Meet Bob

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Speaking of which … some really nice interactions this morning.

I was asleep on the couch and Bob was sleeping in my bedroom when all of a sudden I get a furry face in my face and nice loud purr. Mort had wandered up to wake me up again like he used to do. Bob apparently was sound asleep and I got to lay around with hyper-purring Mort on the couch for a good half hour. Then I heard Bob stir and he came wandering out. Mort got a little tense but I held him on my chest and Bob ambled up and absently sniffed his face as though he forgot he was a cat for minute. We managed to sit there on the couch, calm dog and calm-ish cat for several minutes before Mort headed back downstairs.

But then, even better. Bob had curled up on the far end of the couch when who shows up again of his own volition but, Mort just strolling on out to see what was up. By now Bob was a little more alert and he wanted to get a good sniffing in on Mort - he gets a little pig-digging-for-a-truffle wanting to smell Mort’s butthole. Anyway, I had Mort on my lap while Bob rooted around but he only put up with it for a few more minutes before he managed to excuse himself back downstairs.

After a while I went downstairs to feed Mort and Bob followed me down, as opposed to racing me down, and walked up to Mort and sniffed his nose and Mort sniffed back! No introductory hiss for the first time.

So it’s a slow slog but I’m seeing a full on detente in the near future.

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That’s progress! I got two feral cats as barn cats at Christmas. Every day I shake the plastic container and call them before I put the food down. I never saw them - I even put up a game camera to make sure it was the rescues eating the cat food and not a racoon or a possum. In just the last week, they will come when I shake the cat food container, and hang out about 15’ away.

StG

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Both of you are definitely gaining on it!

– StGermain, my sister fed a feral cat for years and never saw it (other than I think one glimpse which started her feeding it); only cat prints in the snow in the wintertime. I fed one through most of a winter and also only saw cat prints in the snow.

And I have friends who tamed a feral cat entirely; to the point at which not only would he come to them to sit on laps and be patted, but he would come to me for pats even though he saw me about once a year. But it took years – he spent most of the first couple of years hanging out in the ceiling beams in their basement. Cats appearing within 15 feet within four months is a really good sign.

– Jack Batty, if they’ve reached the mutual-sniff-with-no-hiss stage, yes, this is going to work! They may or may not become close friends, but there’s an extremely good chance of both of them on the couch with you, not too far in the future.

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I have high hopes for the future BFFs!! I think it took my dog and cat about a year before they would actually hang out together and of course the cat was the problem child. I predict Bob and Mort will be snuggling together by Christmas.

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I am going to hold you to that and I will seek damages if results are not satisfactory.

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Bob has made his first inroads in the Battle of the Back Yard Rodents. I don’t know if he made the kill or if a crow did and he just found the carcass, but I caught him playing with a dead chipmunk on one of his yard-dog outings. He seemed pretty proud himself, even though I chastised him for being so fucking goth on me.

Bob - 1 / Chipmunks - 0

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Oh, Bob, you beautiful boy!!!

I just love him!
(:))

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Bob’s looking handsome and proud. How is the bromance coming along with Mort?

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If I may quote another Bob: baby steps, baby steps.

The swatting to sniffing ratio is just about at 50/50.

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Bob is awesome.

Everyday I praise myself for making the decision to get this guy. One thing this pandemic, and subsequent unemployment, has done is accelerated the bonding. We’ve spent, essentially, every last waking moment together for the last three months. He has very few flaws at this point. I still can’t get him to drop his ball on demand and when he’s got it in his mouth is when he’s at his most obstinate. If I want the ball I have to call him and order him to wait, so I can walk up and say, “leave it” a hundred times before he lets it go. Issues with Mort are not on him, they’re on Mort. Bob has learned to be gentle in his approach to Mort but Mort still likes to give him a whack across the nose most times. I think it’s giving Bob a complex.

Bob’s off-leash/off-line skills are top-notch. There is absolutely no need for him to be on a line while in the yard. I may as well have an invisible fence the way he respects the boundaries. Now, we’ll occasionally take a walk down to the end of the street off-leash (I live on a dead end) and he’ll stay within about 10 or 15 feet of me, stay out of neighbor’s yards (with a sharp, “hey,” from me if he wanders) and he will stop on a dime with a whistle.

I’ve been filming these little updates to send my parents, so I’ll float them here too.

Bob and the Loud Dog Next Door
Bob’s Mad Wait and Come Skillz

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The Loud Dog Next Door wants to be friendly, by the way. Just in case you were wondering about that, or had assumed he was intending mayhem.

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Another Bobby Milestone.

This works on command, outside, with the Magic Biscuit in my hand. Inside he’s still stuck on play dead.

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Happy Birthday Bob!

One year ago today I picked up Bob from the pound. When I got him, the site said he was 12-14 months; the paperwork said he was 10-12 months, so I assigned his adoption day as his birthday as well. He is officially two years old today - a teenager (sniff).

