I bet someone here has been through this sort of thing… Ms Yorkie arrived at our house almost 2 years ago from a household where she was treated like a cat - no house training, no obedience (though someone prior to that had done puppy class, we discovered), no walks or exercise. Incredibly shy with people and had no doggy social skills or doggy identity. She’s made tremendous progress in every area, but now we’re seeing a little rebound overconfidence??? She’s started growling and chasing the cats.
At first we thought maybe she was trying to get them to play - she’s starting to ask dogs to play, so we were trying to tell if she was approaching the cats with similar body language or intent. Most recently, it looks more like an actual “chase to catch” attempt. Sometimes growling, sometimes barking (barking makes them run, which is more fun to chase!). Definitely worse when we’re around, as if she’s doing it somewhat for attention, but we know she does it when we’re not around if she isn’t crated, based on the cats’ behavior when we return.
Cats all have their claws and very healthy self-esteem, except one, who pees in our bed when the Yorkie chases her – if it wasn’t for that cat and that problem, we’d probably just laugh at the 7 lb Yorkie Terrierista barking at the 14-lb bruiser cat, but this kitty doesn’t find her humorous and we’re sick of changing the bed.
Other things Ms Yorkie is starting to do include shoving her way through the door before Ms Labrador (Ms Lab is pretty laid back but will occasionally remind Ms Yorkie of her place in the world) and ignoring some boundaries (jumping into the driver’s lap in the car, a BIG no-no). So maybe we need to go back to some leash work and obedience stuff and reestablish her place in the social system? will that help with the cats, or will that make her more determined to boss the cats around? two separate issues? strategies for dealing with Terrieristas? I’m a Lab person, these tiny dogs sort of boggle me…
