Hello and some advise on puppy / cat relations please

[Laure]

Hi there,

My name is Laure and my boyfriend earlier this year my boyfriend and I became the proud parents of a now 18 weeks old lab Springer cross.
I had wanted a dog for as long as I can remember but we were unable as we previously lived in London and both worked full time out of the house. My time finally came earlier this year when we moved out of London to a semi-rural location in the north of the country and got the chance to both work from home. We moved in on the 1st of Feb with our cat and 3 guinea pigs. I had been researching dogs and dog training for quite some time already but my search intensified (my boyfriend thinks it has become a little bit of an obsession!) which is how I came across this forum and so far it’s been an amazing source of information.

After moving we gave ourselves, and the cat (this was a big change for her at 5 year as she went from being purely indoors cat to getting access to the outside), a few months to settle in and then started looking for a pup. We settled on a lovely lab springer cross pup called Rudy. We brought him home just gone 8 weeks and started training at home immediately and then joined a puppy class once all his jabs had been done where we discovered the joys of clicker training, we love it! We only have a couple more puppy classes to go to but I fully intent on signing up for the next level.
Rudy is an absolute sweetheart and generally speaking doing very well and progressing very well with training (he is VERY food driven), but I am unsure on how to proceed in relation to the cat and was wondering if anyone had experience they could share please?

For his first few weeks with us Rudy was confined to the kitchen, in a crate at night for and for a few hours during the when we are working (we let him out several times during the day to potty, play, eat etc…). We put a baby gate at the kitchen door and puppy and cat met through the gate. As expected Rudy just wanted to play, the cat was not impressed and hissed at him.
I have to say that at this point my priority was both to not upset the cat and ensure that the dog did not get injured (she is not the friendliest of cat and even scratches me!!). Maybe we should have just put them together left them to sort things out but rightly or wrongly I felt it was best to take things slow at first.
Fast forward a few weeks and Rudy has been showing the cat a lot more attention. We’ve tried to teach him to sit when he sees her and to focus on us (with treats) and for the most part he does but sometimes gets carried away with excitement and barks at her – this is all still through the gate (as you can imagine she is not impressed). She scratched his nose through the bars the other day and I thought that this might help to send him a message to leave her alone but he still wants to play….
We’ve recently started giving Rudy access to more rooms on the ground floor of the house. Our plan is that he will never be allowed upstairs as this is the cat’s space and also not allowed in the basement as this is where her tray is (and oh by god does he like cat poo!!). To help with this we have purchased a large baby gate which allows us to fence of the section of the hallway whit the stairs to both upstairs and basement allowing the cat to come and go between 1st floor and basement and allowing the dog to come and go on the ground floor. So far so good.
I am now unsure of what to do next, should I be forcing an introduction? I know that the cat will not want to come into the room when the dog is there. She won’t even step foot in the kitchen when he is in his crate.... and I do not want to force (she doesn't take very kindly to being carried!!)

I hope we haven’t done the wrong thing by keeping them separate till now. Any advise welcome!

Thanks in advance for your help!

Laure

[JudyN]

I think you've done the very best thing by keeping them separate The most important thing is for the dog not to learn that chasing the cat is fun, as the more he does that, the more the habit will be ingrained.

One challenge for you is that as your cat isn't the sociable sort, your opportunities for letting them get used to being in each other's presence will be limited - and as your cat has already scratched, there would be a danger of her injuring Rudy badly by scratching him in the eye. So I think the best you can do is continue as you are, encouraging Rudy to be calm whenever the cat appears, and rewarding him for good behaviour. He's still very young, so it will be a while before he can control himself enough to resist this fluffy, squeaky animated toy!

It might help if Rudy wears a house lead (a trailing light lead without a handle that could get caught on things) around the house so that when the cat is around it's easier for you to grab him, ask him to be calm, and reward him. You could also lead him to the room where the cat is, to work on him being calm. If it won't stress the cat you could try shutting her in there to encourage her to stay put - but not if she's going to get upset and try to escape, as you want her to be boring, not lots of fun!

Does the cat have to go through Rudy's area to use the litter tray? If so, I'd consider moving the litter tray upstairs a) to reduce unexpected encounters and b) so the cat isn't stressed if she needs to go but is reluctant as she doesn't want to encounter Rudy. Our litter tray is in the bathroom, so the soiled litter can go straight down the loo.

To be honest, I've rather failed at this myself. My cat, Monty, was 12 when we got Jasper, and three years later Jasper still wants to play with him and will sometimes chase if I'm not there to stop him. And Monty won't stand up for himself but just turns and runs. Just this last week, though, Monty has started coming downstairs and sitting on my lap when I'm working, which he hasn't done since Jasper arrived. Only then Jasper comes in and sticks his nose into Monty's fur, Monty hisses, and I have to try to get Jasper to listen to me and settle down. At least it's an opportunity for further training...

