Thursday, January 5, 2012

Training the dog to train the cat

It takes a village to raise a child and a household to raise a pet. We recently added an abandoned kitten to our household, which already consisted of a ten-year-old cat Scooby and a six-year-old Australian Shepherd-Sheltie dog Lilly.  I decided to name her Ziva (yes, in honor of NCIS) and she is a fiery little gray tiger cat.

For the most part, she is a fast learner. She is also quite stubborn, and if there is something she wants to do, she finds a way to do it.  I can't tell you how many times I have removed her from my laptop keyboard, only to have her promptly return. It is, after all, the warmest place to stretch out.  I even saw her get up from another comfortable spot, go running across the room, run up my leg and jump onto the computer as soon as I opened it up.

As a result of her stubbornness (and my admittedly inconsistent instruction), litter box training is not exactly on schedule. She will voluntarily urinate in it, but apparently feels the need to place her feces in the living room. Or the shower, if she is locked in the bathroom during potty break.

It's getting frustrating, and I am trying different methods but I wish she would accept the litter box as an adequate bowel movement receptacle. It's almost sad that my dog is now trained to chase Ziva away from the baseboards in the living room as soon as she begins scratching.  At least one pet has had her intelligence harnessed for good and not evil.

No comments: