#monday ask queue

I can’t say for sure, but I’d hazard a guess that it’s because it’s her own private space. Pretty much all canids will exhibit denning behavior, and our dogs aren’t all that different. It might be that it’s a space she can get away from the other dog, or that she prefers tight spaces, but either way - it’s her spot. It probably smells like only her and gets nice and comfy in there.

Option b) because when you need to get up, you’re going to pay them more attention - telling them they’re a stinker for being in the way, guilt petting before you kick them off your lap, even just physically trying to move them - and that actually reinforces the behavior of getting in the way right when you start showing precursor behaviors to getting up. 

If I had to hazard a guess, it might be that cats are really dependent on tactile feedback? Think about how much information they get just from their whiskers: they help them gauge if they’ll fit through a space, sense changes in airflow, and even help them determine where prey is right before they bite down. It could be that cats are easily overstimulated because they’re so fine-tuned into the physical feedback they get from whiskers and other parts of their bodies - but that’s totally a guess on my part. 

I’d also ask you, though, to sort of self-examine how you’re approaching the situation. Why do the cats need to enjoy being petted or picked up? It’s important for them to tolerate such things, sure, so you can make sure they’re not injured and move them if there’s a safety issue, but past that? It feels like kind of a human priority thing: it’s important to us that our cats like these things we want to do to them, but we’re not taking into account that it might be okay for these animals to just have a preference for those things not being done. Will asking the cats to tolerate handling and contact they don’t like make them more comfortable at home, or will it just make you happier? Will they enjoy socializing more when being asked to allow petting, or will you just be more comfortable engaging with them socially through that method rather than figuring out how they prefer to be social with humans instead? I’m not saying you’re wrong to want to condition your cats to be more accepting of tactile interactions, but I do think it’s important to know what are human priorities being projected onto the cats that you’re telling yourself are “for their benefit”, versus what pieces of interactions it is actually necessary for them to be willing to tolerate to successfully coexist in a human home. 

Make sure everyone who interacts with this puppy knows that hands are not for chewing, not at all, not even for a couple seconds, not even once if it’s really cute. Then, agree on what you’ll do if the puppy does try to chew on hands, so it’s consistent. If the puppy is teething, giving them another thing to chew on is great. If the puppy just wants to play, pull another toy out or find some way to engage play that’s incompatible with hand chewing. If the puppy is looking for attention or has learned it can get attention by chewing on hands, people should just be immediately disengaging for at least 10 seconds. Depending on the puppy, this latter might be just removing hands - but for very determined puppies who will keep attempting to chew on hands even if they’re behind your back, you might have to actually get up and move away. (Remember that indicating you’re upset about hand chewing, although cathartic, is still attention and will still accidentally reinforce the behavior). The more consistent everyone is with their responses to hand chewing, the less it should occur. 

Cats can absolutely learn their names. Now, it may not be that the cat associates [name] with whatever internal awareness they have of existing, and that it identifies them, but that doesn’t mean that a cat might not learn their name as a cue for “pay attention to the human time.” Just because you haven’t reinforced paying attention to their name with treats doesn’t mean you haven’t reinforced it in other ways - like with affection - and it’s pretty likely to also have been used in high association with other positive things, like talking to your cat before feeding them. 

I can’t really tell you if your cat understands your internal state, but if your cat isn’t reacting to your stimming in any way that normally correlates with an upset or stressed internal state on it’s part, we can at least say that it’s probably not interpreting your behavior as anything negative. Cats have the capability to learn what’s within the normal range of behaviors for other individuals, just like humans can - so I’d guess your cat has figured out that the expressive physical behaviors that comprise your stims are just normal behaviors for you and that they shouldn’t be overly concerned by them. 

Think about how feet work, no matter what the species - they’re designed to be able to expand and compress under an individual’s weight, to squish and change shape as weight is put on them throughout the length of the stride, and then to pull back together as the foot is lifted. Adding a shoe to that totally changes how walking feels (because the foot isn’t in contact with the ground directly) and potentially how it can occur (if the shoe is solid in a way that restricts expansion of the toes). Soft rubber / plastic shoes like the ones that you can get to protect pet toes from extreme weather may not extremely restrict how their feet can move, but they’d definitely feel weird! And if there’s something weird or wrong relating to feet, what does anyone reflexively do? Walk gingerly until you figure it out / get used to it / the thing that feels weird falls off.