This is going extremely well. Well, now it is. A few days back Zeeke and Joey had more of a face-to-face than Joey or I really wanted, ended up frightening Joey and giving Zeeke a few clawmarks on his muzzle. But on the positive side it seems to have broken a barrier between them - now Zeeke isn’t going nuts every time he sees the cat, it’s much more toned-down.

Yesterday Joey jumped down onto the kitchen floor when Den was preparing some food. Zeeke was loose in the house at the time. When Zeeke wandered in, the cat jumped back up, and not a peep was made between the two of them.

Today Zeeke was in the bedroom for our dinnertime. Joey decided to come down when I was cleaning up, so I brought him into the office with me (door open). He moved from window to window enjoying the fresh smell (I checked with Den several times, “Are you sure the screens are in securely?” , and settled down in the windowsill to just watch the outdoors. Zeeke finally had to come out, we couldn’t leave him in there all day, so instead of putting Joey back first I put Zeeke on-leash. So now they’re both co-existing in the room, Joey on the top of Den’s desk and Zeeke leashed to mine (with a kong and his bed of course), and it’s all very calm.

Every step we take they’re learning something. Zeeke’s learning the cat is not a toy, he is not to bark at it or chase it, and the cat is learning that maybe the dog isn’t so scary after all. That’s why we’ve tried so hard to make sure the cat can watch the dog from a safe spot (whether it’s beyond leash-range, outside the crate, or from up high) - so they can watch each other and get used to each other’s presense. It’s really looking good. I’m proud of both of them.

The key to the introduction was actually given to me by Zeeke. We’ve been keeping them completely seperated, so I went in to say hi to Joey for a while, which of course causes Zeeke to get upset. So I took a few pictures and came out shortly. When I was loading the pictures onto my computer, Zeeke walked in the room and looked at the screen, then promptly started barking and doing his “THERE’S THE CAT!” act. I had to close the picture to make him stop.

So then I started using that - giving Zeeke treats for looking at the pictures quietly, praising him, alternating “good kitty!” and “good doggy!” It was small, but it was something.

By the way, after I had closed out the pictures I looked up other cat pictures online to see what Zeeke would do - absolutely nothing. No reaction at all. Only pictures of Joey.

After I took Zeeke for a walk today I put up the baby-gate in the bathroom doorway, got Zeeke on his training collar, then opened the door so they could see each other. MUCH better reactions from Zeeke. Working with the picture really helped. After watching the cat for a bit, getting treats for being quiet and sitting/downing on command, he was able to just walk past the bathroom with barely a glance inside. And Joey reacted much better to the non-barking, only puffing up a bit when Zeeke did start his vocalizations.

I think the “introduction” helped a lot. Now Zeeke is able to rest without searching for the kitty, as he’s seen it and seems to be okay with it now. I knew he just needed to check it out for himself, but I couldn’t let him do that because it would terribly frighten Joey. I’ll just keep working short intervals like this, treating and praising and keeping them both calm as I can.

Everyone, meet Joey.

Introductions between the two pets… could be going better, but it’s pretty much as expected. When Zeeke sees the cat, he starts barking and scrabbling on the ground wanting to say hi. He doesn’t do well with not getting what he wants so he’s been hunting the house all day trying to find the cat. Joey, on the other hand, takes one look at this huge barking thing and puffs up twice his size and hisses and growls. So for now they’re seperated until Zeeke calms down and Joey gets used to the barking.

Oy. I really hope this works out after the adjustment period. But at this point, we can’t tell. Joey’s such a sweetheart, too.

Today as I was picking Den up from work we chatted about the mundane things as we walked back to the car. I mentioned going to the petstore, he asked how I liked it, I said it was really great. We continued chatting about this and that as he unlocked the car doors and we slid in. He glanced at the back seat, full of cat food, a cat crate, kitty litter, and cat toys. He looked at me, then looked back into the back seat.

“Oh, by the way,” I said. “We’re getting a cat.”

:: ::

This was not as much of a snap decision on my part as that would have you think. He actually brought it up, a few days ago. “Let’s get a cat,” he said in the middle of our walk, causing me to nearly do a faceplant. Considering the past couple years I’ve been asking for a cat and he’s always said no, this kind of caught me off-guard. I still don’t really know what caused him to suggest it, whether it be Zeeke or a general attempt at making me happy, but I certainly wasn’t expecting it.

My reaction was, how you say, not favorable. I grunted a lot about me leaving in three weeks, about Zeeke, about Den having to look after the cat, about having it sprung on me out of nowhere. You know, almost-giddy-excitement that you’re sure will just disappoint.

We debated about it for a day or two. I fretted horribly. I emailed the rescue I work with and asked them about the specifics of the cats I had in mind, but told them we weren’t sure.

In the end, I came to the conclusion that it just wasn’t going to work right now. It wouldn’t be fair to any cat to bring it in to this household only to have me go back to school. Hell, it wouldn’t be fair to me. I regretfully told them of our decision and moved on.

:: ::

Today I got into work and said hi to the woman I work for. “So Joey’s just not going to work for you?” she said after a while. I explained to her my thought process, about me moving and the dog. “So disappointing; we were so excited when you said you were thinking about taking him.”

Turns out his current situation isn’t great. I thought he’d be better off in whatever foster home he had been sent to instead of shipped around, unfortunately, the foster home isn’t working. One of the foster’s cats has an absolute hatred of him, hissing and spitting whenever she sees him, and physically chasing him around the house. Joey has had to be confined to one room in the house, and they have nowhere to put him. It’s making him stressed out and paranoid. No foster homes are available, and if she took him back he’d end up in a cage because of lack of space.

So I agreed to foster him for three weeks. If it goes well between Zeeke and him, as we hope it will, we’ll adopt him. If it doesn’t, we’ll keep him until a proper home is found for him. Either way he should be better off.

So, we’re getting a cat.

Agghhh, I’m so friggin tired of this dog biting me all the time!! I KNOW he’s getting better: he doesn’t get on the bed without permission, he waits for it now; he doesn’t bolt out doors, he waits; he gets OFF things when you say off; his obedience commands are much better than they were….. BUT…. he still has this attitude of alpha. We do NILIF (Nothing In Life Is Free), we don’t make a big deal of coming home, we feed him on a schedule, we do obedience (granted not as much as we should)…. and yet he has the same attitude. When will he actually RESPECT us? What can I do to get through his thick head? These frequent timeouts seem to just not make an impact on him anymore. He just plods into the room and naps until we let him out. This seems to suggest, to me at least, that the “punishment” (loaded word - long story) isn’t enough. We need to do SOMETHING to show him that teeth+skin is NOT ACCEPTABLE and nothing we try works. We’ve been fairly consistent with these timeouts, same thing every time, “You won a prize” and into the time-out. But he comes right back out and does it again. I just feel like having a temper tantrum, stomping the floor and yelling at him. Obviously I know this won’t work, which is why he’s still in time out until I calm down.

So annoying. I love that dog, but he has too friggin big of an ego. I will throw a PARTY the day I look at him and say without a doubt, he KNOWS I am alpha.