SpotTheDog

Jed, I too want to thank you for sharing your experience. I always thought that in this easily accessible bungalow, with the big windows, I'd be easily able to escape in a fire, and I didn't give it much further thought. Then I realised that I'm at one end of the house and the cats sleep in their room at the other end of the house, and the dog's in the centre of the house, so now I'm far more prepared, even just in my mind, in terms of where keys are, how I'd get to different access points (I could roll out my bed and get out my window in two seconds flat and have decided will access the animals through the windows from outside). Fire alarms here are all connected to the mains and all working.

I have cats and the dog so I go for microsuede. It absolutely repels pet hair, as opposed to attracting it in swathes like cotton-type fabrics. I can't have leather because cats can't resist using any stuffed leather furniture piece to sharpen their claws, and you end up with a pepperpot punched finish like a cheese grater. Problem with microsuede is that it can be used a lot in covering cheap rubbish couches (like mine ), but I'd love to be able to find a good quality modular lounge suite with a heavy microsuede fabric. Seriously - six cats, and there's hardly any pet hair on the couch. Cleans up easy too.

Find an equine supplier and buy a long rein or a lunge rein?

It's tough, isn't it? I have mixed days about Gus (and feel terrible about them). I'm trying to keep my eyes firmly focused on the future with Gus, and I'm committing to setting up a proper routine. When I got Gus, I had him 48 hours and my father died, so I had to leave him for 4.5 weeks with my husband. When I got back in early September I had to start from scratch with him, and it's really only been seven weeks since then. Some moments I look at him and I love him, others it's a case of frustration and upset and 'bloody dog'. A lot of that has been because I'm in the middle of grieving and some days I can be great, and other days I can't cope if I put too much milk in my coffee. Stick a growing pup in the middle of that rollercoaster, with his own good days and bad days, and as you can imagine the going isn't too smooth. Additionally my husband is leaving with the army on Tuesday next until the end of January, and it's just me and the animals until he gets back, but I'm hoping I can set up an easier routine for me and them when he goes and I have faith that it'll all work out. We'll look back on these difficult times and laugh, me and the menagerie, and by the time himself returns in 2011 we'll be a close knit unit of happy, chilled out fur-family. Oh - and I'm currently studying for exams in February and applying for a new job, so between dad, army, exams, job, puppy and six cats, I suppose it wouldn't be unreasonable for me to give myself a break when I have a bad day!?

What a cool thread! This is Gus aged 12-14 weeks, first night home, skinny and still with ringworm but just after his flea bath. And this is Gus last week - for the sake of a birth date we will put him at six months old on 1st November, he's 18kgs and as you can see the cats like to sleep in his bed (and won't let him onto it). Hmmm, must take a better picture of him later today. He's a chewer and a digger, but not a whinger or a barker. Also he does the sort of bizarre and cool stuff that I always saw dogs doing and thought 'wow, cool' - e.g. if you drop his lead on a walk he'll pick it up in his mouth and trot along with it (doesn't like it dragging). If you pass a low wall on a walk he'll carry on a hissy fit unless you allow him to get up on it and you have to walk along the path while he walks on the wall!! Edited to add: This is gus this evening, tempted by a treat.

I have a jumper, digger, chewer (who's only about six months old :D Dear God help me if it gets worse and not better!) There are a range of heavy rubber toys by a company called europet bernina - there's a pet shop in Epping, Victoria who are closing down and selling the toys cheap at the moment. There are *THE BEST THING* I've found so far for Gus. I can't imagine they're the only shop that stocks them, seeing you're in WA! They have this one toy we call the 'morningstar ball' - it's a rubber ball covered in rubber spikes. He hasn't managed to destroy it and he LOVES it. The rubber nubs seem to give him a gum massage as he chews and mouths the ball, and it's a good size for throwing and bouncing in the garden too. He loves it so much I actually went back and bought two more of them before the shop closes - at about $6 each they're a steal. They also have a heavy rubber bone (like a barbell - that ones good for hauling about the place and throwing up in the air) a rubber ring (that one's great for pushing around the floor because you can't figure out how and where to pick it up) and rubber balls (we didn't buy one of these because we have choking paranoia - hence the rubber-nub-covered morningstars instead).

