Christmas Trees and Pets

[MisterTinkles]

For Cats and Dogs and other friends--

You CAN train cats....even Pavlovian style. The HUMAN has to be trained on HOW to train a cat though. You cannot train a cat as you can a dog....but they CAN be trained.

Rules for holiday decor and Cmas trees around pets:

* Live trees and fake trees can be TOXIC to pets.
* Make sure your pets are TRAINED not to touch decorations/trees/plants in the house.
* Make sure, if you have untrained pets, that you have PET FRIENDLY decorations and tree.
* Make sure your Cmas tree is on top of a table they know not to get on, does not have low hanging branches and breakable/toxic ornaments. NO "ICICLES" on Cmas trees!!!!!
* Make your own Pet Cmas Tree for your pets, so they will leave YOURS alone.
* Keep the Cmas tree in a closed off room, or some place where a baby barricade can be placed around the tree when humans are not home to watch the pets.
* Put up an invisible barrier around the Cmas tree area, so it scares off the pet when they get too close.

http://www.wikihow.com/Cat-Proof-Your-Christmas-Tree

http://www.petcarerx.com/article/a-c...possible/1417#.

http://www.catsinternational.org/art...tmas_Tree.html

http://www.hartz.com/Dogs/Home_and_Away/...t_mix.aspx



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[MisterTinkles]

Pet Treat Recipes--

You can create your OWN pet treat ornaments using these recipes--
You can use food colorings to put a bit of color into them if you want.
Use COOKIE CUTTERS to make fun holiday shapes, and be sure to punch a little hole in the top of the "ornament" before you bake it, so you can hang it with edible/pet friendly ribbon.

http://www.thekitchn.com/cookies-for-can...e-d-135078

http://www.simplypets.com/pet-recipes/Cat/Treat

http://birds.about.com/od/birdfoodrcipes...ecipes.htm

http://www.natural-pet-essentials.com/na...reats.html

Couldnt find any links for lizards or snakes treats recipes, but Im sure they are pretty much the same, just use bugs, worms, and grubs instead of seeds and nuts. Some pet stores do sell edible pet ornaments too, so check there also. You can also get some information from specialty lizard and snake centers, the zoo, vets office, and places like that.

[Ekwarph]

What is a "pet friendly" decoration?
A bone attached to the tree? A bionic hand that strokes the pet?

[MisterTinkles]

What is a "pet friendly" decoration?
A bone attached to the tree? A bionic hand that strokes the pet?

Pet friendly decorations are decorations that are not made from materials that are harmful or toxic to animals, if they chew or eat them. You can find some of these at pet stores.

Examples:

Dogs - as suggested by the recipe I posted, make your own treats and use Cmas shaped cookie cutters to make them. When cooled, you can "paint" them with food coloring.
Small chew toys and chew sticks make good ornaments.

Cats - same thing, make your own treats using Cmas cookie cutters.
Also, small chew toys and chew sticks for cats.

[Ekwarph]

Pet friendly decorations are decorations that are not made from materials that are harmful or toxic to animals, if they chew or eat them. You can find some of these at pet stores.

Examples:

Dogs - as suggested by the recipe I posted, make your own treats and use Cmas shaped cookie cutters to make them. When cooled, you can "paint" them with food coloring.
Small chew toys and chew sticks make good ornaments.

Cats - same thing, make your own treats using Cmas cookie cutters.
Also, small chew toys and chew sticks for cats.

Oh, ok! thanks!

[sillyboy86]

You don't need a shitty and boring christmas tree when you have an amazing pet!!!

[Rosie]

Eh cats can definitely be trained! All of mine know sit, stay, down, as well as all of the standard commands like yes, no, and back. Taking the time to train them makes for much more enjoyable pets imo. It honestly wasn't even very difficult, and the personalities of my cats vary greatly.

[MisterTinkles]

Eh cats can definitely be trained! All of mine know sit, stay, down, as well as all of the standard commands like yes, no, and back. Taking the time to train them makes for much more enjoyable pets imo. It honestly wasn't even very difficult, and the personalities of my cats vary greatly.

Yes, cats are more like people than dogs are. So in order to train a cat, you have to base the training on the cats personality. There are some basic training techniques that usually work on all cats, but not all.

Basic commands "yes" and "no" usually work, but anything more usually needs more training skills.....unless you have extremely smart cats. Ive had some REALLY stupid ones which took forever to train. But just as with any human baby, training takes time and effort.

[Rosie]

I would actually only peg two of my cats as being extremely intelligent, the other two are kind of dim and extremely stubborn. Two of my cats were bottle fed though, and the other two are a Siamese and an Oriental Shorthair -- all of them are extremely people oriented. All that it takes to show them they've done something wrong is to speak in a dissapointed tone, it certainly doesn't hurt that they are huge foodies too! Food rewards were initially a huge aspect of their training, now they do what they're supposed to without being told. Ex: when one of them is hungry they sit next to the food bowl patiently, or if they want to play I often get a toy mouse dropped in my lap and have a cat sitting and staring at me intently-- they actually use sit all the time because it makes it easy for them to get exactly what they want.
I know that I probably sound like a nut but our cats are our babies and we do spend an awful lot of time giving them attention.

[MisterTinkles]

I would actually only peg two of my cats as being extremely intelligent, the other two are kind of dim and extremely stubborn. Two of my cats were bottle fed though, and the other two are a Siamese and an Oriental Shorthair -- all of them are extremely people oriented. All that it takes to show them they've done something wrong is to speak in a dissapointed tone, it certainly doesn't hurt that they are huge foodies too! Food rewards were initially a huge aspect of their training, now they do what they're supposed to without being told. Ex: when one of them is hungry they sit next to the food bowl patiently, or if they want to play I often get a toy mouse dropped in my lap and have a cat sitting and staring at me intently-- they actually use sit all the time because it makes it easy for them to get exactly what they want.
I know that I probably sound like a nut but our cats are our babies and we do spend an awful lot of time giving them attention.

Which ones were hard to train? The Siamese and Oriental Shorthair? Ive heard that those breeds are extremely stubborn and rude.

My first encounter with a cat was when I was about 3 years old. I still remember it like it was yesterday too.

I lived with my grandma, and my momma brought over a friends cat to take care of while she was on vacation...of which my grandma didnt approve of first.

Anyway, I was sitting on the floor and was talking to the cat (Siamese Cat that is), and it just walked up to me and clawed me across the face. I screamed, my grandma came running into the room, saw what the cat did.....grabbed the cat by the tail, and flung it out the back door and across the fence into the alley.

My granny told my momma that the cat "ran away" when she opened the door.

I love cats, but I wont touch a Siamese for nothing.