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bunnInitial impressions of Duke lurcher
- HUGE - towers over Mollydog, makes Az look like a whippet and entirely fills what I had previously thought of as a really big crate.
- Very, very thin
- Pulls like a train on the lead
- house training of a rudimentary level (whisk him out regularly or it's time for the carpet cleaner again).
- doesn't seem to have had any training of any kind, or indeed any concept of doing as told! (though it's early days, once he's settled a bit some of that might surface)
- good about being crated and very tolerant of his muzzle. So tolerant in fact that I think he may have been muzzled before.
- very willing to stand up on back legs, which makes him insanely tall!
- not used to stairs (but already getting the hang of them). Mirrors are also very puzzling. Possibly he has never been a house dog?
- yodels if left in his crate when he thinks something interesting is going on elsewhere. Or indeed if not - I had to sleep in with him last night because he was so noisy if left. I am hoping this will sort itself out once he's more used to the routine.
With the cats
He fits the description 'cat trainable' in that it is fairly easy to break his focus on the cats. He will eat around them, and if you shove a tripe stick under his nose he will follow it rather than staring fixedly at the cats. But he does find them *very* exciting.
His reaction is generally to stare, and if he gets close he will lunge and bark. I *think* the lunging and barking is already improving a bit : this morning we walked past Suma on the stairs : there was a bit of pulling but it was much less of a drama than I had feared. At the moment we are keeping him upstairs and the cats downstairs, and using the muzzle to get him in and out of the house.
He doesn't seem to be very good at actually spotting the cats if they are sitting still, so it's hard to tell yet if he is sometimes ignoring them (which would be great!) or if he just hasn't noticed that they are there!
- HUGE - towers over Mollydog, makes Az look like a whippet and entirely fills what I had previously thought of as a really big crate.
- Very, very thin
- Pulls like a train on the lead
- house training of a rudimentary level (whisk him out regularly or it's time for the carpet cleaner again).
- doesn't seem to have had any training of any kind, or indeed any concept of doing as told! (though it's early days, once he's settled a bit some of that might surface)
- good about being crated and very tolerant of his muzzle. So tolerant in fact that I think he may have been muzzled before.
- very willing to stand up on back legs, which makes him insanely tall!
- not used to stairs (but already getting the hang of them). Mirrors are also very puzzling. Possibly he has never been a house dog?
- yodels if left in his crate when he thinks something interesting is going on elsewhere. Or indeed if not - I had to sleep in with him last night because he was so noisy if left. I am hoping this will sort itself out once he's more used to the routine.
With the cats
He fits the description 'cat trainable' in that it is fairly easy to break his focus on the cats. He will eat around them, and if you shove a tripe stick under his nose he will follow it rather than staring fixedly at the cats. But he does find them *very* exciting.
His reaction is generally to stare, and if he gets close he will lunge and bark. I *think* the lunging and barking is already improving a bit : this morning we walked past Suma on the stairs : there was a bit of pulling but it was much less of a drama than I had feared. At the moment we are keeping him upstairs and the cats downstairs, and using the muzzle to get him in and out of the house.
He doesn't seem to be very good at actually spotting the cats if they are sitting still, so it's hard to tell yet if he is sometimes ignoring them (which would be great!) or if he just hasn't noticed that they are there!
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Date: 2010-08-28 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-28 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-28 05:05 pm (UTC)I like the idea of the dog failing to notice a cat until it moves. Life must be a baffling place full of cushions and bits of furniture that suddenly turn into cats, or of quantum cats that flicker in and out of existence.
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Date: 2010-08-28 08:31 pm (UTC)Az is coping really well. We had one incident where Duke tried to hump Az and was given a telling off, after which we all decided this would Never Be Mentioned Again. Now they seem to be getting on remarkably well. I suspect that it's because Duke is also a lurcher. Az is a racist little sod!
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Date: 2010-08-29 07:49 am (UTC)