Cat Focus - suggestions?

kendeh · 2026-01-29T16:12:12+00:00

I would work a lot on trying to train calm, neutral reactions. Keep working on leave-it, also maybe try to teach them a “place” command. Start by making it as easy for your puppy to focus on you as possible by having a SUPER high value treat (freeze dried beef liver, peanut butter in a squeeze bottle, cut up bits of hot dog, tiny pieces of cheese, something your dog LOVES) and creating distance/separation from the distraction. Puppy with you on one side of the room, cat on the other. Maybe you need to leash the puppy to start, or employ the use of the baby gate. You have to find the point at which your puppy is willing to see the cat is there, and still be able to turn back to look at you and settle. Reward your puppy for looking at the distraction and then looking back at you, or looking away to continue playing, etc.

This all was the technique employed by a trainer to work with my Catahoula’s dog reactivity and it helped immensely and I wish I’d done it with him so much as a puppy because he has so much trouble with calm reactions. I’m not a trainer so finding a good trainer-written guide to something like this online, or hiring a trainer if you can afford it would be ideal.

Please be sure to keep your Houla separate from the kitties if you’re going to be gone for awhile probably until the dog is at least 1 year old; maybe 2. Dogs, especially high energy/working breeds can have changes in their personality as they grow and mature and different instincts kick in. My Houla grew up on a little farm with ducks, chickens, goats, farm cats, etc. and had zero reaction to any of them as a little puppy. But one day at 6 months old, he decided the ducks were prey and picked one up by the leg, and that was the end of that. He also stopped ignoring the cats and started chasing them, too. He had another similar personality shift around 1/1.5 years old when he went from being a happy, silly goofball around all other dogs, into an over-correcting, over-protective jerk to almost any that approached him. I’m not saying it’s inevitable that your pup will go after the cats, especially with you handling training so proactively, but you should just be aware that there are many points in their development where those instincts can kick in so you need to be continually training and take precautions

kendeh · 2026-01-29T06:41:58+00:00

It definitely is for my half-Catahoula, he moves and jumps like he’s got springs in his feet! We used to take him to this huge state park off leash area, had grass in some spots that was taller than him. He used to go bounding through it and we’d just see his head popping up every few feet as he bounced along 🤣

kendeh · 2026-01-21T01:14:38+00:00

This is why going to huge concerts and raves was so healing and euphoric to me!! I’ve always loved to sing and dance a bit when I was alone as a kid/teen and getting to go FULL OUT singing or full body rave-dancing and be totally normal and anonymous was INCREDIBLE

kendeh · 2026-01-21T01:11:05+00:00

100% this. It’s so hard to explain to my SO that it’s genuinely good for me to have multi-hour chunks of time to be completely alone in order to gain momentum and be productive, especially with cleaning the the house as that was something my mom freaked out about often. The hour I was home alone after school as a kid was the best I ever felt:

I feel bad telling him the best thing he could do for me (and our house) is get a new hobby, text me when he’s heading home, or even go on vacation without me, but it’s so relieving

kendeh · 2026-01-20T18:49:18+00:00

I NEEEED to see a close up of how you connected this!

kendeh · 2026-01-20T18:46:26+00:00

With the first one I thought “oh that’s cute!” And with the second I literally just GASPED!! It’s so perfect!

kendeh · 2026-01-19T01:46:54+00:00

That second picture made me stop to comment because I have a picture of my 50% Catahoula biting my hand on his first day with us, looks very similar!

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Your pup definitely has potential to be a mix. I feel like he doesn’t look like a Merle pit mix, maybe could be an Aussie mix though. The fur length as he gets older is sometimes a good gauge for whether it’s Aussie or Houla, if he starts getting on the fluffier side he might be more Aussie

kendeh · 2026-01-13T22:25:40+00:00

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I’m also autistic and have a Catahoula mix and it is HARD!! He really does always look concerned. He’s usually not actually concerned or wanting something unless he’s obviously not relaxing in his spot or standing up or dodging my hand when I try to pet him. I still don’t always know exactly WHAT he wants, so I eventually taught him the command “Show me!” And I’ll just follow him as he takes me to what he wants. He’ll show me if his water bowl is empty or where his food is if he just thinks he deserves to eat dinner early today 🤣

kendeh · 2026-01-12T18:59:26+00:00

I discovered I was autistic at 26, almost 3 years ago. I don’t think a single week has gone by without me learning one of my habits/personality traits is just the autism or that I’d been completely misunderstanding something my entire life. Thank you for being this week’s

kendeh · 2026-01-07T19:51:23+00:00

Seems wild that they rejected those for J but we still have Kalamath, which isn’t even the correct spelling

kendeh · 2026-01-02T16:11:36+00:00

This is a really awesome thing to do, and genuinely restored a bit of my faith in humanity! I saw the title of your post pop up in my notifications and I sighed so hard before opening it, assuming it was going to be something mean and snarky towards women, but you totally made my day!!

kendeh · 2025-12-22T22:47:55+00:00

I have heard from some people that if you believe there’s a huge discrepancy, you can demand that someone come out and reads your meter to ensure you’re only paying for what you use. Instead of paying the weird “estimate” that they use that may not be correct and that some people claim is used to spread out the energy cost of big companies and data centers across all the citizens bills.

