Monday, January 24, 2011

Fuzzies

The sky parted, the sun came out and the temperature rose above freezing for the first time in what feels like months! We happily spent a few hours runnin a muck around the neighborhood! We even had time to clean the backyard of all the poo! Or what we could find.... the foot of snow is still there.

Yar, so it was nice-ish. Still cold, we spent a lot of time indoors.
Indoors playing with Rufio.
Who's Rufio?


He is Taricha's chew toy best friend.

Last fall, my youngest sister brought home this itty bitty palm sized kitten in her pocket. At first, he was deathly afraid of the dog and the dog was eagerly NOT afraid of him. So the poor fuzzball spent the first few weeks tucked in my sisters room. Eventually he grew some balls (literally) and decided he wanted to explore the house, of course coming in contact Taricha at every turn.

It took very little effort on my part to make the two get along. A few days of "Stop" and "Leave it" towards Taricha when she got over-zealous and pinned poor Rufio... or saw him run and got up to pursue. A few days of treats (for BOTH of them) to coax contact without teeth. A few days, all it took.  They now get along like two peas in a pod. If one is nearby, by golly, the other will be near too.

They romp, they cuddle n sleep, they play with the same toys!


I like to think that Rufio thinks he is anything but a cat. Perches on shoulders. Investigate strangers. Tugs on toys, chases and tackles. He follows people, talks to you and involves himself in everything going on in the house at all times. If Taricha is getting a training session (clicker n treats!), Rufio is RIGHT there, waiting, watching, getting in the way! (ie, running in, pouncing Taricha's tail during nose work and disrupting the whole process).  (or getting into the treat pouches when Im not looking) I've tried to get the darn cat to work for treats, but he's a little scatter brained for it. Loves treats, but scatter brained!

I like to think that most dogs really do get along with cats.
How do your dogs and cats interact and live together?

a Video of Taricha and Rufio goin at it!

2 comments:

  1. We don't currently have cats here. When we did, it was with a different set of hounds. One of my cats was as mellow and easy going as they come and had no problem with the dogs. The other was a devil in a fur suit who figured out that one of the dogs was deathly afraid of him. He tormented that dog until he passed away. If anything went wrong, it was the dog's fault and he went after him like a demon. I had to protect my eighty pound dog from a psychotic cat! lol The cats both passed away within two weeks of each other and we have remained catless since then.

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  2. I like how you have made the cat and dog get along. We have a little dog Aschiuta who is more than energetic and my fiance's mother has two cats. We went there twice (by train) and the two furry groups had to be separated at all times. One of the cats is very shy, the other is a grouchy old cat. It would be a bad idea to put them all together.

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