now that we'll have a yard, could i use it w/her to try to work on her dog/dominance aggression - that's what i had been thinking of.

an e-collar certainly might solve the 'i notice no correction' issue