This was the first time I’d ever seen the boys share this bed

The cats don’t get up on the chaise too often — most likely because the dogs are almost always there. In fact, you never see the dogs in the orange bed anymore! Altho if I’m sitting in the chaise, sometimes Simba comes and lays along the top behind my head.

Although I helped the photo above happen, only by keeping Chester from snapping at Simba when Simba decided he wanted to be in the bed, too.

I know, crappy picture; sorry for the alien cat eyes! That is how the boys are on the recliner in the morning, only Simba is in my lap, and Gizmo is on top behind my head, since Simba won’t share my lap.

Is Lola plotting to order something, or to change the tv station?

This girl sure knows how to relax

Normally Chester is glued to my side, whereever I am, unless I won’t let him lay on me. Although he doesn’t like to lay with me when I’m laying on my side, photo below nonwithstanding. Lola will drape herself on my hip, which reminds me of Puss, because she liked to do that. Recently Chester has decided that curling up behind my knees isn’t so bad. Notice that the pushy broad (aka Lola) is trying to push her way into the picture.

Yes, I was actually asleep here.

The dogs don’t really cuddle up together, but they often lay near one another. This reminds me of how they interacted when I first brought Chester to meet Lola.

Really, they don’t cuddle much!

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I miss Simba sleeping on my pillow. I never thought I would say that, but it’s true. When we first started letting the cats sleep with us, Simba used to wrap himself around my head. I’d never had a cat do that before, so it was a bit disconcerting, although soothing at the same time (nothing like going to sleep to the sound of a purring cat).

Simba doesn’t usually sleep with us, but he continued to sleep on my pillow when he did — until we got the dogs. I’m not quite sure what it is about the dogs, maybe the fact that Lola is usually curled up between me & my husband right by the pillow.

Now Simba tends to sleep behind my knees. And Simba is a large cat, all muscle at 14 pounds. That wouldn’t be so bad, except for the fact that Chester is often curled up on the other side of my legs. And sometimes Lola is curled up near my head. And for some reason this past week Simba has decided to sleep with us every night.

I miss having Simba as my pillow.

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Over his Christmas/New Year’s break, my husband built me (and the dogs) a mini-teeter. Chester absolutely loved the teeter until the first time we let him do it unassisted. He didn’t seem particularly bothered about it that day, but he began to act squirrely about it afterwards; jumping off before he got to the pivot point.

So I decided that having a teeter to work with at home would be helpful.

The very first couple of times we tried him on it he seemed fine. But true to what’s going on with him and the teeter, he was soon jumping off of it before the pivot point again.

If I put something under it to soften the impact, as I did in the photo below, he was fine with it. But the minute we took away that aid, he’d start jumping off of it again.

I wasn’t planning to even try using it for Lola yet. She’s just begun her teeter training, and I don’t want to undermine that. However, I decided that I would back things up even further for Chester: I’d simply put the teeter plank on the ground. Lola didn’t even want to touch it, but she often has the reaction to new things. So I broke out the good stuff: cheese.

After a couple of days for being clicked and treated for simply looking at the plank, or putting a paw on the plank, Lola was happily walking the plank.

My husband cut down a few pieces of PVC even shorter, so that the teeter was even closer to being on the ground. I trained Chester with the cheese and the plank on the ground for a couple of days, and then used the teeter at its new, lower height — and he was quite happy to do it without any aid at all.

At class, Chester is still happy to do the teeter as long as the instructor is assisting us. But I want him to get to the point where he can do it on his own. Since we’re doing whole courses by now, sometimes, it’s a pain having to have someone assist me — especially since Chester is the only dog who needs assistance in our class. Hopefully with the extra training at home, he’ll soon be happily doing the teeter by himself in class.

Technorati Tags: mini-teeter, teeter, pivot point, clicked and treated, PVC

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