Respect our Cat? Who's She Kidding?

by Tanner

(c) Carrie Boyko
No More Cat Litter Raids?

This whole Be the Pack Leader business is just getting out of hand. Mom trained Oliver and I to stay out of the cat's 'room', and now the investigative fun has ended. What good is a pup's curiosity if he can't use it?

The closest I can get is about 4 feet from the new Litter-Robot, and it has this tiny opening, so I can hardly get my head in to make a steal, even if I am lucky enough to get into the room when Mom's not looking. On top of that, she had to go and put this nice-smelling litter in it that's made out of corn. She says it's the World's Best Cat Litter. It sure does smell better than the old-fashioned clay stuff. Any ideas on how I can get the goods?

I'm gong to have to find a way to stop mom from reading training manuals and taking training classes. I just want to visit the dog park, eat and swim. Okay, so I do want a fetch game in there somewhere too.  But respecting the cat is way too much to ask.

Well trained dogs unite; we need a plan!

Mom is conspiring with the cat litter company and the Litter-Robot folks to give away prizes. That means more owners will be trying to train their dogs to respect their cats. You guys better get on board and let's come up with a plan, before too many more folks enter her drawing at All Things Dog Blog. Leave your comments here and we'll work on it.

High Five from Tanner!

More Tricks to Keep Pups out of Kitty-ville. Ugh!

by Tanner

© Carrie Boyko
Halloween Tricks

Mom just can't seem to stop with this Woof and Meow stuff. Her latest post has all sorts of ideas for keeping us dogs out of the cat area. It's really no fun and I personally do not think it is fair. Checking out Patches' bowl and sniffing her litter box are on my daily To Do list.


Unfortunately, now that she has all these "tools" and we've been put through the paces in her training program, the fun is over. No more investigations of Patches 'room'. Anybody got any ideas? This is a serious call for help, here!


I did come up with one idea. With Halloween coming up, I thought I'd dress up Oliver as a cat so he can sneak in. He's small enough, and I can push a box in there so he can jump over the gate.


"How will he get back out?" Oh! Houston; we have a problem. I'll have to get back to you on that.

Straight Talk about Dogs and Cats

by Tanner

© Carrie Boyko
Tanner Prefers Fetching Toys
to Chasing Cats

Let's face it. Some of us were created to chase smaller creatures. Me? I'm a duck-kind-of-guy. Yup! Golden Retrievers are supposed to go fetch the duck after the hunter shoots it.

Me and my mom aren't much into shooting, even though I do think ducks are really cool. We play fetch with all sorts of other toys though. My favorite part is playing it in the pool; I love to swim after the toys and bring them back to her. You can learn how too, here.

But I digress; this was supposed to be about cats. Back to smaller creatures. Cats get us dogs' attention by being stealth. They sneak around the room, acting like we probably don't see them, and then suddenly dart across a piece of furniture. That's where the trouble comes in. I had to teach Patches that myself. Even mom didn't quite get it.

Once Patches realized that I would remain calm around her, as long as she was calm around me, we began to become quite friendly with one another. Now we sniff each other every day (it's a greeting thing) and make sure we're always sociable. That's good, cuz I get my feelings hurt whenever anybody--furry or not--refuses to greet me.

Mom's working real hard on a series of articles to help dogs and cats with this problem. Keep an eye out for the rest of her series. Here's her intro. Funny title, but I guess it gets the message across.

One last thing. Apparently mom has some really cool cat gifts ready for the winners of a drawing at the end of her series. She's really excited--giddy--so I guess this is cool cat stuff. Tuna, maybe?