My only reservation about a hot wire and larger dogs is whether they associate the shock with you. As per the poster who said her two dogs had a barney after getting a shock, I was walking around a relative's property and their 50kg rottie was along with us. They have horses and have two hot wires, one high and one low, in their paddock fences. The rottie got a zap from the lower hotwire after squeezing under it - the cousin had called him, the dog started towards him, and got the smack from the wire and then there was a really, really dodgy moment where it looked like the dog thought the cousin had done it to him - and was NOT impressed. My cousin was calling and reassuring the dog but he was still coming on stiff and with very unhappy body language. I was off to one side and whistled to him - the distraction broke the moment, but honestly for a minute it really looked like the dog was going to have him.

I've just come in from a walk with Gus, and oh how I lolled to see this thread. Gus is somewhere between five and six months of age (rescue crossbreed - bull arab x or bull arab or bitsa everydamnthing basically.) When I left the house this morning I didn't register the time - 8.30am, rush hour. Doh. We met, on our walk today: Traffic. The postie on his motorbike. A cyclist. A small child on a tricycle. Another dog on-lead whose owners were very intimidated by Gus's barely restrained, vibrating interest - he sat down, I didn't try to move him until they'd passed. I even said hello to them, which confused them even more - it's like they thought I was going to set Gus on their dog (a kelpie that was minding its own business.) A shetland pony in his paddock (terrifying). The police. (Sit and obediently wait at the corner of the road beside owner, like rockstar dog.) Two heavy machinery road graders. (Bitsa mix includes greyhound - rockstar to dickhead in 0.2 seconds.) A 16-wheel flatbed truck stacked with pallets, who pulled away from the kerb while we were passing him (cue total panic attack). Various barking dogs in their gardens. Various barking dogs in the front windows of their houses. A guy pressure washing his car at the back of the servo. Gus sat down a few times, and I just waited him out. He had a panic attack outside the DVD store and refused to move, (prompted by apparently nothing) so I sat down on the kerb with him. I got him to lie down, and gave him a treat. (Puppy can lie down on request, tempted by a treat, in a public space, but won't walk across the vacant concrete in front of the DVD shop. Go figure.) Once I stood up he was ready to go again, panic having passed. He tried to go the opposite way to where I wanted to go a few times - we went his way for about seven feet and then turned about and continued the way I wanted to go. The machinery, the cars, the truck, the pony - with all of those I managed to jolly him past with a combination of weighty praise, confident movement and treats, but I'm at a loss about the other dog - Gus didn't want to move, I didn't make him, he didn't bark or strain the lead, he just sat with his attention 10000000% on the other dog - whose owners, as I said, looked a bit worried. There are a lot of dogs around here, but we've managed to avoid them to date - not that many seem to get walked. Not sure if I should do something differently next time? First obedience class is on Sunday (given I missed the last one on daylight savings - like dog like owner, bit dumb sometimes). So we're home, and I'm wrecked, and the pup's asleep in his bed!!

My six cats are contained in my yard. Last Monday week, one escaped - my neighbour's dog had dug into the gravel on her side of the fence at the rear of the yard, and my cat squeezed under the hole the dog had dug under the fence boundary. My cats don't roam, so I didn't wait - after two hours of searching, I called both local vets and the rangers and reported him missing, and I leafletted my neighbours' postboxes with a picture and an explanation. They probably thought I was way overreacting but I knew, when he didn't return when called, that something was wrong. My neighbour's dog is a large crossbreed - maybe mastiff x lab, about 40kgs. Nobody was home next door and the dog is poorly socialised - never walked - so I wasn't going into their large yard to hunt for the cat - I figured he was either hiding out in her shed, which was partially open, or under her pool, but I was pretty sure he was in there. At 11.30pm that night the cat returned. He had a scalping wound on his outer flank and a clean, deep puncture in his groin, about a half an inch from his urethra. The inside of the thigh that was scalped was a deep purple, completely bruised, under the fur. We spoke to the OOH vet and took him in the following morning because his breath sounds were good and he was eating and benefitted more from being settled overnight than an hour-long car ride to the OOH vet (with an hour-long transfer back to a local vet the next day no doubt). However, the point of this - before I found the puncture and the bruising, I initially checked to see if the cat had been hit by a car by gently squeezing his paws to flex his nails - the impact will knock the cat and they often reflexively try to stop their progress across the ashphalt by extending their claws, so nails will be scuffed and broken. His claws weren't scuffed or broken, but they were thick with blood - and it's not his. Whatever caught him and bit him, he gave as good as he got and it let him go. The problem - we have asked our neighbour twice to check that her dog is okay, because despite the fact that her dog dug the fences out, my cat most probably started the fight and it was in her yard, so I was going to offer her the vet bill for her dog. However, even though I explained my cat is fine ($113 at the vet is a reasonable vet bill for me - exam, wound clean, anti-inflammatory painkiller and antibiotic shot, and I've insurance with a $100 excess so I could always claim the $13 back), she keeps denying that her dog is responsible for his injuries. I don't know why, and I'm concerned that her dog, who's black, lives outdoors and is never walked, hasn't been properly examined for damage which might not show up obviously on a black dog. There's not much else I can do though - my and DH have thrown another $300 at our cat-proofing, digging treated pine into the fence bases in 6m lengths and hammering in star pickets to make sure it really can't be dug out, and then wiring over any parts we're not 100% sure of. Saying all that, if one of my cats escaped and a neighbour who opportunistically traps cats on their property hosed my cat in a cage because it was caught (and it WOULD be a one-time property invasion), I'm really not sure what I'd do, especially if they hadn't spoken to me first. A highly stressful incident in a cat can cost a fortune in vet bills. My dog-bit guy currently has an upper respiratory tract infection as a result of the stress of what he went through, and in my experience with fostering cats this can happen as a secondary problem in cats who've been very stressed - their immune systems take a nose-dive and they can end up falling ill with sneezes, coughs and cystitis quite easily, all of which costs money to treat. So yeah, knock on your neighbour's door first.

