artillery

his name is artillery, or arthur tillery, or artie, or art, or monster truck vehicle / vickie to his godmeowther.

i started feeding him and then invited him into my house and he came in so. he's my cat now. i'm trying to train him to adjust him to life as a pet the best i can, but it is my first time training a cat so i have a lot of thoughts about it. gonna put those here.

feel free to follow along

nevermind on the less supervision in the backyard thing. he left earshot today so he gets less privileges

he's started hopping in the stroller. i was hoping it'd double as just like. dedicated cat furniture. and it does! he's mostly begging for walks but it's a million degrees still and i want the excuse to introduce him to the pet stroller gradually so we haven't gotten past the driveway yet

he refused his tunnel (even with a catnip bribe) when it was moved to another room. the moment i put it back he immediately jumped in it. #reunited

puzzle feeders intimidate him so i'm interspersing bowl feeding with trailing his dry food around his cat tree so he can get used to foraging before i up the difficulty a bit

i froze little pumpkins (only mold i had) of wet food for him and he got too excited twice so we had to take breaks from making them. finally he got to do tricks for what was left of the can and he did very well tolerating his harness and i started him on learning touch with paw

he didn't tolerate a ton of toothbrushing today. i could have done a second session but i prioritized other stuff

he was VERY well behaved with screaming at the door today. i brought him in from morning backyard time early and he only complained for a few minutes, and then later he slept until five minutes past afternoon backyard time and then came trotting up chirping to ask to go out.

i'm trying to teach him to go to his little cat bed instead of swarming me when told to, but it was day 2, so. not too much progress so far.

trying to give him a variety of play scenarios (chasing, covered ambush, and laying catch mostly) every day to give him the best possible enrichment

his new toys still. haven't. arrived. two more days.

i fucking. i was messing with my little plasma ball and i thought oh artillery's starting to learn touch with paw i bet it'd be super easy to teach him to touch the plasma ball and then i can see his cute little toe beans lit up so i tried to convince him to but he's scared of it😭 he didn't even want to take his treats next to it! it gives him the heebie jeebies you should see his worried little face it's ridiculous

i have him wear a collar with a bell when he goes out so that 1. i can hear where he is, 2. local wildlife gets a slight advantage (i rescue lizards from him dw), and 3. if he does wander off, folks will know he's not a stray. he loves outdoor time so much that he gets excited when i get out the collar at this point

at first i was watching him every time he went out and rewarding him for staying where i could see him, and i tried to end outdoor time early if he jumped the fence. i'd give him a treat every time he came back in the house, even if just for a few seconds, and he got good at coming in for breaks from the heat and asking to come in unprompted. i'm still tapering off treat EVERY time he comes in to keep it unpredictable and more rewarding.

and i knew i fucked up on his harness because he was getting good at wearing it for a moment or two and i thought nice! next goal: getting him to move around in it! but that was stupid; the next goal is getting him to wear it for more than a second or two.

but also!!! i was secretly fucking it up a second way because i forgot the training principle that you should always end on a good note!!!! i was putting it on him and just waiting for him to walk backwards to show he wanted it off, but of course that would reinforce discomfort with it!!

so i finally realized that i need to get him to wear it and sit in it for however long and then take it off BEFORE he tells me he's done with it.