Introducing a dog into a cat world

[natalieises]

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Ok maybe there is a thread about this already, but I could not find it in my searching, so here I am. There is a great possibility that I will be adding a dog to my zoo of animals before school starts. I have two cats now that are completely obsessed with me, and I'd be fine with just them, but here's the story:

A friend of mine(or rather an ex) has a dog (3 yr old) and I LOVE this dog. He's a straight up shelter mutt, he loves me, and is very attached to the people in his life. Well, my friend doesn't think he will have the time for him working full time and going to school and what not ( I know...wuss...vet students take care of multiple pets all the time). I made him promise to never give the dog away unless he gave him to me, so now that time has come.

I'm wondering what opinions are. Will I really have enough time for the dog? Will the introduction of cats and dog go ok? Will it be too stressful for my cat children? So many thoughts and questions!!!

On a side note, the dog has always showed an interest in cats, wanting to play with them, etc. So I know he won't be aggressive to them, but I'm still worried. Help!

 

[incendium04]

I think I started a thread about a very similar issue last year... right before starting vet school as well! 🙂

A couple questions
- How do your cats respond to dogs? Are they tolerant of his playful behavior?
- Are they curious, frightened, aggressive, etc?

I also have 2 cats (who I adore) and while I knew the dog I was to adopt, I was afraid she would chase my cats (has a history of chasing squirrels and cats... or at least trying to chase them. She's a bit old for much running). In actuality, she ignored them totally except for a brief sniff. It's possible for any animals to inhabit the same household... in my opinion. With a certain amount of separation and private space for each. To facilitate this, I gave my cats an area free of dogs (under the bed) and my dog an area free of cats (kennel). I really recommend setting up something similar if you have no choice but to throw them together the next day. If the dog lives nearby, try bringing him over for short visits, kept on leash, in an area of house that doesn't intrude on the cats too much (somewhere besides where they sleep and spend most of their time). Encourage the cats to investigate and encourage the pup to be calm.

I'm actually considering adopting a second dog now. For me, having both dogs and cats is a necessity. My cats will just have to tough it out and set their boundaries with any new animals I bring in!

Anyways, I hope some of this made sense. I have to run out the door now but I'd be happy to answer any question about my experience/thoughts!

 

[StartingoverVet]

Introducing a well socialized dog to your cats shouldn't be a problem (especially if the dog doesn't have a strong prey-drive). We gradually introduced a 4 year old dog to our 5 year old cat. They mostly ignored each other. Later on we introduced a puppy to our then older cat. This time the puppy was in love with the cat but the feeling was not mutual. There was a little more drama but after some hissing, nose whacking, and eventually some scratching, the puppy learned to respect the cats space. Finally added one more puppy and by now the cat was bored with the whole thing (we had a bunch of rescue dogs in as fosters in between). Interestingly, the cat likes the youngest one the best because he is such a push-over.

As far as whether you will have enough time while in vet school, a current student will better be able to answer but if there is someone who can walk it during the middle of day, you should be ok as long as you give it attention and exercise.

I would go for it!

 

[bunnity]

This article is similar to the one we use at my shelter:
http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/dog-care/dog-care-introducing-new-dog-to-cat-other-pets.html

I'm going to dissent a little here and say do not take this decision lightly. We have had shelter dogs go home and promptly kill a cat. I would strongly, strongly advise testing out the dog's reaction to cats before you make a decision. Some dogs have very high prey drives and should not live with cats even if you do everything right as far as introductions.

As far as "cat testing" a dog, do this with a physical barrier between the animals so no one gets hurt. The dog should be on a leash as well. The dog should not fixate on the cat, should have a relaxed (not stiff) body posture around the cat, should be able to be distracted easily from looking at the cat, and should accept a correction from the cat. Some dogs are fine until they get swatted and then they go into prey mode, so try to get the cat to correct the dog so you know its reaction. That said, I'll give you the speech I give all our potential adopters about how to do this, once you have determined that the dog is not a natural cat-killer:

1. Confine the new dog within the home - a crate within a closed room is best. Give it 1-2 weeks before the dog and cat actually lay eyes on each other.
2. Once the dog has settled in, put the dog in the crate and bring the cat into the room. Let the cat do what it wants. Again you are watching the dog's posture and level of fixation on the cat. Repeat this often for a couple weeks until they totally are at ease and mostly ignoring each other.
3. Once you have had several days of success at the previous step, put the cat in the crate and have the dog outside the crate. Again watch and observe and repeat for a couple weeks until this is routine and uninteresting for them.
4. Now have the dog leashed and the cat free within the room. Again practice this until they are ignoring and/or pleasantly interacting.
5. For the next few weeks, continue to supervise, but let the dog drag around a leash when it is out of the crate so you can seize the leash if things get out of hand.
6. Don't let them together unsupervised for another few months (ideally a year, but no one listens to me on that one).

This may sound over-cautious. I will say that I work primarily with pit bulls, and they generally have high play and prey drives which means they may need extra work in the cat department. But you want to set the dog up with every chance of success - rushing things or not supervising is setting everyone up for failure.