Hmm I find my guy will vomit up any bone he hasn't been able to chew right up - I gave him a chunk of oxtail a while back and he threw up one of the bones from near the end of the tail - looked like he'd swallowed it whole. Since then I've focused mostly on chicken chunks - wings, necks, backs, quarters, so on, lamb riblets, lamb or beef heart, lamb or beef liver, haven't tried any kidney (it always made the cats puke violently so I've passed it over for now), got him a rabbit recently and fed that in thirds (he thoroughly enjoyed that). I also feed tripe, either beef tripe or honeycomb tripe. Just occured to me, it's not green tripe, it's been washed - can anyone confirm if this is okay? Edit to add I've read the stuff on tripe at the start of this thread, but not the whole thread. Am going to chat to my butcher about a regular supply of raw for my animals, but I just want to make sure that white tripe isn't BAD for the dog per se. My guy is doing very well indeed on raw - scratching has eased off considerably, weight is gone on without being fat, and the condition of his skin and coat is improving by the day.

You can report it as a nuisance cat to your local rangers and see if they'll loan you a trap (saves you getting into any potential trouble for trapping it), or complain again to your neighbours - this time tell them your dog may grow to dislike the cat and you'd be worried it'll hurt their cat in the future. You can cat-proof your fences - a prohibitive expense if you don't have cats yourself, but useful if you have a cat or are interested in getting a cat in the future. There are fencing systems you can buy, or you can rig up a netting system that leans into your yard using pipes and plumbing fixtures if you're remotely handy. If you google cat-proof fencing, or go to www.oscillot.com.au (fabulous system, pricey for a large yard, very discrete), you'll get some ideas.

Nope. You don't get the award for biggest idiot. I do. I get the award for biggest idiot, because today I missed daylight savings time and missed the first puppy school class. :p

I think every dog is different. At puppy stage, a dog has a personality. Some pups are timid, some are boisterous. Some are nippers, some are snoozers. There's a personality in that tiny little body - regardless of the breed the dog is, you're not just given a shapleless piece of clay that will turn into precisely what you mould - there's writing on the canvas already. Second to that there are breed characteristics - but I don't agree necessarily that 'agression' is a breed characteristic of any dog. If it were, then fighting dogs wouldn't have to be trained with the cruelty and viciousness that is involved in fighting training in order to create a 'champion fighter' because it would come automatically. I do believe tenacity, courage, intelligence, focus, chase, herd and guard are breed characteristics. Still, there can be timid rottweiler puppies, dumb border collies, jack russells that aren't inclined to tug and wool, so on so forth. When you go for a breed you go for characteristics, but it's still not a guarantee you'll have the perfect whatever you were hoping for. How many of us have had GSDs or rotties in our experience that were the gentlest, kindest sweethearts you could ever meet? I know at least one of each - but what's that all about? Is that a failing in the breed because that gentleness and that kindness aren't what those dogs were bred for? So yes, I agree that there is something to be said for nature, and something to be said for nurture - but I honestly believe the biggest influence on its life outcome is the individual personality of the dog in question.

