Stop your dog from fixating on your cat - Coaching Call

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Welcome to It's Training Cats and Dogs - the show for people with both

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cats and dogs who want peace in their home and peace between their animals.

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I'm Naomi Rotenberg and today's episode is a peek into a private

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office hours session that I recently had with one of the wonderful members

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of my Cat and Dog Coexistence Club.

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This call took place on Zoom so I really apologize for the fuzzy

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sound, but the info we talked about was so good that I knew you

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all would be able to look past it.

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Bridget has a cat named Walter and a young German shepherd, Bella who

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fixates on Walter and isn't able to calm down when she knows that he's around.

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During this call, we talked about common mistakes that people make when

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trying to train their animals to look away from stuff and some techniques to

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work on helping Bella disengaged from triggers, both in and out of the house.

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Let's get into it.

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Talk to me about what's going on in your head between the different types

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of attention that you're thinking.

Bridget: 00:01:01

Oh, Bella likes to observe everything.

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So we will spend time like at the park, always 10 to 15 minutes of

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just sitting and watching the world.

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Sometimes I don't know if some of her engagement is good or if it's a

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little too focused, but since her body language isn't lunging, isn't going

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towards it, I just let it happen.

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And I treat her when she looks at me.

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So I'm working on or work on with her.

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Um, when I sit with her and I will give, I just give Walter treats.

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I don't really train him to do anything right now because I'm

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just trying to get him to be okay.

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Being around this monster with her because she's so hyper on him.

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I'll try to see, can I get her to shake my hand?

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Can I get her to touch and look in a different direction?

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Can I get her to look over here, but that's a lot of meat.

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So I watched one day, what happens if I don't show her to do anything?

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Does she ever not stare directly into the cat's face?

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And it's not very frequently, even with she's being outside and making

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all this noise and coming out of the house, she is high-profile.

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So trying to get her to disengage with the cat without telling her, I feel like

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it's more powerful than me telling her.

Naomi: 00:02:18

So this is a very common issue where I think the key is thinking about

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the predatory sequence in dogs and where she is in the first three sections of it.

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So.

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The first thing is orient.

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So she looks towards Walter, right.

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Or whatever he's looking at, the next step is eyeing.

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So that's where you get that kind of intense looking.

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So we can go from eyeing to the early stages of stalking.

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That's the next part.

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So that's where you see forward momentum, even if she's not leaning

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or like lunging forward, it's that really tense forward body posture.

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So ideally when we are trying to change her behavior or emotions around

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whatever she's looking at, we are only working at the orient stage.

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So if you're at the eyeing or the early stages of the

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stalking, she is over threshold.

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Now we have the unique issue when we're working in our home.

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That we don't have unlimited distance to be able to say, great, you're

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over threshold at the farthest ends of the house, for example.

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We can't go any further.

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So sometimes we have to be pretty creative in how we approach our setups,

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but what I would recommend before we even try to do let's look at Walter.

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And then look away is really get her not to be as starey at other things.

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So if we can get her a little bit more muscle memory of staying in

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that orient phase with less kind of emotionally charged triggers, then

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you're going to be much more likely to get a dog who's still able to think

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when doing setups later on with Walter.

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And there's a couple of ways to work on this.

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One is when you're outside and you want to be doing your let's

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look at stuff in the world.

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I want to make sure that she is not stuck in those stages and practicing

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being stuck in those stages.

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So the first thing we need to teach her is how to respond to cues

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where you're actively managing her.

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We need to install a series of behaviors where you can very easily move her

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when she looks like she's stuck.

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There are some really easy ones that should be practiced in

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the house or right outside of.

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Number one is treat scatter on the ground.

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Can you look away from the thing and snuffle stuff off to the side of you?

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The other one is like a U-turn with magnet of food in front of her if she needs that.

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We want to control where she's looking is the main goal of this.

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And those are two really foundational ones of being able to, if she's stuck

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and you'll be able to know if she's.

