She's baaaaaccckkkk!

So, our latest foster is a "repeat offender", but not in a bad way. We fostered Jupiter a few weeks ago. Now she is back. She was not fond of the small kids visiting in her other foster home, so we decided to give the cats a try again. After having Lily, who was crazy into the cats, I thought Jupiter might be workable. So far, I have been correct. I made a minor modification to the way that I introduce a new dog to the cats and it seems to have had better results. Most of our fosters have been just fine with the cats from the get-go, except for the last few girls we have had. I think that led me to lax from the way I had done it before. More leash time seems to be the key. That definitely led to a different reaction this time. She is not perfect with the cats yet, and may never be, but she is much improved. Right now, I would not leave her alone for any amount of time unsupervised and unmuzzled with a cat, but I can, with confidence, leaver her muzzled, not crated, with my pack with no worries. That's a big step. Last time she was here, she was crated when we left and muzzled a lot. Not so this time around. In the end, she will probably be deemed cat correctable and it will all depend on the owner and the cat, as she reacts differently to each of ours. I think she will get there where we can comfortably place her in a home with an attentive owner and some kitties, if that's the place for her. For now, she is here and doing very well.

She passed, Anna eats, we have a new couch

So, Lacy passed her cat test. This does not mean I would leave her alone in a room full of cats, but she is definately not in immediate kill mode. She perked her ears up when she saw the kitties and then walked over and shoved her nose in their face/butt/side whatever she could get to and sniffed. Then she would walk away. Even when one of the cats ran, she perked her ears up and followed sniffing. I would suggest a muzzle and lots of supervision for a few weeks, but she should be fine in the long run. She reminded me a lot of how Dax was at first. This was in drastic contrast to Tails, her current housemate. We were not cat testing him but he was there. Wow, he wanted the cats. Ears perked, body tense, barking, the whole nine yards for the most part. he is somewhat correctable, as in he does not like to be fussed at and would generally stop, but he was a little too focused and overly interested. I would not put him in a home with a cat. MAYBE with an experienced grey owner and a cat that would defend him or herself, but even then it would be touchy. It doesn't matter though. They have no cats and never will, especially after that little show he put on at our house! No cat was ever in danger. Safety first with us. ALL the greys were muzzled both for safety during their introductions and time in the yard as well for the cats safety in the house.

On a side note, we have won the battle with Anna. We had a minor setback for a few days over a week ago, but now she knows we have won. We are in charge. She even eats her food straight dry, no water, now. It's nice. She may have had a little bug or was just showing her butt. We will never know, but she is eating now. We were out of town Friday night to Saturday afternoon, so my mom did two feedings. Friday dinner Anna tried to push her, refused to eat and mom gave her a little cheese. Sucker. Saturday morning she gave her no trouble. She gave us no trouble at dinner Saturday or at all since. Good girl.

Our trip was to visit T's grandmother, two friends, JT & Batman, and go to IKEA! We came back with a new couch, new chair, bookcase and some small stuff. The greys did not care for the living room reorganization, even though it included a new couch. We ended up putting a blanket on the couch and slowly they began to approve. How they dislike change.

cat test today

Today we will give our first offical cat test. There is another coupe who is fostering a greyhound that has not been cat tested. The guy who is interested in here lives with his parents (for the next few months) who have a cat. He really likes this grey, Lacy and we just aren't sure how this is going to turn out. Lacy is barely too and very wired. She has done pretty good with the small dog at L's house (L is our head of placement who keeps fosters and does boarding at her house, she will probably come up frequently in future blogs) as well as with the black lab puppy at the foster home. L is just unsure of how crazy Lacy will do with a kitty. We shall see. Our kitties our calm, well relatively. Lacy's foster dad is also bringing his greyhound, Tails. I think we will put Tails, Anna, Berry White & Dax outside for a bit after everyone meets so Lacy can see the kitties alone, which is how she will be. This will be fun....