Hmmm... Rabbit-lined Uggs Fully Sick Red Nose Fookin Massif Dog Rabbit-lined Uggs Wait Till Ya See How Many Puppies I'll Throw Rabbit-lined Uggs This One's For Me Bro Rabbit-lined Uggs Wot's Hip Dyslexia Den? Rabbit-lined Uggs Imma Regista You When I Get Fined And those are just five of the 12 puppies from the first litter... Feel free to contribute more... /end thread derailment

The mounting thing is definitely a problem. As someone who owns a mounter, I correct the dog's behaviour every time I see the first sign of that humping bum twitch, and I hope that through being corrected the dog won't persist, but from my point of view it drives me bats when other owners think it's about sex. My dog never had teenaged hormones - he's a rescue, he's been without his testicles from 12 weeks of age. I recognise it's antisocial (though from the dog's point of view he probably thinks it's quite social indeed) but yeah, I'd never stand there and encourage him to go for his life!

lol @ Jed's story Just reminds me, poor Gus seems to attract the wrong sort of attention when I take him out because of how he looks. So in the spirit of the Shonky Christmas Puppies thread, I decided to give him a full and magnificent breed title: Ch. Grouse Dog Mate, Bet He's Fully Sick for Rabbits.

I like the guy who recently walked up to me and my pup in a beer garden (dog-friendly pub), put his 11 week old bulldog bitch on the ground in front of my dog (without asking) and said 'say hello'. She flew at my guys face and he sort of sat there going 'okaaaaaay, this is a full-on assault but I'm being passive' and eventually put his foot on her to hold her away from him (I had him by his collar and was hoping he wouldn't try to eat her, she was pretty full on). My guy's been neutered since about 12 weeks of age, but he still exhibited a bit of a humping thrust as he stood up over this pup - purely I think an effort to establish who was boss. Guy who owned the puppy snatched her up and said 'Jesus, yer dog's trying to root me dog!' and walked off with her in a huff.

That's just absolutely gorgeous.

Rusky, I have six rescued cats and I foster cats, I also trap and socialise feral kittens and try to get TNR programmes in place in my locality so I have done some rescue. I currently have a five month rescue puppy that I paid $400 for from a reputable shelter - he was crawling with fleas and had ringworm - bad enough to be chronic ringworm. He was severely underweight when I got him. The shelter took him as a surrender, whipped his knackers off at the vet, and they advertised him like that - they'd probably had him 72 hours tops when I took him home. They also told me they didn't do home checks because they 'didn't like to judge'. I called them and emailed them and they have never, not once, responded to my ringing or emailing them. Now, because I have done rescue, I made a decision to stop flogging that dead horse, took the pup to my own vet 24 hours after I got him (a Saturday morning, and she charged me the price of one Milbemax tablet for the consult where she identified ringworm, cleaned the pup's two filthy, black-tarred ears, and gave me some advice on how to feed him up) and have not been back in contact with the shelter since. It was not in my pup's best interests to be rehomed in the condition he was rehomed. That is what I mean when I say 'revolving door rescue'. I am very glad to hear that the OP's experience with his shelter, on closer examination, wasn't as trite as it first sounded - but this is where I'm coming from at the moment. /Edit to add that I'm not saying that this is a general thing in rescue, not by any means at all. But I've been doing a bit of digging on the shelter where I got my pup, and my situation doesn't appear to be a one-off. This worries me intensely - worse again than even buying a pet shop puppy, in my mind, is getting a dog from a rescue and having an experience that would stop you from rescuing ever again, and even encourage you to advise friends and family not to rescue. Because it's forefront in my mind at the moment I bristled at the OP's post and what I thought was 'oh it'll all be fine' from the rescue, hence my post.

ravenau1, it's under the cat section (last link on the left from the main page) and listed under 'unusual products'.

Hey - I buy mine online at www.dogfood.com.au - I find those guys really good; I can get my Oz-Pet cat litter, plus feliway plug-ins and the spray, plus catfood / dogfood and various toys, treats, worm tablets etc; plus they deliver free on orders over $130 which is great for me because I'm relatively rural. Edit to add: I'm not a shill! I don't get anything freebie from these guys for mentioning them so I hope it's okay with the mods.

