Cats and Dogs

On the lighter side of things at BF, being at the Garden puts me right in the middle of the most adoptable dogs at BF and they fly out the door so fast I feel like my head is spinning sometimes. For the vast majority of our dogs the most serious issues are cats and possibly other dogs, though we only have one dog that lives alone and probably couldn't go to a home with other dogs. A lot of our kids are either picky about other dogs or just don't meet new dogs very well but can at the very least tolerate certain other dogs. One of our dogs, Anahi, a twelve year old Akita mix seems to have a very specific preference in her friends, she likes only males, which is not uncommon, but she also specifies that her run mates be hounds (insert joke here). They tried her with an older shepherd mix because her run of three young hounds seemed to be a bit much for her at times and we were worried that their antics might injure Anahi, but after a few days she decided that she wanted nothing to do with him and let everybody know, so she is back with her hounds. Last week we had two dogs leave for their forever homes, a little pointer mix named Poinsettia. Her new family came to visit and took her on a sleep over and fell in love and put in the application the next morning after they returned her to the Garden and she was on a plane a few weeks later. We also had Grady leave, finally. He was originally scheduled for transport on June 5, but there was a mix up and it got postponed to June 19. Grady is at least the fifth run mate of a dog named Mercy to be adopted.Mercy has been at BF for about a year now and seems to be a good luck charm for her roommates, they just keep flying out the door but she is still with us. We are all hoping that she will soon get her own family. We just introduced her to two new dogs and found out a couple of days later that one of them is already adopted, though I don't know when he will leave. We have had a couple of other big adoptions this week, Cupid, a sweet brindle pittie got adopted after a long time at the sanctuary and a shy boy named Ohio Patches also found a family after years of BF.

I had a question in the comments from Fernando about how we do the cat testing, otherwise known as cat encounters. Generally speaking, we don't arbitrarily test dogs with cats because we use live cats and while they are always well protected, there is always a small risk of injury, not to mention the stress on the cats. We usually use a trainer's personal cats, most of the time, their cats have been exposed to dogs and are comfortable and dog savvy. When a dog has a application from somebody that has cats, the dog must have a cat test before the application is approved. To begin the encounter, the trainer brings the cat into the room inside of a carrier. The dog's interest in the carrier is gauged and if they are too fixated on the carrier and its contents then that is the end of the encounter. The encounter continues in incremental steps, gauging the dog's interest and watching their body language the entire time and if at any time they become too intensely fixated on the cat, to the point that their attention can not be drawn away, the encounter is stopped. If they are okay with the carrier, then a trainer will remove the cat from the carrier and hold it in their arms, up away from the dog and let the dog get close enough to sniff the cat. From there, if behavior continues to be positive, they will put the cat down on the ground, sometimes holding it in place so they can quickly pick the cat back up if the dog decides it might be snack time. At that point, if all continues to go well, they will release the cat and see how the dog interacts with the cat, are they respectful if the cat hisses or swats at them, how does the dog respond when the cat moves around the room, things like that. If all of this goes well, then the dog is approved to go into a home with cats, if they are too aggressive toward or fixated on the cat then the application is declined and the dog can not go to a home with cats. Dogs are generally only given one cat encounter, unless the caregivers or trainers can show that there has been some specific work with the dog on its behavior with cats, such as being fostered by staff in a home where they are exposed to cats. The tricky part here is that a lot of dogs don't necessarily behave in a new situation the same way they will after they are comfortable with new surroundings. So just because a dog has a positive cat encounter at the sanctuary doesn't mean that when they get to their new home and settle in they won't decide to go after a cat. We also have occasional requests for bird and rabbit test, too.

Hope you all have a great week!

(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)