Liz gordon wrote: Recently someone on the e-list said
something
about a Cavalier jumping over a fence? Yipes! That scares the bajeebers
out
of me as a prospective owner and it is not mentioned in any books I
have read
Dear Liz: I find that books on Cavaliers also tend to omit this breed's talents in the
areas of balancing on the backs of chairs and couches and their love of walking
carefully on fully loaded tables.
It is easier to deal with Cavaliers if one thinks about them as part cat as they have
at least some feline behaviors. And yes, some but not all, can climb fences. Actually,
they partly climb, partly jump depending on the heighth of the wall. One of our dogs
could scale a 5 foot high chain link gate with ease-didn't get her anywhere as there
was quite purposefully a perimeter block wall fence beyond the chainlink fence-we'd
had Cavaliers for a number of years and had been warned. Besides, her only goal was to
get into the house so she only went to the back door and threw herself against it
repeatedly until let inside. The other dogs would watch with awe as Glory got over the
fence but were not able to quite duplicate the feat.
However, all of our dogs have been able to jump 3 foot anythings from the age of 6
months or so. And what Cavaliers are particularly adept at, clever things that they
are, is figuring out how to climb higher and higher by jumping or climbing from one
object/chair/stool/table/wall to another. So, while they cannot actually jump from the
floor onto the bookshelf, they can figure out how to go from the floor to the ottoman
to the chair to the sofa table to the bookshelf. You can just see the wheels in their
brains turning just as soon as they spy the box of biscuits or the tray of cheese or
the cat on the shelf.
Perhaps the authors of Cavalier books feel that the breed might be less desirable if
this ability to become the next Sir Edmund Hillary were widely known. You just get
used to it and learn to Cavalier proof your enviornment both inside and outside.
And it does keep you in stories to tell at dinner parties...
Anne Shapiro
Shadowlawn Cavaliers
Las Vegas, Nevada
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