LOL, Kirty we'll have to agree to disagree on this one, I think that approach is a disaster waiting to happen! The end result I agree with - if the cat learns to stand its ground, the dog has no further game plan and will just back off. However, I'd be really reluctant to hold the cat and present it to the dog, for the reasons I described above. Plus, I know some cats who are timid enough to run, and for them it could take weeks and weeks to come back from a badly managed introduction where they were thrust at the dog, especially if the dog has a prey drive and would respond very excitedly to such a gesture, as opposed to being cowed and backing off. My dog-aggressive cat, he was out in the yard one day sitting on the compost bins. I didn't realise the pup was out there too. I went out to see the cat and was giving him a cuddle, then lifted him to carry him inside. As I was crossing the lawn, the pup came around the corner. The pup went bananas - started jumping up to get the cat. It's testament to how self-assured the DA cat is that he simply sat in my arms and swiped his front paws at the dog when it jumped. I was trying to fend the pup off with my foot but he was hysterically excited and ignoring me. Eventually (and roaring at the dog like a freigh train, I'm afraid) I set the cat down gently and went to grab the dog, but it was amazing - the cat had waited, patiently and without struggling, until I had all four of his feet on the ground, and then he went absolutely baldheaded for the dog. A major chase ensued, cat after dog - then the cat stopped and the pup turned and started to leap in and out at him, barking excitedly - I caught hold of him about five seconds after the cat had finally lost it completely and caught the tip of the pup's ear, splitting it. I manhandled the pup (by 'pup', he was 12kgs at this point and capable of bouncing as high as my chest, but yes, still a pup) into the laundry and it felt like there was blood everywhere - I couldn't see the wound and the pup had shook his head so blood had spattered all over his shoulders and I was terrified the cat had ripped his skin so he'd need stitches. As it was, we did home first aid and that was sufficient, but I'm not too proud to give an example of how I managed to completely arse that one up!

Hey Azrael - I'm a new poster to these forums and pretty new to dogs, but cats have been my thing for a long time, so let's see if I can help you. First, cats are just as territorial and emotionally affected by new things as dogs are - they just demonstrate their reactions differently. A lot of how the introductions are managed depends on whether you keep your cats indoor-only, indoor/outdoor with restricted access so they can't roam, or if you let them free range when they're outdoors. A badly miffed cat, who has unrestricted outdoor access, will often simply leave the household if introductions aren't going to its liking, so that's something to keep in mind. You've obviously already done first introductions, but for anyone else who reads, there are some dos and dont's. The best way to manage a first introduction is to choose a relatively neutral room within your house, e.g. not where the cat's food, water, or litter trays are. Bring the cat into the room first and it often helps if you give them a high vantage point, so place them on a table, or sideboard, or on the couch. Stroke the cat and give it a treat. Ensure the cat has a free escape route so it can get away from the pup. Bring the pup into the room on a lead. Keep everything calm and quiet and reassuring. Initially the pup probably won't notice the cat. It helps if there is someone who the cat likes with the cat to stroke and reassure the cat at the same time you have the pup. Once the pup notices the cat, allow him to approach slowly. Puppies are seriously full on and most cats aren't that interested in seriously full-on puppies, so the cat's first reaction will almost always be to inflate their fur and hiss, and potentially swat the pup. It's up to you to manage this - continue to reassure the cat, and the pup, but try not to let them get close enough so the cat gets a chance to smack the pup. If the cat is up high, allow the pup to approach but do NOT allow the pup to get his paws up on the couch, hair, bench or whatever - he'll get a cat in the face if you let this happen. Best case scenario on a first meeting is they get close enough for a nose-touch, but let the cat be the one who approaches the pup. If you let the pup do all the approaching, he'll get into the cat's face, nose touch, then maybe bounce, and the cat will hiss into his face and smack him. That's all fine and dandy but a cat can take a pup's eye out and you need to be careful. Allow the pup to approach, see the cat, praise all calm and interested behaviour, and correct a negative response, like a bark or a bounce, with a sharp noise and take the pup away from the cat. When the pup has settled some, give him a treat. Whoever is minding the cat should do something similar - reassuring stroking and offering a treat. If the cat chooses to leave by sauntering away, do NOT let the pup give chase. If you can, once you've brought the pup to meet the cat, when you take him away again put him in a sit or a lie and distract him with a treat so the cat can get used to looking at him for a while. Never, EVER, pick the cat up and bring him to meet the dog - you may think you're doing the right thing, but the dog will become extremely excited by the sight of you presenting him with a cat, and the cat can do you some serious damage trying to get away as the dog jumps up at you trying to get the cat - and it's a hard thing to manage because you have your hands full of struggling cat and the dog will be totally ignoring all of your commands in his excitement. For older resident cats, there's a product called Feliway - a synthesised feline happy hormone. It's available as a plug-in (the bottle fits in a Mortein dispenser, which is half the price of a Feliway dispenser) and in a spray bottle. The plug-in will last a month and can have a very good calming effect for some cats in new situations. You can use the spray to spray on beds, scratching posts etc. to have a similar effect. Never leave the dog and the cat alone together or outside together to 'sort it out themselves'. It won't happen - you'll just come out with injury, resentment and animosity and you'll have to work on rebuilding the relationship from scratch. I've found using a babygate across a door has been very useful - the dog can see the cats and they can see him, but he can't get to them. A crate would work similarly but like you, I'm not using one at home at the moment because I use the family bathroom as the dog's overnight bed. My guy is now around the five month mark and I have six cats. Five of them tolerate him or are wary of him, one attacks him. The attacking cat is quite dog-aggressive, something we didn't realise when we got our pup. I'm currently trying to regain ground after we made the mistake of allowing the cats and the pup simultaneous time outdoors without the pup on a lead - it was down to circumstances outside my control, but it's a bad idea, don't do it. However now the pup has good recall inside the house, and he comes in and sleeps on his bed in the living room in the evening while the cats are dotted around the couch. He will still try and 'bounce' the cats, but it's very much play - they skip out of the way and go up high, hissing, but he never tries to go up high after them - no paws on the counters or tables, for instance (and he's well big enough). If we're out of the house we don't allow them to mix unsupervised - he goes into his bed in the bathroom behind the babygate and they have the rest of the house. One cat in particular is adjusting to him - she never hisses, and she nose-touches with him, but he's a little bugger and tries to play-bounce her and it's too much so she darts away from him. However she'll approach him in his bed and when he's quiet, and he's licked her in the face a couple of times (to her horror). One thing that's worked well for me is feeding them both liver treats. I treat the cat first, then the pup, then the cat, then the pup. My pup has no food aggression or possession issues, and he now associates treat time with time when the cats are inches away from him and he has to sit quietly and behave for his treats. Leerburg define the time that the pup is ready to be allowed off-lead around the cats as the time he stops barking at them. You have to take it slowly - I don't have a newfie, but my bull arab boy may be around the 35kg mark when he's grown so it's important that he's controlled and calm around the cats and learns to tolerate them - but I can't see myself ever allowing him and them in the yard, simultaneously, with him off-lead - I think we did too much wrong by allowing them out together for a month or so and I'm not sure we'll ever come back from it.

