Today was *much* better.


Hand feeding
This is going well... and paying off big-time.

I'm feeding at least half of every meal by hand. Usually the first part, then I'll let her eat for awhile "on her own" and then I'll feed her the last 15 or so pieces of kibble.

I'm holding the piece between my finger and thumb (tightly) and if she gets it with no teeth on my skin (more or less) I say "gentle" and let her have it. If she does touch teeth to skin, however, I don't let her have it--I say "off" and hold it still. If she clamps down, I say "off" again, more firmly, and blow in her ear (this makes her back off *fast*), then I praise her, put the piece down, and try again.

This has two benefits that I can see: she's learning how much teeth human skin can take (not much!), and she's learning the "off" command--which comes in handy when she's biting me.



Biting

I have come to the conclusion that this is how Jaetta thinks it's good to play.

The "off" command is starting to work durring play, too, and so I'm no longer in pain or bleeding. This is good, and makes it easier to "stay with it."

As with the hand-feeding, if she doesn't back off when i say the first time, I'll repeat it firmly and blow in her ear--followed up by praise and a click on the clicker when she backs off.

(Hopefully the blow in the ear trick will continue to work, huh?)



Crate

I'm hand feeding her in her crate.

This is working very very well: she goes in there on her own when I get the food out.

(!)

I think this has as much to do with the hand feeding in the crate as it does the clicker-training, however.



Clicker training

I bought a clicker at Petsmart on Sunday, and have been using it.

It's like voodoo--she *loves* it, and responds very well to this type of training.

She has learned "sit", "up" and "down" since Sunday (not reliabely, obviously, but she is only 9 weeks old), and is getting to know "Kennel up" as well.

This is a marked difference from last week.



First vet trip

We went the vet for the first time last night, and she did very well.

She was mostly calm, esspecially at first.

She took 3 shots without noticing, AFAICT, and only started to really cry near the end, when there was a very loud annoying small dog outside our room while we were waiting on her stool sample to get done (no worms!).

She didn't bite me nor the vet during this visit.

Yahoo!



Chasing the cats

This is still happening--and I'm not sure what will help.

I have two very different cats, both from the same litter.


Anka is a beatiful Grey colour, with yellow eyes and black nose, and weighs about 5 pounds.

She loves to be held, and can be held in any position--upside down, draped over your shoulder, whatever--she's purring like mad.

But she doesn't like to just sit--she's always into *something.*

She can jump from the floor to the top of the fridge without even phsyching herself up for it. Floor, fridge, boom. Just like that. Amazing.



Bella is an "ugly" brown/white/grey/black "stripped" thing, with this odd "bullseye" marking on her sides.

(She's actually quite pretty, but Anka is gorgous, so it makes Bella look--plain.)

Bella weighs almost 12 pounds, i think.

They eat the same (Anka may eat a little more, i think) stuff, so it's all just biology/personality.

Bella is all about laying around.

When i had a TV, she'd love to sit on the couch and watch it with me.

(Anka would be drinking from the sink or knocking stuff off the top of the 7-foot bookshelf)

Bella has always been (from the first day I brought them home from my uncle's farm when they were kittens--2.5 years ago) a little.... ....off.

She's skittish.

She always has her eyes wide open, and the slightest noise will make her jump.

(Anka couldn't care less about that stuff--she's too busy climbing on the fireplace mantle.)

Bella can hardly jump onto the back of the couch.

Heh.


So that's my cats.


I'm afraid Jaetta's going to give Bella a heart attack.

And I'm afraid Anka's going to give Jaetta claw marks in her eyeball.

(no de-clawing in this house, thank you very much)


Anka is such a bi@$% to Jaetta--she'll go into the kitchen where Jaetta's "penned in", and jump onto a chair and lay there with her tail bouncing around.

This just makes Jaetta go nuts!

And Jaetta will bark at her and try to sniff her and then Anka will bop Jaetta on the nose.

(no claws, yet--I play pretty rough with Anka, and she's learned not to scratch)


But I have never seen a cat egg a dog on like this.

It would be funny if it wasn't so scary.

I don't know who's going to get hurt first, but it's giving me an ulcer.


(I should never have kids. I called the emergency vet the first time Anka coughed up a hairball--I had no idea what was going on. I thought she was dying. I cried.)


Me <-- big wimp


In any case, she's chasing the cats.





Chewing metal

So I got this....... ...fence, in the kitchen, right?

I have an 8 foot span to cover from the living room to the kitchen, so a normal blockade wouldn't do.

So my dad and I installed a four-foot high chain-link fence, with gate.

(yes, I have to climb *under* the gate--it's mad annoying)

But it has these metal bolts on the gate hinges.

And Jaetta is chewing them sometimes.

This cannot be good on her teeth.

She's doing this with her bone, Kong and Nylabone all laying right there.

?

Will Bitter Apple help this?

It's normal corregated metal fencing.



Okay, I think that's all.


wow... that's a long post, huh?