Wordy Wednesday {Abby}

Hey! Let Me See Your Camera!

I was trying to capture Abby Gail interacting with Chessie; but, when she is awake and active, she is not cooperative. She is more interested in the camera itself. The other day, Dan was trying to get pictures of her outside with his camera and she walked right up to his camera sticking her nose in the lens making him laugh.

Below is the only decent picture I was able to capture of Abby's interaction with Chessie. And please, ignore that nasty old chair. It is Dad's old lazyboy and I was planning on getting it fixed up and reupholstered. Chessie certainly loves to sleep on it a lot.

Hey! Whatcha doing? Get up!

These were taken back in August when I was sick. Abby has since grown up just a tad and is now six months old. She is the same length and almost the same height as our Gracie; but, is a heck tinier size-wise if that makes sense.

Anyway, you can see the size difference between Abby and Chessie. Chessie is a purebred Gentle Giant (Maine Coon) and Abby is... well... we just do not know. The more time passes, the more Dan thinks she has some exotic cat in her. I think she will always be half wild; but, she has adjusted well to being an indoor cat (with supervised outdoor visits).

I have no worries for either Chessie or Abby when they cross paths. It is really funny and cute to see them interact. As you know, Chessie is tons bigger than Abby. I would say she is almost three times bigger at the moment. She just tolerates Abby and then when she had enough, she will whack her. Sometimes she will stomp on her with two paws simultaneously almost trapping her on the ground and Abby will then flee and not bother her for a time.

Abby still harasses our special needs cat, Gracie; but, not as often. I have her well trained. If I catch her harassing Gracie, I will say "timeout". She then makes the choice of either calming herself down or continuing to harass Gracie. If she continues to harass her, I will go open the extended pantry door and point towards the room telling Abby "timeout". She will often trot her way inside and I will shut the door behind her. She seems to know that she needs to be calm around Gracie and if she is not, she will get a timeout. There have been times where she is just so out of control (so excited) that we have to chase her down and place her into the pantry ourselves. But, most of the time, she puts herself into timeout.

I know that this technique sounds odd; but, she (Abby) does not like to be handled or held. She does not mind being carried from one place to another most of the time. However, if she is held or handled, she will often go nuts after a few seconds. It takes two people to clip her front nails. And yes, I have tried waiting until she is sleeping which is what I do with Chessie and Gracie when it needs to be done; but, it never fails that Abby comes wide awake and refuses to let me handle her paws and clip her nails. She screams bloody murder, bites and struggles. I will let her go because I do not want her to get hurt. You would think after all this time, she would get used to it (getting nails clipped). But, no. She goes berserk. Thus, I have to get Dan to hold her while I clip her nails. It is not a fun job.

Anyway, this timeout training technique we are doing is a way to give her respect and for her to show us respect. It seems to be working rather well for us simply because she is too dang smart. It did not take her long to understand certain words I use such as "timeout", "down" and "come". And oh, I am trying to get her to stand up on command. I am not sure if I will succeed; but, she is doing it when I feed her wet food in the morning. I need to find a clicker training gadget for cats to train for fun. I think it will interest the both of us and keep her focused (mind active) and get her energy spent at the same time. I think she may even take to cat agility training.