Escape Attempts: 1
There is no resting on the laurels for this striped cat. Nope. Just when I managed to train my dog to perfection (submission) now we have a new one in the house. Not another temporary. This one is permanent. It comes with its own human too. This one is an older puppy. The worse kind!
Young puppies are easy and training is relatively quick. They hit the ground and begin bouncing around the house. They eat cat food and puke, they eat socks and puke, they eat treasures from the litter box, kiss the human and THEN puke. But in this state of sniffing oblivion, the puppy is like pure buttah in a cat's paws. All you need to do is sit patiently on the floor watching. When the puppy pinballs himself over to you, quickly give him 3 quick slaps to the face before he even touches you. Use of claws is optional. This shocks the crap out of them, not to worry they're leaving messes in the house at this point, the human won't blame you. Of course the puppy's short-term memory is like 2.5 seconds so another method I employ is the Puffy Cat. Walk casually by the puppy, going about your business. You can even mock play, just to test your boundaries. When the puppy tries to play with you, puff yourself up to 3x your size by making every inch of fur stand on end and spit. And don't forget to give them the death stare. You can follow up with a low growl. Alternate between these two methods and within a few days the puppy is 100% trained. Again, this only works on young puppies 3-5 months old.Now back to the new dog. This new puppy is not quite a year. Has some confidence and a lot of energy. My dog is having some jealousy issues and handing out smack downs like raindrops in a thunderstorm. She is NOT happy. But I am always up for a challenge. I have to use the combination of a heavy paw/claw and mind control. I approach the puppy and flop in front of her like I want to play. This is not the usual behavior expected of a cat. The puppy proceeds to try to play. This is when I flip around grab her head in my paws and bite, not TOO hard. When she stops moving I begin cleaning her head in a calming fashion. It's almost like good cat-bad cat all in one an instantaneous maneuver. Unfortunately with older puppies the training period is longer. It's been almost 2 weeks and I don't think she's quite grasped the chain of command in this house. The hierarchy is: Cat > Dog > Human. Duh. I hope the human doesn't trim my claws any time soon.
