Collie fixating on cat

[TwllBach]

My collie bitch is three in April and she is really lovely. It took me a while to bond with her and gain confidence in my ability to encourage her to respond to me, but I love her to pieces. DP and I have worked with her and she, as a rule, is a very well behaved dog, if a little fizzy

We do have two major problems with her though. Not anything that would make us consider giving her up, but they are having a considerable impact on our lives.

The first one is linked to the second one, so bear with me! She adores the cat and the cat tolerates the dog, but she is heartbroken when the cat goes out. For example, when I am in, the window is always open so the cat can come and go as she pleases. I don't really want to have to change this because of the dog, because I don't feel it is fair for the cat. When the cat hops out the window, the dog hates it and squeaks A Lot. I call her in to the room I'm in to try and distract her, but generally she doesn't have it and sprints back to the room that the cat disappeared from. She does settle down after about five minutes, but the cat comes and goes quite a lot...

The second one is that there is a period every bloody evening when the cat jumps down from her bed on top of the book case and tries to come for a cuddle. The dog goes absolutely berserk. I can't tell if it is jealousy or not - part of me thinks it isn't because I can try and cuddle her and she doesn't care - she is fixated on the cat. The cat will try and move about the house and the dog will chase her.

I am prone to believing that the dog, because of her breed, is trying to herd the cat, but I want her to stop it. The thing is though, she gets so fixated on the cat that she shakes. She will, after being asked several times, respond to a 'watch' command where she has to look me in the eye, but she will just return to looking at the cat.

The chasing of the cat is getting to the point where DP won't come in to the living room in the evenings because they both drive him crazy. This is obviously upsetting because we end up spending our evenings apart.

I did take my dog to puppy classes over a year ago and they suggested squirting her with water every time she does it, but it didn't work and I didn't enjoy doing it. I also think it was sort of counter productive, as I want my dog to actively relax instead of becoming even more tense.

Sorry it is so long, but please could someone suggest something? I am reading up about the 'stop' command to make her stop squeaking, but I am really at a loss as to how to stop her fixation with the cat

Bump because I'm desperate

Bless her - this must be doing her herding head in! Her flock comes into the room and then just shots off out of the window

You gut reaction is spot on - yes you do want her relaxing around the cat. All the squirting with water will do is make her be stressy out of the reach of the water squirter!

Two ways to do this.

1. Teach her a settle command (do this away from the cat) when she is calm and still. I would click and treat and eventually add the command settle.

I would then teach this is more challenging situations (not near the cat yet) so maybe run past her and tell her to settle etc gradually upping the anti to doing a settle near the cat.

Second way is to give her an alternative behaviour when she sees the cat. Does she like a tennis ball or a toy. Have a special toy that only appears when the cat appears, so a small tuggy would be good that you carry with you. the second the cat appears get the tuggy and have the best game ever. Tuggy is quite good for this as the dog will be stressed etc and emotional and she can then release her emotion on the tuggy.

Gradually over time the tuggy will be more important than the cat disappearing and she will fetch the tuggy to bring to you. You will not need to play each and everytime but ever now and again to keep her interest.

Re the evening if the time is the same I would just remove dog from the room for this time until she becomes more used to having the cat around which will happen if you do either 1 or 2 above.

Collies are fab herders (obvioulsy) however they are also excellent at self control. If you see the working dogs they have to lie down and wait, they have to wait until they are released to work. I would work on the first method she will get it and once learnt by a collie never forgotten

Thankyou so much for replying

It does her head in, you're quite right, she does this thing when she is at her most wound up where she runs around the cat post to the sofa and back again over and over which I'm guessing slips out of being a conscious behaviour into a habit, which I dont want to let her keep up, so try and snap her out of it pretty smart ish.

I think the 'settle' command might be the way to go with her, as I can already think of situations that this will work in! And she is completely uninterested in toys and food when the cat is around, I could wave a steak in front of her nose and she wouldn't care.

Regarding clickers, are they worth it? We haven't ever used one with her - is it worth me investing in one for the long term?

At least with her I know that any foibles are as a result of our bad training and that because she is clever it is reversible/fixable. It makes it easier to know that it is our behaviour that needs correcting in order to expect better behaviour from her IYSWIM.

Personally I could not train my collies without the clicker.

Because collies learn so quickly and move quickly the clicker helps to mark the exact behaviour.

Also the noise of the clicker is a sound that tends to be heard even if the dog is in a quite emotionally state. So when they are too worked up to here your voice they will here and give a pavlovian response to the clicker.

She really is showing that great herding - off to the flock back to the shepherd type behaviour. I would want to exploit this a bit. Do you have a gym ball?

I have one collie that will nip instead of herd and another that will herd anything from furniture to birds in the garden. Both of them now release their herding skills on my flock of gym balls.

I taught them first to push. I used a post it note on my hand held it down to them and they automatically put their nose to it Click and treat. do this enough and then position the post it in different locations , add the word push or herd.

Then put post it onto gym balls and ask them to push. You can them get them to push the balls into a goal area or direct them to herd the balls around the garden. You will find doing this once a day or so will satisfy the herding and the dogs will be calmer and happier.

wow minimuu - you are just wonderful

I get paid tomorrow so I will grab a clicker online.

I'm so glad I posted now, I was beginning to really let it get to me but you've reminded me that I had such great plans and fantasised about having this ace little dog and I just let them fall by the wayside because it is a lot harder than I expected! We do all the basics like sit, lie down, high five, watch, come, crawl and get it but I wanted to do a lot more with her.

I love the ball idea, and I've been toying with the idea of having items that she can 'collect' from around the house because I think that might satisfy the herding thing. It never occurred to me to do it outside though

As I'm typing this, the cat is pinging about all over the house and the dog is on the sofa with me and quivering in anticipation but I am having to work very hard to keep her here! Obviously I'm not physically restricting her, the only way I can describe it is that there is a definite 'energy' that I have to concentrate hard on. That sounds very woo but it's similar to when I used to ride, my instructor always told me to visualise the moves that I want to do before I do tem and that helps the horse understand.

It's not ideal because she isnt relaxed, but I have a second wind, ha.

Flock of gym balls? The mind boggles.....