DerAlbi

Very impressive he “freezes” when you tell him to stop!

Yeah that is the foundation for off-leash trust. But when it works well, one stops practicing it, and then inconsistencies set in until there is a complete breakdown in communication.

This happened on todays hike (13km, 1500m elevation):

I tell him to stop to attach his POV-cam and you can see how sluggish he stops already.
Then a man comes just after I tell him to go, and this man scares Moritz. Usually the Stop-Command is stronger than such fear and I could have commanded him on my shoulder after freezing him in-place, but currently there is a training failure on our part (or at least practice-failure), where this just doesnt work reliably anymore.

The issue is that this stop-command is a fear-response at its core and in order to make the use of that command not punishing i weaken its meaning after the rules are understood. But that weakening comes with a trade-off in reliability during critical situations that i couldnt calibrate for due to lack of such critical situations on our daily rounds.
Currently the fear-response is weaker than the fear induced by, for example, encountering just a man, so I am unable to shift his priorities to me.

It is such delicate training to keep the balance... Anyway. Just wanted to show that we are far from perfect. Adventuring together is a life-long process with very natural ups and downs.

Those are some nice words. Thank you!
No, you are not overthinking this. You are probably right with everything! I am currently just confident with the current solution (and used to it). I think if the leash would have such an addon it would have an obvious-to-everyone use-case. But it would also be an additional item that increases the complexity of the setup etc..

Today we went on a swim (after a 13km / 1500m elevation hike) in a lake with some beautiful surroundings. Unfortunately the lens got wet 😢 so no sharable footage. But more importantly, there I had the problem that the leash was dragging behind while I was swimming out with him. It gets into my feet/legs and that tucks on him making him jump "ship" prematurely as he becomes insecure on the shoulder - that, i find unacceptable - it should be his unconditional safe-space.

I am not sure a floating device would actually help with that as it would create even more drag. But something needs to change to manage that leash. I am not exactly sure what yet.

Btw, i just found that frame in todays recording. I hope that makes it clear why I already feel like the leash does it security related job relatively reliable under real-world circumstances. The fact that it doesnt break the water surface also makes the drag very low and constant.
And, i actually used it successfully to stop Moritz from clawing into a kid's ring 😂 The boy came over because he was fascinated and got really excited that Moritz changed direction towards him..... if he knew what would have happened 👀 My intervention resulted in some temporary gurgling.. poor Moritz.

Wohoo!! ❤️ Recognizing that is crazy!

Classic Argument from Authority fallacy.. But if you prefer it that way: I am an Adventure-Cat parent doing this for 3 years who actually knows and communicates with the cat.

Your vocalization analysis is superficial and is contradicting obvious evidence to the contrary. We had this conversation here already. Read it.

Well, Moritz is not the most intriguing conversation partner, so the camera stuff is kind of a hobby that evolved around our relationship to keep my brain busy. I spend soo much time with him.... the haters say its for the clicks, but its actually for my consistency and therefore for Moritz. (and, frankly, there is much easier cat-content to make that yields much more exposure..)

I looked into his eyes to see if he’s stressed

Ahhhh people looking for outrage 🔥 Yes, he is absolutely ok with the swimming. He does meow quite vehemently on my shoulder but that is an alarm that he also does when he sits safe under his umbrella and I, alone, approach the water. So this is much more a social warning-call than distress. You can also see that he has no urge to leave the water, but is happy to socialize and receive pets etc. He is tense during the swimming but its not like i am breathing easily either. It requires body tension and controlled breathing to stay afloat. The waves are much higher for him, that is one thing to keep in mind. On the second swim the dove under completely 😂

The umbrella is our version of a cat-backpack because he is a shoulder cat. It allows me to carry actual things in my backpack which make longer hikes possible.

Wait a week or two, I have a super cool video coming up of us both climbing in some rock formations filmed from 3 perspectives. It is the best thing ever and I am so happy about the footage, i am completely overwhelmed cutting it because everything is so precious/irreducible. ❤️