Animal Love
Abbie loves all of our pets: The cats, the fish, the dust bunnies, and everything else living in our house. Unfortunately our pets generally don’t share the love.
Our cats hate Abbie; when they see her approach, they bat, hiss, and even bite if we fail to grab the spray bottle in time and squirt someone.* We don’t have the friendliest cats in the world, but I think this behavior is a relic of Abbie’s earliest days of interacting with the cats when she’d pull their fur at the first chance she’d get. I wish the cats would give her another chance now and adopt a more passive defense (also known as the Arizona Cardinals defense) when she approaches. Abbie has learned to be gentle with the cats and honestly tries petting them a few times before pulling their fur.
The fish don’t seem to notice Abbie because, well, they’re fish. They don’t seem to notice the fact that they’re swimming in a tank with an alarmingly high fish urine-to-water ratio either. They do seem to appreciate when Abbie puts food into their tank, instead of putting it into her mouth.
Our chinchilla Stumpy comes the closest to liking her, possibly because his cage protects his fur from pulling while the slats hold tasty toddler fingers in place for chewing should anyone insert her fingers in the cage. He’ll usually bound up to the gate when we open it for her, of course he knows that when the gate opens he usually gets a treat. Animals will generally do anything when food is involved, though perhaps he’d be a little less excited to see the door open if we pulled him out and let Abbie chase him around the living room once in a while.
Our dog Chloe generally tolerates her. When Abbie was in her pull first, pet later phase, she’d run away as soon as little miss crawled near her. Abbie thought this was a great game, which probably made her want to catch the dog even more. Now that she can move almost as fast as the dog making running away pointless, Chloe usually tolerates her presence by sitting still for a few seconds and at least waiting for the fur pulling to begin before running away.
This afternoon though, Chloe tolerated her presence for possibly her longest time ever. It happened while I was eating baby carrots and sharing them with Chloe. Our dog loves eating baby carrots, though possibly only because I’m eating them too. Abbie sometimes likes baby carrots too, possibly for the same reason. I share with the dog by biting the end off a carrot and tossing it toward her. She usually snatches it from midair in her mouth, though occasionally she misses and has to pick it off the ground, and sometimes she’ll decide she doesn’t want it and it’ll bounce harmlessly off her head.
Abbie originally approached us after noticing I was eating, but quickly noticed Chloe was distracted. She took the opportunity to stand next to her petting for almost a full minute, and never pulled her fur. Abbie even snuck in a few kisses, getting the dog back for all those times she spit up as a baby. Chloe never took her eyes off the carrots. Eventually she missed a carrot and ran to chase it, breaking the lovefest. I ran out of carrots soon after, and she returned to whatever dog-related activity that usually involves barking that she does all day. It was still a nice reminder that our pets can occasionally be nice to Abbie. And that animals will do anything for food.
* Here “someone” can refer to a cat or Abbie; squirting either one works to stop bad behavior.
Our cats hate Abbie; when they see her approach, they bat, hiss, and even bite if we fail to grab the spray bottle in time and squirt someone.* We don’t have the friendliest cats in the world, but I think this behavior is a relic of Abbie’s earliest days of interacting with the cats when she’d pull their fur at the first chance she’d get. I wish the cats would give her another chance now and adopt a more passive defense (also known as the Arizona Cardinals defense) when she approaches. Abbie has learned to be gentle with the cats and honestly tries petting them a few times before pulling their fur.
The fish don’t seem to notice Abbie because, well, they’re fish. They don’t seem to notice the fact that they’re swimming in a tank with an alarmingly high fish urine-to-water ratio either. They do seem to appreciate when Abbie puts food into their tank, instead of putting it into her mouth.
Our chinchilla Stumpy comes the closest to liking her, possibly because his cage protects his fur from pulling while the slats hold tasty toddler fingers in place for chewing should anyone insert her fingers in the cage. He’ll usually bound up to the gate when we open it for her, of course he knows that when the gate opens he usually gets a treat. Animals will generally do anything when food is involved, though perhaps he’d be a little less excited to see the door open if we pulled him out and let Abbie chase him around the living room once in a while.
Our dog Chloe generally tolerates her. When Abbie was in her pull first, pet later phase, she’d run away as soon as little miss crawled near her. Abbie thought this was a great game, which probably made her want to catch the dog even more. Now that she can move almost as fast as the dog making running away pointless, Chloe usually tolerates her presence by sitting still for a few seconds and at least waiting for the fur pulling to begin before running away.
This afternoon though, Chloe tolerated her presence for possibly her longest time ever. It happened while I was eating baby carrots and sharing them with Chloe. Our dog loves eating baby carrots, though possibly only because I’m eating them too. Abbie sometimes likes baby carrots too, possibly for the same reason. I share with the dog by biting the end off a carrot and tossing it toward her. She usually snatches it from midair in her mouth, though occasionally she misses and has to pick it off the ground, and sometimes she’ll decide she doesn’t want it and it’ll bounce harmlessly off her head.
Abbie originally approached us after noticing I was eating, but quickly noticed Chloe was distracted. She took the opportunity to stand next to her petting for almost a full minute, and never pulled her fur. Abbie even snuck in a few kisses, getting the dog back for all those times she spit up as a baby. Chloe never took her eyes off the carrots. Eventually she missed a carrot and ran to chase it, breaking the lovefest. I ran out of carrots soon after, and she returned to whatever dog-related activity that usually involves barking that she does all day. It was still a nice reminder that our pets can occasionally be nice to Abbie. And that animals will do anything for food.
* Here “someone” can refer to a cat or Abbie; squirting either one works to stop bad behavior.
posted by Matt at
10:54 PM
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