What a journey so far. I got him in a swell of optimism knowing he would further help with my anxieties - I was hoping for the perfect symbiotic relationship. Then I panicked wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into. Destroyed curtains, cat-bitten/infected finger, dog-escape complete with police calling me home in the middle of work, complete failure in feline relations. Then, goddamn it, we bonded so frigging quickly, and so hard it was done. I redoubled my efforts and my attention - made easier by being unemployed all summer.

Long story short … best decision I ever made. I’m over the moon at being Bob’s owner. He’s so well trained now, he stays in his yard with no fence or e-fence or line. He walks down the street with me with no leash. He has never once had an accident in the house. He sits, lays down, shakes, stays, comes, heals, plays dead, rolls over, he knows wait, no and off.

Bob is the fucking man!

Roll Over

Bob Don’t Do Watermelon

Happy Birthday Bobby-Boy!

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I can’t believe it’s been a whole year! And that watermelon looks delicious but apparently not to Bob; could he get further away from it? Anyway it’s great to hear and see how well he has become part of your family and your life. Thanks for keeping us up to date.

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I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again – thanks so much for sharing. My wonderful, beautiful dog died some years ago and I miss him terribly, and I’m sort of vicariously enjoying your own experiences with Bob. You’re absolutely right – adopting him was a great decision. I haven’t commented in this thread a lot but I’ve been keeping up and appreciate it. The best to you and Bob. :slight_smile:

May I suggest that on his birthday, you do something like what I did – give him a big barbecued steak, done rare, followed by Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream for dessert. Bob looks like he deserves it!

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Hapy Birthday Bob! he’s a cool doggo.

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This was so great! I had completely missed this thread, and I loved it. Was feeling a bit sorry for Mort, but it sounds like he could hold his own!

We picked up our previous pair from the rescue on the Saturday before Mother’s Day. Since we knew nothing about them other than they were dumped at the Bakersfield pound together, we made Mother’s Day their birthday. We lost one two summers ago, and the other 4 days away from exactly a year later. We now have Max, and we actually know his birthday – May 11th! A nice coincidence.

However, training did not go as smoothly as Bob’s. Your real challenge will be trying to train a dachshund. Or two.

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Happy Birthday Bob! I’m glad you found such a great home.

Like you, I’m not sure if the dogs and my cats will ever get along. My dogs really, really, really want to be friends, but the cats are pretty sure it’s a ruse to kill them. If they run, the dogs chase. I’m working on keeping from doing that. Maybe someday.

It sounds like things are going swimmingly. May you have wonderful times ahead. :slight_smile:

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:musical_note::notes::notes:Happy Birthday to Bob!!

I love me some Bob!!

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Bob is my rockstar!

Saturday we went to the dog park and it could not have gone better. There were a ton of dogs there and he was having a great time. More importantly was how he dealt with some of the other dogs. There was this little intact puppy that followed him around and kept trying to mount him; Bob just gave him a warning yip and turned to face him and that was that. There were two other little dogs that were all over each other and one of them started to get a little unruly and Bob ran right up to them to get between them and calmed it down. Bob the ref.

Then I was feeling so good about myself and about Bob I had him run through his tricks, including his rollover – all without verbal commands – and we literally got applause. I was feeling so confident that when we left, I walked half way to the exit and looked back to see Bob still amongst his crew; one quick whistle and he ran to my side. Goddamn that was a perfect dog park afternoon.

Cut to yesterday. Here’s the thing … I’ve been a bit estranged from my sister this year and it all stemmed from an incident with her dogs. Well, more with my brother-in-law, but it was the dogs that was the catalyst. Anyway, I invited her out to the dog park with her little terriers. She was skeptical about bringing her dogs there, but I thought was kind of the point.

We met at the park and it’s like a quarter mile walk to the park itself and she looked like Lucy and Ethel combined trying to get them to come along with her. All the way there I was giving her a little dog pep talk about not being nervous, don’t worry so much about them just being dogs with other dogs. I realized how much her panic was when we got there. You see, there’s regular all-dog section and another fenced off section just for little dogs, which was empty. So I said, perfect, we’ll go in there and have the place to ourselves. She said she still wasn’t comfortable taking them off leash. Why? Because Bob will be in there with them and she doesn’t want anything to happen. Nonsense, I say.

All went swimmingly. We brought them inside and I let Sandi walk them around on the leash a little bit before I snuck in and unleashed them. They were a little trepidatious at first but Willy (the female who is a little bit more gregarious) starting sprinting around soon enough. Martin (the male who has a little bit of defensive aggressiveness) even came out of his shell and before we left, Bob was laying in the grass and Willy and Martin were trotting around him, waggy tails and sniffy-sniffs all around. I even caught Martin giving Bob a kiss.

On the way back I offered to walk Willy and Martin back and let Sandi take Bob. She had a hard time with him, which I found odd because he was really tired, but she still holding the lead right at the end and lifting her arms and just kind of going all Jerry Lewis on it. Meanwhile, except for Willy’s instance on trying to run ahead, I basically got both of the little monsters to heal for me - at least for a little bit of a distance.

The best part was when my sister told me she thinks I should pursue dog-training. It’s pretty much the first time she ever told me I was good at anything without solicitation.

So me and Bob had a good weekend.