My cats have the greatest fear of the vacuum cleaner. They are typically okay when it's off although they will approach it like it's going to bite them. When it's on, they prefer to be in another room. I don't blame them; it's loud. But it's the way they exit that I'm trying to correct. They run like the devil is after them: close to the floor with the tail tucked.
Today's training exercise: When I was part way through vacuuming the house I turned it off and got out the bag of crunchies. Temptations are the treat of choice for these two. Especially Marissa, evidently. I then went and sat among the hoses and vacuum and such and waited, treat in hand, for them to approach. Yes. It's bribery. But they had to work through their fears to get there, which was the point of the exercise.
Sam approached first. He is generally the braver of the two. Marissa followed him to gain her crunchies as well. I was so proud of Sam. He got close enough to take a treat right off the vacuum. Marissa got pretty close as well. So I upped the ante: I turned the vacuum on. Both cats backed right off. But Marissa approached again. Sam wouldn't. Marissa, step by step, got right up to the vacuum and took a treat off of it while it was running. This was huge. The return air out of the machine was hitting her; it was loud; the treat was actually vibrating on the vacuum. But she took it. And then I tried to pat her. oops. She jumped right out of her skin. To try and end on a good note, I turned the vacuum cleaner off and managed to get her to take a treat off of the hose, but that was as close as she would come.
This is such a huge improvement over what it used to be. We've been working at it and hopefully it will get better. I don't need them to be in the same room as the vacuum but I need them to be more indifferent towards it.
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