posted 08-05-2003 07:25 PM         

I just adopted a 1 yr old ChowChow and am having a bit of a rough time with her I have had her 1 1/2 weeks now and we have a feral cat overpopulation here and just tonight, she plowed through our front screen door after one of the cats. I chased her all over the neighborhood for 45 minutes trying to catch her (She won't come to me yet when I call her, I am guessing because she doesnt respect met yet... )This isnt the only problem. We have a 6 foot fence and she dug under it and went after the cats the 2nd night we had her.

This past week she has been a wonderful dog, we go on walks 3x a day and she is a total sweetheart to me, my children and my husband, but the cats around here are ruining everything. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to discipline her? After tonight, my husband is pretty ticked off at the dog and I really want to help her and make her part of our family

Thanks for your help

posted 08-06-2003 08:19 AM            

But, with what I've looked into with this, it's important to get the dog trained. The 'leave it' command seems to be key. It works when we're walking the dog and we don't want him to eat something on the ground. It also works when he looks upstairs (to where the cats are... behind a baby gate on the stairs) and we say, leave it.

Our obdience class showed us to teach the leave it command by putting something tempting on the floor and telling the dog to leave it (when he approaches it) and yank him with his leash away. Then, when he's not going for the temptation, reward him with a treat. It seems to be effective.

It also may help if the dog knows how to sit/stay. I guess it's helpful in general when the dog is under control.

My dog goes less crazy at my neighbor's cats these days now that he knows he's not to lunge at them (we actually use a squirt gun to get his attention). He was insane at first with her cats, but now he barks once or twice and then goes about his business.

I hear it takes up to 6 months for a dog to get acclimated to his new environment. It's only been two months for me with my new dog and I see a huge difference in him from the day we took him home.

The hard part is that it takes time and patience. I don't know if any of my advice will work for you or not, but that's what we're doing for now. Our dog is still not friends with the cats, but he is learning (slowly) that they're off limits.