The evils of the Vacuum!

First of all I quite like my vacuum, thank you very much. For some strange reason Roxy does not.  Even my cats are ok with it, Roxy seems to think it is constantly growling and seeking her toys. (note she is not possessive about things normally).  However, turn that darn vacuum on when she is in the same room and she thinks it her job to forcefully remove it from the premises!

She gets worked up very quickly when it is turned on.  Even when it is off she will follow it suspiciously, waiting for it to "growl" and give her licence to use force to remove it.  Now before the move (and the huge amount of stress that it added to her little life) I could just give the "Leave it" command and she would back off and just keep a wary eye on it. However yesterday when I turned it on she would "leave it" for 15 seconds, then she would dive right back in (as if it was the reason behind her stress issues).  So here is what I did (and will continue doing over the next week or so): 

The first thing I did was start using the vacuum without turning it on (I needed to know if it was the sound or just the motion that would trigger her need to attack it).  Turns out now it is just the motion of the vacuum. So I started clicking her for not going after it.  She could run around it and look concerned, but if she didn't attack it she got the click. 

(hope you enjoy Genesis, and let me tell you how hard it is to click, film, and run the vacuum!)

Now in this next clip I turned the vacuum on to see how much the previous clicking had helped. Watch her face as she still is concerned about the "monster" in the front room, but quickly changes into, oh boy I am getting clicks, watch mom, more clicks.  Then one of the cats walks into the room (off camera) and she is then more interested in the cat than she is in the vacuum. She will still need some more work (obviously) but, that is a very good start.  Now the consistency part can go to work.  Every time I bring out the vacuum, all I need to do is click her for watching me instead of the vacuum and, just like with the doorbell, she will become desensitized to the vacuum too!

Oh and by the way after working with her so much yesterday she was quite worn out!