Georgie and the Clicker

Before I get into Georgie's training session I want to mention the two cats at the over capacity shelter near Chicago. I am delighted to say that Cody and Simba are in foster and loving being in their new home. We still need foster homes though...

Sooooo like a politician drumming up support I took to the streets. Well.. not literally the streets. Petsmart was my destination on Saturday morning armed with Great Lakes Bengal Rescue leaflets. I took all three of my gorgeous Bengals with me in their stroller. Mowgli was the eye catcher but people wanted to know what these beautiful cats were and I did manage to hand out a few leaflets. What I asked people to do was let any cat loving friends know who might be interested about our foster and adoption program and invited them to look at our website. Seeing two such lovely rescue Bengals as Apollo and Sakura really helped a lot.

Okay. On to Georgie. I did my first clicker session with her today and made a surprising discovery. Georgie was not so much interested in the dehydrated chicken as being cuddled.. amazing.

I bought a clicker with a pointer attached thinking I was being clever but Marilyn says a cat can feel the vibration and it might scare them. So I went in armed with an unshaven pencil, a small dish of dehydrated chicken and the clicker. First off it was very difficult to find a spot for the chicken. I couldn't secure it round my waist and Georgie can jump 5ft a lot quicker than I can stand up. But I managed. I held the pencil.. Georgie touched her nose to it like a pro and I gave her a bit of chicken, she gulped it down, I repeated the action, nose touch, click, food, but this time Georgie wasn't interested. But she desperately wanted to be petted. So I changed tactics, pencil, touch, click LOTS of praise and petting with tons of good girls! And that worked. I then tried a placemat and to my astonishment the moment I touched the pencil to the mat.. Georgie ran to it and stood on it all four paws and looked at me. It was as though Georgie had been doing this forever. She does get distracted by sounds outside (nope she isn't deaf) but she would stand on the mat and take all the praise and love I could give her. At one point she Bengal flopped and I did make the mistake of rubbing her tummy but she actually grabbed me less hard than Sakura would and let me go faster than she would when I went limp.

The next session I am going to work on sit on a stool with this amazingly clever little cat as a prelude to teaching her not to door dash. Georgie's door dashing is really bad. She only growled once today and that was when I walked towards her at the doorway. It was clear to me she felt threatened by me looming over her so I am going to be working on that with her too.

I do have a lot more hope for Georgie than I did. She is a sharp and clever cat who is actually a big love bug. All we have to do is understand why Georgie goes on the attack and I believe we can teach anyone how to avoid it happening in the first place. And if it does.. what they should do so that she doesn't follow through.