Moo is my first furry child. She’s a rescue from VOKRA that we walked into our lives before Whiskey came home. We had Moo for about 3 months before Whiskey, and wanted to ensure she was comfortable in her new home and wouldn’t be bullied by a larger dog. Our thinking at the time was to choose a confident cat would live well with a larger dog. We had no idea what we were in for! Aside from extraordinary confidence, Moo is incredibly intelligent. I figured I would practice “dog tricks” on Moo before I got Whiskey. To my astonishment, training Moo was quicker and easier; she mastered “sit”, “lie down”, and “roll over” in record time. Since Moo is very food motivated, she demands payment for every trick and will examine her treat ahead of time 🙂
We took over a year to train Moo to use our human toilet (using a stress-free non-commercial method). Moo also enjoys traveling (atypical of most cats), and loves exploring new places with us. She will go potty outside like the dog while we do longer road trips, and makes herself at home in rental locations sharing our human toilet. Because of this, when we travel, we only need to bring scratchpads and our usual store of blankets to cover all surfaces to ensure cleaning is easy for our travel hosts (it’s hard enough to find pet-friendly places, we want to make sure we are easy guests).
Unbeknownst to us, we believe Moo had some previous trauma with dogs and is stressed by other dogs, especially large ones. She has accepted Whiskey over time, but Moo hasn’t been super affectionate yet. I always say Whiskey is like the “good obedient” child and Moo is the “rebel clown child”.