Christine Burke Fitness » cats

Alan’s Words of Wisdom: On Training Cats

Christine Burke — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:08:41 +0000

We adopted 2 kitties from FOCAS a few months ago, and I got it in my head to try clicker training them. I had a few false starts, but after a little research on YouTube, I’m getting pretty good results.

One of the super useful things about clicker training is that you can train your pets to calmly get into a carrier or even sit still for a blood draw. Dr. Temple Grandin talks about this in her latest book, Animals Make Us Human. So, I was working on getting the kittens to enter a carrier by themselves, when Alan walked by. He got a very sweet, fond expression on his face, and he smiled and said:

Awww… it’s so cute that you think you’re training them…

Kitten Crunch!

Christine Burke — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:33:48 +0000

New core exercise! The Kitten Crunch!

You’ll need to adopt a cute kitten (or 2) from your local shelter or animal welfare group. When the kitten on your lap decides to take a nap, hold the position below for 30 seconds. As your core gets stronger and your kitten gets older, you should be able to increase to 1, even 2, minutes.

Kitten was adopted from focas-sandiego.org (Friends of County Animal Shelters). Please support their good work.

Video Break: Fluffy Cat & the Big Box

Christine Burke — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:47:47 +0000

Remember the fluffy cat that stuck its head in the tiny plastic box?

Video Break: Kitty Attacks Potato

Christine Burke — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 03:19:35 +0000

Yeah! Go get it! That’ll show the evil potato!

Hmm… evil potato seems unrepentant… unperturbed, even.

Video Break: Sleep-Running Dog & Ambitious Kitten

Christine Burke — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:24:16 +0000

Sometimes, my mornings go like this…

And sometimes, my projects turn out like this…

Workout Tunes + Video Break: No Treadmills Required

Christine Burke — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:34:46 +0000

I laughed out loud at this because I run to this song all the time. In fact, according to iTunes, I’ve played it well over 259 times. The song is Misirlou by Dick Dale & The Del-Tones, and you probably recognize it if you’re a fan of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.

If you’re a fast runner (around 9-min miles or faster), this is a good warmup song. If you start at an 11 or 12-min mile pace, Misirlou is great one for picking up your speed during your run.

Of course, some cats actually prefer treadmills…

BONUS Entertainment: start playing the slide kittens and when the music starts, play the treadmill kittens at the same time. It syncs up quite well!

Video Break: Fluffy Cat and the Tiny Plastic Box

Christine Burke — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 19:16:47 +0000

For the record, this particular kitty has a long history of box addiction:

Video Break: Smart Dog, Sneaky Cat

Christine Burke — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 04:24:21 +0000

When I need a little stress break, I like watching cute and funny animal videos. The cuter and funnier, the better.

The part that makes me laugh is the way the other dogs watch the hero dog.

AWESOME soundtrack.