Cat-friends

[jennimon]

Machabeus, our 11 week old puppy, came into our home with a cat we've had for about a year. At first seeing him, my cat, Tempy, exiled herself to the basement for a few days but has lately been brave enough to sniff him out and pretend she wants to play.

Mac, however, is afraid of her. Every time we pet her, he is sure to break us up and keep guard. (She has smacked him a few times, and it seems he's protecting us from the same fate... or he could be jealous...) Other times, when she's minding her own business, he likes to bark and sometimes growl at her. Tempy is ready to be friends; Mac isn't.

What we have tried so far:
- I would hold Tempy, husband would hold Mac and we would love on our animal and comfort our animal while making sure they could see each other. Then we would switch animals and do the same.
- We would tell Mac to lie down close to where she was and lavish praise on him if he was being civil.

I was wondering if anyone else had any tips for us to teach our dog that the cat is not evil so he will stop barking at her.

 

[Kilby'sMum]

Best of luck!!! We have a siamese cat and I remember when we brought home our first boxer pup (Kilby), one of the first things she did was bite his tail and drag him round the front room like that!!! Anyway, that was a while ago now and we now have a second boxer and to be honest, the only thing that has helped calm both the dogs and the cat down is time....sorry! They really seemed to need a lot of time to get used to eachother.

It's quite funny that a 3.5kg cat is the boss of our house but that's not to say the dogs (combined weight nearly 50kg) don't give him a hard time. Kilby is now 3 and will leave him alone most of the time unless Kahlua (our cat) initiates play which he does normally by "prancing" past her a few times until the chase is on. Kona is our other boxer and not quite 9mths and for the most part she's good but sometimes she'll give him a good whack in the ribs or annoy him when he's sitting on his scratching pole. We just tell her firmly no and rescue the cat if necessary.

We found that so long as the cat had his own safe places in the house then things run a lot more smoothly so we have his high scratching post and have sectioned off a room in the house with a baby gate that he can get through but the dogs can't.

Basically, we just carried on as before with the cat and if he doesn't tell the dogs off (be careful of puppies eyes near kitty's claws!) then we do!

Best of luck!