 

[StartingoverVet]

This article is similar to the one we use at my shelter:
http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/dog-care/dog-care-introducing-new-dog-to-cat-other-pets.html

I'm going to dissent a little here and say do not take this decision lightly. We have had shelter dogs go home and promptly kill a cat. I would strongly, strongly advise testing out the dog's reaction to cats before you make a decision. Some dogs have very high prey drives and should not live with cats even if you do everything right as far as introductions.

As far as "cat testing" a dog, do this with a physical barrier between the animals so no one gets hurt. The dog should be on a leash as well. The dog should not fixate on the cat, should have a relaxed (not stiff) body posture around the cat, should be able to be distracted easily from looking at the cat, and should accept a correction from the cat. Some dogs are fine until they get swatted and then they go into prey mode, so try to get the cat to correct the dog so you know its reaction. That said, I'll give you the speech I give all our potential adopters about how to do this, once you have determined that the dog is not a natural cat-killer:

1. Confine the new dog within the home - a crate within a closed room is best. Give it 1-2 weeks before the dog and cat actually lay eyes on each other.
2. Once the dog has settled in, put the dog in the crate and bring the cat into the room. Let the cat do what it wants. Again you are watching the dog's posture and level of fixation on the cat. Repeat this often for a couple weeks until they totally are at ease and mostly ignoring each other.
3. Once you have had several days of success at the previous step, put the cat in the crate and have the dog outside the crate. Again watch and observe and repeat for a couple weeks until this is routine and uninteresting for them.
4. Now have the dog leashed and the cat free within the room. Again practice this until they are ignoring and/or pleasantly interacting.
5. For the next few weeks, continue to supervise, but let the dog drag around a leash when it is out of the crate so you can seize the leash if things get out of hand.
6. Don't let them together unsupervised for another few months (ideally a year, but no one listens to me on that one).

This may sound over-cautious. I will say that I work primarily with pit bulls, and they generally have high play and prey drives which means they may need extra work in the cat department. But you want to set the dog up with every chance of success - rushing things or not supervising is setting everyone up for failure.

I agree with you that dogs with high prey drives are a different ball game but it seemed to me like OP was already comfortable with the dog around cats but worried about the cats reaction.

But, of course, better to be cautious. We introduced the dogs gradually as well.

 

[Highlsnds3]

Just wanted to tell you what I did a few years ago to help out a couple that had just adopted a rescue (pit bull) into their multi cat family. This dog REALLY wanted to please people more than anything else, so this was REALLY easy. The couple had never had a dog before and did not put any prep into introducing the dog to the cats so, when they ran the dogs chased and caught them then tried to play with them. Overall it could have been a horrible ending. What I did was train the dog the "leave it" command, but really stepped it up. The dog was not allowed to look at the cats at all. A sharp command when the dog looked and LOTS of praise and love when the dog ignored. In about ten minutes the dog would actually hide her head when a cat walked into the room. For this situation it was all about impulse control for the dog because there was not a strong prey drive, she just REALLY wanted to play and it terrified the cats. The owners were on strict orders to keep the dog either leashed (leash in hand!) or crated in the house for at least one month, but that they could relax a bit with the leave it command unless it looked like the dog was TOO interested in the cats. If at that time they felt things had gone well they could let her off leash when they were around, but I reccomended keeping her crated when they were not there until they were certain that the dog and cats would be OK together. Within a week the cats were coming up to the dog (who was still not looking at them- even with no command- and getting lots of praise for it). By the time the month was up the cats had accepted the dog and the dog was over the novelty of cats, and they were acting as though they had all grown up together.

Hope this, along with the other great advice, gives you some ideas on how to make your transition!

 

[jenniferblue]

I had a friend who kept her chow puppy, Kilgore, separated from her two cats by a sofa cushion propped up against the door between the kitchen and the living room. I came over for dinner one night and the cushion/barrier was down. The cats were napping on top of the TV and the puppy was napping on the living room floor. Everything seemed fine, but we must have missed the commotion. Kilgore had claw sheaths in the thick fluffy fur all around his face. It seems he was schooled by the cats. After reading the above, I see how the situation could have been very bad. Fortunately, no one was hurt and it was just really funny. All parties looked so innocent, no one would have ever known had it not been for the sprinkling of claw sheaths all around Kilgore's face.

 

[jenniferblue]

By the way, I just answered my own question...
25! It takes 25 posts to get to Member status on the student doctor network forum...😀

 

[twelvetigers]

You can make that little thong say whatever you want, by the way.

 

[jenniferblue]

You can make that little thong say whatever you want, by the way.

How? I have been trying to figure it out. I thought the option would appear once I was a "member," but apparently I am tecnologically impaired.

Yuor help would be greatly appreciated. 😳

 

[jenniferblue]

How? I have been trying to figure it out. I thought the option would appear once I was a "member," but apparently I am tecnologically impaired.

Yuor help would be greatly appreciated. 😳

kant spel either

 

[twelvetigers]

Lol I just called it a 'thong' instead of a 'thing'... I hate that!

Let's see... You go to 'My Account' at the top left. Then you pick 'Edit My Details' or whatever, and it's about halfway down that page. 🙂

 

[natalieises]

haha i was wondering why we were talking about thongs....

 

[twelvetigers]

I do that all the time! My husband loves it.

"Did you get that thong I left out for you?"

"NO, dunno how I missed it. Was it red?"

"You know what I meant to type."