Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Herding Cats, session two, egads, the howling, the howling,

Siamese cats are vocal (ie. they howl), which is cute, until it's not....

Batman, Session II
Picked him out of the cat pile and deposited him in the bedroom. This did not go unnoticed. Simba at the door, howling in his high pitched "strangled kitten" voice.
Batman is distracted, somewhat. I c&t and then gets his liver bits and searches form more, wait for him to stop searching, and wait for him to stop staring at the door (from which the howling is emanating). I try not to be distracted myself. Session okay, I mean, it's obvious he's got the association between a whispered bbb & the treat, good boy, off you go.

enter Simba, Session II
Batman is howling at the door, he has a deeper voice and delivers with gusto. Simba is slightly distracted, I, more so.
He's well on his way to spins, but then he gets all lovey dove and starts rubbing and purring. Do I ignore that? Do I pet him? I ignored and continued. Next time I'll just pet him, because I think he was just saying 'I really like this, it's a fun game' and I should have responded in a proper catly way.

Conclusion: Ugh.  I feel mean.  I need to find a way to make it better, or just give up.  If I try, I will work on 'place' or 'mat' training so I can train them both together. But I'm not sure if I can stand the interim howling.
Getting them both in the same room now would be disaster, here's what happens if I give Batman a treat--Simba gets it. If I give Simba and Batman a treat at the same time, Simba gets Batman's treat, and then Simba gets Simba's treat, so 'place' training would need to be rock solid before I can deal with double-dog training (in this case 'cat').

No comments:

Post a Comment