Catty and Tulpen

I've been getting requests of a side by side with Tulpen and Catty.  One may think how hard can that be...  Well, Catty takes a bit of time to warm up to new foster dogs and even when she decides they are ok, she still doesn't want them close to her.  The only dog she allows to touch her is D'light.  It's actually crazy as D'light can sleep next to her, sit on top of her, paw at her face to play and she just doesn't care.  Any other dog would get a face full from her. 

 

I was a little concerned with Catty's reaction to Tulpen given he's bigger than her and she's not fond of bigger dogs.  Catty is about 13lbs, Tulpen is 14.6lbs and he's a bit taller than her.  Both are stocky in build and in no way are either of them physically fragile.  The great news is that there hasn't been a single issue.  Tulpen has good dog skills and he quickly figured that giving Catty space is a good idea.

 

Here's a series of pictures with Catty and Tulpen - they are both adorable!

 

They clearly think I have something they may want

A little closer...



Pretty good!  The both have big ears - Catty's are rounded and Tulpen's are pointed at the tips



Here's Catty "sitting pretty" hoping it will get her a treat! 

Getting closer together... Tulpen's snout is longer than Catty's.



Cute dogs!

And you if are wondering how I was able to capture Catty and Tulpen... it's all reinforcing the behavior I want with a food reward.  This was a nice session of working with Catty on being near a new dog (Tulpen had been in the house for less than 72 hours) where there's a positive outcome.  The positive outcome was that Catty was able to experience being close to another dog and that's the experience I was reinforcing with treats.  Had there been any growling or stress signals from either dog we would have ended the session.  So, way to go Catty and thank you Tulpen for being such a gentleman!

 

This video cracked me up!  Watch their eyes - having food motivated dogs is a wonderful thing!