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If you can count a quick 1, 2, 3, and she's got nothing and you can test it.

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You could say any kind of attention, noise.

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I wouldn't use her name, just seeing if she'll, if she'll give

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you an ear flick or anything.

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She's still stuck.

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We still want to get distance or move her behind a visual barrier or something.

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But at least we know she's not in full.

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Like I stopped.

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She's still able to look back.

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And so you want to find, not just like staring at the world in general.

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Cause she's probably just overwhelmed by all of the stuff

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that she's able to look at.

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But what I would suggest is saying, okay, once a day, Try to find something

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relatively easy that she can look at.

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So if she's obsessed with watching dogs, for example, playing, we're not

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going to go to a field where there's 20 dogs, but we might go on a park

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bench where it's a little bit quieter, where there might be dogs just walking

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by, on leash across the street.

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So we're really trying to find that sweet spot where if she is able to stay in that

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orient zone with minimal intervention.

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Great.

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Hang out there and do like a, a therapy session of look at that and look away.

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Oh, this is so nice.

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It's really fun.

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We're not fighting each other.

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If you find that she switches over into eyeing or stalking,

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that's when you would say therapy session is not happening right now.

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I need to get you out of here because you're just practicing, getting stuck.

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Does that all make sense?

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That's for outside that's if you magically find a spot one day, once a day, a

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couple of minutes, and then you're done.

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Do you want to be practicing on your wall?

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These active strategies when there's nothing happening, you want to just be

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like, oh look, we're having a nice time.

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Can you eat a scatter?

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Cause I know you were saying sometimes she won't eat outside at all.

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Is that right?

Bridget: 00:07:37

Like yesterday I took her to a new place.

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Cause I was just like, let's go someplace new.

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You took her to a park by Aaron's house.

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Squirels.

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Everywhere.

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And it was like, yeah, we can't can't be here at that point.

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It was like nothing I said, or did she wouldn't even take a tree, wouldn't even

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take her high-value chickens, nothing.

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So I was like, you gotta go.

Naomi: 00:07:56

Exactly.

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And that's, there's nothing wrong with that.

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In fact, you're helping yourself and you're helping

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her by saying I miscalibrated.

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I thought this might be an enjoyable experience.

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You're showing me that it's too much for you.

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Okay.

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We'll work up to it.

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And we'll try again.

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Once we've worked on stuff in.

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Oh, my God, this is new and they're squirrels and there's

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lots of new smells and where am I?

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And all of that stuff.

Bridget: 00:08:18

Yeah, we do go to a park daily.

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She is very well behaved.

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It's a huge park.

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There's lots of people, soccer games, and, but we go there so regularly.

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She's doing really well there.

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So I practice a lot there when you see other animals.

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And I made sure that we're our distances enough where I can

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scanner or try to distract her.

Naomi: 00:08:38

Great.

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So I would say you're probably still working often in that eyeing,

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even at that part, rather than the orient, because most people aren't

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able to see the switch fast enough.

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So now that you know what you're looking for, I want you to focus on that for

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the next couple of days to say, am I trying to fight her a little bit?

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Or is she just hold up, mom, look, I saw a thing.

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And so if she is able to not just behave and do the things that you

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want her to do, but to actually look relaxed, that's exactly what we want.

Bridget: 00:09:14

I definitely thinks I can start to see that switch over

Bridget: 00:09:18

but before I started talking to you it wouldn't have clicked yet.

Naomi: 00:09:20

That's what I'm here for.

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Yeah.

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When a dog is, or any animal is in that eye, you build that

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tension into the behavior.

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So even if they are able to reorient to you, it's not a relaxed situation.

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And so when you try to use that type of setup with Walter, for example,

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there's going to be that tension.

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And we want from the beginning it's to be as relaxed as possible.

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So one other behavior that we're going to start working with her and

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him, but her, especially because she has no chill is not just, she has a

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place behavior, but I want to work on a true, relax on a mat behavior.

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Like can she melt.

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Okay.

