ethaver

I grew up in redneck country and this was legitimately a problem occasionally. In particular you’d have people / families who consciously knew racism = bad, America fought against the Nazis for a reason, etc, but had a lot of subconscious biases particularly in ways that just prevented them from regularly intermingling with other races.

So they’d go decades just having their insular little neighborhood block parties and family reunions and such that never had a black or other non-white person and just never consciously consider the implications of that. Then one day their kid would bring home a new friend, someone new would move into the neighborhood, or even just a black guy would come to install the new fiber optic internet cables or whatever and suddenly they find out that their sweet beloved family pet hates black people.

and there were definitely some families out there for whom this was more of a feature than a bug, but there were also a lot of people that were suddenly confronted with the realization that subconscious and systemic biases are a thing by the surreal yet glaring realization that they somehow raised a racist dog.

When we got the puppy I had intentionally left the cat’s claws untrimmed for a little over a month leading up and a few after. it certainly wasn’t the only way we trained the dog to be respectful of the cat, but it definitely helped! These days we’ve progressed to more advanced socialization; cuddling on either side of me in exchange for treats. sometimes on a pretty good day I can get them to sit on the same side with a few inches in between, and on a very good day the cat accidentally rubs her face on the dog’s paw while aiming for my hand (the look of surprised disgust is hilarious). The biggest rule that really helped was teaching the dog that if the cat is close by the dog should be belly up. Helps the cat feel safer and makes it less likely the dog will chase.