I've yet to meet a puppy that isn't "tiny, shy, submissive, not highly intelligent and just a cute bundle you want to cuddle". The shelter person was right to point you in the direction that you can't assume an adult temperment in a cross-breed pup just because it has some XYZ in it. However I'd rather hear that the shelter person reminded you that pups take time and effort but everything would probably be fine, or hear that the shelter person asked you were you comfortable on how to conduct first-time introductions to your own dogs, or that they suggested you bring your dog there to meet the pup (did they do that?) or whatever, instead of suggesting you cuddle the puppy. I'm vaguely prickly about 'revolving door' shelters at the moment - get the dog in, whip its knackers off and sell it on asap without a home check on the basis that you should 'cuddle the puppy' and everything will be a-okay. You were right to come on here to get some knowledgeable input and some perspective, but is it okay that I want to kick the shelter person in the bum?

I tried something like this, this morning with Gus. Show treat. Put treat on floor. Cover treat with upturned plastic Harry Potter cup. (Great opportunity to forever banish horrible cup from kitchen cupboard.) "Get treat!" Sniff cup. Sniff around cup. Walk away. Return. Sniff cup again. Sniff top of cup. Lick floor around cup sadly. Nudge cup with nose. Cup slides along timber floor. Too hard. Go to bed. Move cup to carpet. Sniff cup. Sniff around cup. Walk away. Return. Sniff cup again. Lick carpet around cup. Gack, carpet, yuck, splutter. Nudge cup with nose. Cup catches in carpet. Oh wait! Look! A piece of treat. Snaffle treat. Cup falls over while snaffling. ... ... oh LOOK! Cup on its side is no longer intimidating Canine Mensa test! It's a TOY!!! Kick cup. Pounce on cup. Pick cup up with teeth and carry it around, look at me, I have this plastic cup, I'm so AWESOME!! Trot with cup in mouth. Delighted owner takes cup and covers treat with cup again. "Get treat!" ...bafflement. Whyfore you take away toy and turn this into immense test? Sniff and go to bed for sulks.