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I'm here for the duration.

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It's just how I roll and she's not sleeping, but working towards

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that and there's a special protocol for that, that will do.

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But the goal here is that if she can do the real relaxation in

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different areas, you could then take that mat out to different places.

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And say, oh, look, this is your relaxed mat.

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You might be able to actually relax because we've practiced this so much.

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With her, our last consideration with the relaxing and any of these things is

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that if Walter is potentially around, she is not under threshold in your house.

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So we need to find a place where she can actually relax.

Bridget: 00:10:50

Walter is now pretty much in the basement all the time.

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She now knows this.

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So she stopped going to the door as much because there's no cat door.

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So she knows like whatever.

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I built it into the routine and it's certain times in the day.

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And they're always pretty much the same time.

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I'm going down the basement stairs with Walter and she has got to find her.

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She doesn't try to rush.

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She just sits and waits more relaxed knowing he's there,

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but he's someplace else.

Bridget: 00:11:20

My room is probably her most relaxed.

Naomi: 00:11:23

Great.

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So we will stay there.

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We'll start there.

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And what you just described is the most wonderful reason that routine

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and management for dogs who are truly anxious about the other thing need that.

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Because they can expect a situation to unfold in a certain way, and they

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don't have to feel this unknown.

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They feel a little bit more control over their environment.

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And that is really great.

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Like I said, for the animals that are a little scared of the thing,

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whether it's the cat or anything else, and they just want it to go away.

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And that's why they're behaving in these kind of crazy nutty.

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Having this kind of out of sight, out of mind, types of management really

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tends to help them decompress and relax.

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And so it's a really good way to see, okay, what can we do to make

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sure that she is as decompressed and relaxed as possible?

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So we can start building in and building up these new behaviors in a relaxed way.

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So I'm really happy that she's already getting with the program.

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You found that the new management is working for you.

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As long as Walter is happy, then we are good to go to start training some

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of these foundation behaviors for her.

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For him, one of the things you could do for enrichment is to also start

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training him while you're down there.

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So you could start teaching him to go sit on a mat.

Bridget: 00:12:55

Well, I bought a treat dispenser that turned out to be wonderful because

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now he is trying to get the treats so when I'm not there he has something to do.

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But I've been trying to get him to fetch or I throw the treats

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cause he also won't run around.

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When I play with him, he wants to stay by me.

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You gotta get.

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Run in you.

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And I do put a little wash glove and give him another treat if he touches it.

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And he's definitely a cat that I thought would listen like that, but, but if I knew

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how to train him I think he could get it.

Bridget: 00:13:24

Was the cat, whoever thought you could train...

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I don't know why people don't think that, but nobody does that.

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So you don't think that cats are really trainable, but I'm

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noticing that he's actually pretty trainable, even with small things.

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How to get the treat dispenser out.

Bridget: 00:13:38

He learned in like 30 seconds.

Naomi: 00:13:41

Yeah.

Naomi: 00:13:41

And so what you're going to start to see is that training him as well is going

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to give him more agency and feeling like he's in control and more relaxed.

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And so when you do bring them together, it's not just him being the trigger.

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He's also a part of the training and it works really well.

Naomi: 00:13:58

Cool.

Naomi: 00:13:58

How are you feeling?

Bridget: 00:14:00

Good.

Bridget: 00:14:01

Definitely good.

Bridget: 00:14:02

The management has been a game-changer for us, like in these two fell off.

Bridget: 00:14:06

I do feel bad often about Walter, but then I go downstairs and like

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this basement is bigger than my whole apartment that we lived in.

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Like he's okay.

Bridget: 00:14:15

He's got lots of windows, got lots of places to climb.

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He's got lots of toys.

Bridget: 00:14:18

I just feel bad that he doesn't get to like sleep with me and stuff.

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But I think he's adjusting.

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He does copy me out.

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Bella has stopped reacting to his Meow unless I react to it.

Bridget: 00:14:29

If I don't react to, if she's cool and she just sleeps and leaves.