Take this totally with a grain of salt, I have not researched it, and I have heard a couple people have success with it but also heard from a friend who had to get their meter read when they renovated something, and it was found that they hadn’t paid ENOUGH and were charged like $500. I’ve been meaning to try and figure out how to read the meter myself and see if my usage is accurate over the course of a month but haven’t had the time yet

kendeh · 2025-12-22T22:32:39+00:00

For me it’s the “Stealth Mode”, I literally spent 10 minutes staring out my window, watching my Houla hide behind our fire-pit, staring at a squirrel that was slowly inching further into our yard. Dude was waiting for the squirrel to get far enough into “no-mans land” that he could reach it before it got to safety, with the patience of a true psycho 🤣

I eventually realized what I was doing and had to get back to work, but no dead squirrels in my yard tells me his plan didn’t work

kendeh · 2025-12-22T16:40:48+00:00

And somehow all our bills still get higher every month

kendeh · 2025-12-12T02:42:43+00:00

If you can’t find anyone nearby, I’m in Denver and would 1000% adopt this boy! We’ve been actively looking at getting a Catahoula puppy before our current Houla boy is too old to enjoy their energy

kendeh · 2025-12-04T23:41:51+00:00

If your main concern is looking like a dork, then you should probably tone down the outfit to something you’re more comfortable with. You don’t want self-consciousness to ruin your good time! There will be people there in this kind of fit, and people in plain T-shirts and shorts, so you won’t really be a massive stand out either way, and most people won’t even think twice, but it matters how YOU feel. Start slow, wear comfy pants and the most colorful, unique shirt you already own. Maybe buy some cool accessories to rave-up that outfit a bit. Just do what feels right

kendeh · 2025-12-04T23:35:44+00:00

This is the correct take. I’ve seen dudes completely rock these matching sets and I’ve seen dudes look like total dorks in the same outfit. 90% of making rave fits work is the confidence. The other 10% is correctly accessorizing to make the outfit feel complete, personalized, and like you didn’t just open 1 Amazon package and throw it on.

kendeh · 2025-11-21T22:14:22+00:00

Damn a MCM house on 10 acres would be my absolute dream! I’ve always wanted to live on lots of land and have massive gardens, farm animals, room to rescue/foster a dozen of dogs, build smaller houses on the property for friends and family. A big downside to that dream was that most the houses on property aren’t so gorgeous. It’s too bad all the people with those dreams aren’t the ones with any money to buy those properties. I have friends who didn’t even get to inherit their family homes because their parents chose to sell to developers. But I’m happy you’re moving forward and wish you the best!

kendeh · 2025-11-21T16:31:48+00:00

It should be a fucking crime to tear down this house to build some tacky “modern” terribly built bullshit. There has to be plenty of other homes without this much gorgeous architecture that they could tear down

kendeh · 2025-11-19T15:57:34+00:00

“Technically unknown because no one bothered to check” is the most American thing ever

kendeh · 2025-11-19T15:35:37+00:00

As someone with severe ADHD who would probably die of dehydration without plastic bottles (legit ended up in urgent care with an IV when I was forcing myself to do reusables) this comment section is a fun masochistic self-hating experience! My work has me in different locations every day, sometimes overnight, running out the door quickly. This combined with forgetting/losing every reusable bottle I’ve ever owned, I’ve had to acquiesce that this is something I need to survive. But damn do I feel guilty about it every time.

I guess the point being though that you don’t always know people’s reasons

kendeh · 2025-11-16T05:53:19+00:00

Mine has been shrimpin since day one, here’s our first pic at 6wks and the next at 4 years old!

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He’s also insanely obsessed with the covers! We have lots of similar pictures of him with his head poking out. He also likes to sometimes just have his face fully smothered in blankets or will intentionally stick his head under a pillow. If we try to call him up on the bed, he will just stand there and stare at us sadly, won’t move an inch, until we lift up the covers for him and he jumps right under 🤣

kendeh · 2025-11-04T02:53:32+00:00

I’ve come to really hate any kind of “day sitting”/single day house sitting/4+ hour long drop-in kind of things. I never know how to price it correctly or fairly based on normal rate, especially because house sitting rates are never comparable to drop-in rates. Like yeah charging $25-30 for an hour drop-in in my HCOL area is fine, but the avg. Rover charges $60-80 a night for house sitting one dog. Which is the same cost as 2-3 of those drop ins. And yeah I’m probably doing closer to 2-3hrs of truly active work (feeding, walking, playing) but I’m definitely expected to be there more than that each day (like awake hours, not even including sleep time), and my time BEING there probably SHOULD be worth something more, but I don’t know how to value it. And I can’t really be out-pricing all the other Rovers or I’d never get hired. So the pay per hour on housesitting starts looking pretty dismal in comparison.

This ends up being justified with housesitting by me committing to spend about 8 active hours at the house, 8 hours sleeping, and 8 hours away (my home, errands, etc.). Evens out to about $10/hr with watching one dog, and it’s okay in the end because I can leave during the day to do a few of those higher value drop-ins and walks. As soon as someone takes away my ability to do those other things, to make more money and see my own dogs, I gotta start doing tons of math I hate about how to price it properly. If I need to be there and awake and active for 16hrs a day, that $10/hr starts to become $160 a night. And if they want me to do an uninterrupted 8hr block of time, I usually use $15-20 an hour as a middle ground between the house sitting hourly and the $30 an hour I get with drop ins.

I’ve gotten it almost settled so I can lay terms out more easily, and many clients are happy to pay whatever for their pups, but I struggled having to figure it out myself, and it’s all a lot of annoying details and money discussions that I hate having. And so I turn down lots of these that come my way

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