TRAINING PUPS WITH A DISTRACTION
(THE LIGHTER SIDE OF TRAINING PUPS)

by Lori Moody

Back in early January we decided that we had better get started with lead training our pups. Two of them were going to be shown at the Mighty Match shows in a few weeks. Our granddaughter, Sarah, spent the night so she could spend the day training a pup with us.

In the morning, John and Sarah decided to take the pups out while I was getting dressed. After I came downstairs I looked out the window and saw John and Sarah with 3 little black animals and wondered why they took all three pups out. After all, you can only train one pup at a time. I looked in the den and the third pup was in her crate. Again, I looked out the window and noticed that the third animal wasn't a pup at all. It was a cat--a beautiful black and white cat--who was walking around with John, Sarah and the two pups.

I got my coat on, took the third pup and walked outside. John and Sarah were laughing a lot since the cat kept rubbing up against them and the pups. These pups had never seen a cat and didn't know what to make of it. Cats have scent glands on their faces, so the cat was obviously marking the pups.

I decided that we had better get down to business and work with the pups on the lead. We lined up and tried walking them, with some success. Every step we took, there was the cat rubbing the pups and our legs and weaving in and out between us and the pups. We tried shooing her and ignoring her, but nothing worked. So, I said to the others, let's line them up and see if they will stack. We all got down on one knee and were trying to get the pups to stand correctly and all of a sudden "thud", something hit my back. I wasn't thinking about the cat and then realized that she had jumped on my back. The strangest thing about it was that she stayed there until I stood up. This was one determined cat. Luckily, she didn't weigh much, but it was enough to startle me. By the time the cat jumped off my back, all three of us were laughing so hard we ended up falling down on our rears in the driveway.

This just wasn't going to work. I assumed the cat lived down the street where there a several cats. We decided that we would stop training and try again later. Sarah and I went over to the front of the house and there she came. This cat wanted to come in the house. I have never seen a cat so unafraid of dogs. She climbed up on Sarah's lap with the pup right in front of her. I ran in the house and got a camera and snapped a photo of this. Who would believe it without a photo?

Later that day my daughter came to pick up Sarah and we said we should do a little more training. We told her about the morning session, which she thought was very funny and wished we had taken some video. Out we went to the driveway again. No cat was in sight--great! John, Sarah and I started walking the pups and Sue yelled "There she is." The cat came bounding across the lawn to be part of this session. I swear if we had put a show lead on her, she would have tried to imitate the pups. We worked with the pups for a short time, with Sue running interference with the cat. No matter how much anyone tried to distract her, she wanted to be a Cesky Terrier. Hey, why not? They are the greatest!

Since that time, the cat often shows up if we go into the front yard, with or without pups. She is quite a little character--our little Cesky Cat.

Reprint from Cesky Chatter Vol 13 No 2 March 2001 Copyright (c) 2001 Lori Moody & NCTC