Bridget: 00:14:34

We don't have an issue, but he hasn't come up to meow, I

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think it was five days in a row.

Bridget: 00:14:39

Yeah, his work's great.

Bridget: 00:14:41

This, I feel really good about.

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'cause I feel like it's stuff I'm starting to, just through watching

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videos and paying attention things.

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I'm starting to realize that's what needs to be worked on next

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again, that eyeing and stalking.

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I didn't know really where I was with that.

Bridget: 00:14:56

So that's super helpful.

Bridget: 00:14:57

And relax on the mat is also the next thing I've been researching

Bridget: 00:15:00

and watching videos on is how the hell do people do this?

Bridget: 00:15:03

Because I can't get her to do that.

Naomi: 00:15:07

So I have a protocol that is based on.

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There's a famous vet behaviorist.

Naomi: 00:15:14

Karen Overall, who developed this relaxation protocol.

Naomi: 00:15:18

That's the way that I would recommend working on this.

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And it's actually like a step-by-step it's like day one, have her go to her

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mat and then count for five seconds.

Naomi: 00:15:27

So you don't have to worry.

Bridget: 00:15:31

We all know that videos are like work on the three Ds and I'm

Bridget: 00:15:34

like, what, how long and how much distance and what does that mean?

Bridget: 00:15:38

What if it doesn't work?

Bridget: 00:15:39

What do I do then?

Naomi: 00:15:41

You have just outlined the module that I'm working on in the

Naomi: 00:15:46

training course that I working on it.

Naomi: 00:15:48

So, yeah.

Naomi: 00:15:48

I'm glad that you hit on all the things that everyone has these same questions.

Naomi: 00:15:52

Because it takes us as trainers, years to figure out how to tweak things based

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on subtle body language indicators.

Naomi: 00:16:01

How are you supposed to know when this is all new to you?

Bridget: 00:16:04

Right.

Bridget: 00:16:04

It's been an amazing journey.

Bridget: 00:16:05

We've had dogs that we have never really trained our dogs before.

Bridget: 00:16:10

I may have like tricks and all that stuff, but I just, even the other way,

Bridget: 00:16:14

my boyfriend's says her tail is wagging, but that doesn't mean she's happy.

Bridget: 00:16:18

And he was like come on and I was like, no, for real, it's like I now know all

Bridget: 00:16:23

of these things that I looking at paying attention to how many times she licks

Bridget: 00:16:27

her lips, how many times she yawns.

Bridget: 00:16:29

Never in my life did I realize how intricate all this was?

Bridget: 00:16:33

So it was pretty amazing.

Bridget: 00:16:35

Couple of months just learning things that I didn't even know.

Naomi: 00:16:38

Yeah, body language is probably the best way to start because you

Naomi: 00:16:45

realize that are so much subtlety, but you can triage first working on some of

Naomi: 00:16:52

the management techniques in the house.

Naomi: 00:16:54

You can switch back and forth between the relaxation for one session and

Naomi: 00:16:59

the other management techniques.

Naomi: 00:17:01

Okay.

Naomi: 00:17:02

Yay.

Naomi: 00:17:02

We will hit the ground running.

Bridget: 00:17:05

Alright, awesome.

Bridget: 00:17:07

Thank you!

Naomi: 00:17:07

I hope you enjoyed this peek behind the curtain of the

Naomi: 00:17:12

Cat and Dog Coexistence Club.

Naomi: 00:17:14

If you're having trouble with the cat/dog interactions in your home, and you feel

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like this is the kind of support that you've been looking for, in addition

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to being a member of an awesomely supportive community, group coaching

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and training resources, as a member, you also get one private office hour

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slot with me per month of membership.

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You can find out more information at praiseworthypets.com/club.

Naomi: 00:17:39

That's all for now you wonderful cat and dog people.

Naomi: 00:17:42

See you back here next week.

Naomi: 00:17:43

For another episode of It's Training Cats and Dogs.