Snowball wanted me to type this:

"WTF?!"

I think Bayley has pretty much figured that she's low man on the totem pole, although with Baxter gone (crate stealing cat)I think she's trying to assert herself a bit more with the other 2, not that's it working for her, cause then I step in.

My 2 know a few commands, jump up, house, and out. Those are ones they will do pretty much 80% of the time, not bad for a cat!! And, they both come when called.

Let's try to keep the topic *dog* training ....


Thanks.

I don't know about this 'accidently' stuff guys. Unless the dog is looking just at you with no reguard of where your heeling to or around, then stepping on anything other then the ground or floor imo is as much an 'accident' as them stepping on your foot or plowing side long into you during running play. Think about it. It's not like the dog didn't know the cat was there. And I'll bet when your not leading him, the dog doesn't accidently step on kitty. Off lead he either eats said cat or avoids Mr. & Mrs. Tom all together. But he doesn't 'accidently' step on them.

Cassie says, 'cats are a natural part of my diet. Ummm yummy!'
Cassandra

I am unsure...

I agree with you Randy, and let me give you a scenerio to show you what it is like...

I will be sitting at the computer, Bella laying down on the ground next to me, and Snowball laying just 2-3 ft. away. I will get up, step over the dog, then when I am just in front of the dog, I will tell her "Ok" to get her to get up and follow me. Then she will just get up (looking at me the whole time) and step right on the kitty.

I think I just figured out that she is trying to heel, and that is why she is stepping on the kitty...and after replaying it in my head, I truely don't think she is trying to step on kitty, she is just too excited about going somewhere that she loses track of what is going on...

However, at the shop where I aquired my guitar there was always this Chow walking and laying around. I asked the owner, "How can you trust your dog around all these guitars?" (Imagine about 35-40 guitars on stands everywhere with about 3 ft. of walking room between the different groups of guitars. So, if the dog would have taken out one of the groups...poof, there goes $5,000. He told me the dog had never knocked over a single guitar. That is the kind of pussyfooting I would like, but then again, that dog could have been 10 years old, for all I knew.

(I look down, and the dog and cat are practically spooning each other...I have to say it is adorable that they both want to come over and hang out with me... awwww shucks!)

But the above story is the reason I thought I should ask. I figured if there is a way to teach the dog to avoid stepping directly on the cat, surely someone here would know how...but it seems that everyone so far is just telling me to make the kitty move...Sorry Snowball...

Rick, I've said this before - I consider you a fairly savvy guy.

So I'm sure that you realize that your situation here is the classic "management problem" versus "training problem", and as always, the "management" is easier to tackle than trying to "train" it away.


Just keep telling Snowball how lucky he is that he's not sharing a household with a high-drive GSD with prey-drive that borders on "crazed".

While I'm the first to admit, I'm not a cat person. They get in the way of the dogs and more importantly, me. I had one once. Many years ago. It was a feral cat that adopted us back in the bad old days, we were living in the middle of the woods, in a self made cabin. No dog ever made the mistake of stepping on that cat! He was close to 20 lbs. and besides the routine squirrals, rabbits, snakes, mice, voles, birds, etc, more than once brought home owls, opossums, and I couldn't believe it a fisher once. I never ever had to feed that stupid cat. Everybody lived happily together with no problems.
Rick, it sound like with some little effort you can make the dog third in line behind the cat, or you can let the cat and dog figure out who should get out of the way of whom.

Musical chairs anyone?
Randy