[Laure]

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply Judy! Much appreciated! I feel much better that I have not done the wrong thing for keeping them apart. I was starting to worry that. Might have made matter worse.

The cat can go to her tray without having to come into the dog area so that's good. Essentially they never have to meet other than through the gate if they do not want to - although I would like them to be able to be in the same room eventually. Tillie (the cat) is not appreciating having lost access to half of the house.... Given what you have said this should be possible in time but I know they will never be friends unfortunately

As you say though he is young and it will take him a while to be able to control his urges so we will keep working at it.
On the plus side he loves food (must be the lab in him) and is learning ver well with the clicker so hopefully it's just a matter if time.

Thanks
Laure

[MojoPuppy]

HI Laure,

We are in a very similar situation. We just got our first rescue puppy on Monday, an 8 month old collie cross. She was in foster with cats but is extremely interested in our two cats. They don't seem too fussed about her, they hiss and lash out if she gets too close so I've been trying to keep them apart. Just had a close encounter in the garden though where she tried to nip one of the cats when his back was turned (not convinced he even noticed!). I will try to just keep them separated from now on. It's tricky though because they like to go outside and have to go through the downstairs area to get there.

I'm getting a bit stressed about it because we were told by the foster mum to use a shaker or spray bottle which I don't know if I feel OK about. My husband is more optimistic than me, so is sure everything will be fine. Everything is a bit of a trial at the moment, she's too distracted to even go to the loo half the time because of the cats and I have to take her in and out of the house multiple times before she will go. She spends most of her time indoors either trying to stick her head out of the catflap or staring through the stairgate waiting for a cat to come downstairs. She's also not keen on walking yet because she's a bit nervous so the only time when she really relaxes is when the cats are out of the house and garden. I'll be taking her to training classes as soon as she's had her second round of shots next week. I know it's early days but I'm such a pessimist, I'd love to hear success stories of cats and dogs leaving each other alone (I don't have any delusions of them curled up by the fire together). Thanks for any reassurance!

[JudyN]

Welcome to the forum, MojoPuppy It's such early days, and to worry about this now is a little like worrying that your newborn baby will never be able to walk

Although I said that we had failed in cat training, even though Jasper will still chase Monty and Monty still avoids Jasper, they are safe with each other - if Jasper does corner Monty he may put his jaws round him, but gently - he doesn't want to harm him, but of course Monty doesn't believe this So in this respect, things are fine.

Ari_RR on this forum has a dog & a cat who are best buddies now - he's posted in this thread viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17233&p=126793#p126793 though the context is a bit different to your situation. I'm sure he'll be along soon to tell you more. In the meantime, do everything to avoid the chasing and reward any calmness when the cats are around (or simply reward him whenever they appear as he may then turn to you when they do).

[ScarletSci]

There is hope, growing up our house was multidog and cat, and we've always managed to get to a place where the dogs and cats will at least tolerate each other, with some even becoming cross-species friends.

Key to remember is to have plenty of high up safe spots for cats to escape to when they want to evade the dog(s). Cats like high up places anyway, but they are absolutely essential if you have a dog as well.

Time and familiarity seem to be the main thing, and not to get overanxious, mentally leaping ahead and becoming convinced that there will be a problem - both species can pick up on this instantly, then think they have good cause to worry! Lots of rewarding the dog for calm behaviour and gentle approaches, while not allowing them the chance to chase the cat. I'm not crazy about forced "introductions", but keeping them separate at first to give them a chance to get used to each others scents is great, then only letting them have limited shared space while supervised so they can choose to stay in the same room or avoid each other as they wish, with you there to run interference and reward the dog for good behaviour/distract them before they get too excited or pushy.

There is hope though. I rescued a stray cat 18 months ago and as an emergency measure she came to the house where my cat and two dogs already live. She was a wildthing once she saw the other animals, and they weren't thrilled either! I got a Feliway adapter to try to help the cats calm down while searching for a new home for the rescue. She's since settled in and the cats just ignore each other, while the rescue cat and my Springer pup are good friends and playmates. Even the pup and parrot are good friends, with the pup licking the parrots beak through his cage bars! (they're never loose together though, too risky).

That's not to say that it will always work out, I'm sure there must be times where it doesn't, but so far we've not had a problem where we haven't been able to get to the point where a dog and cat will at least learn to tolerate each other even if they don't all end up curling up together.

[Laure]

Thank you all for your feedback.
Great to hear that some people have managed to make it work, very encouraging!
We will persevere with taking it slow. The current set up does work for everyone concerned so no reason to rush things (even though our house is a bit like Alcatraz ).

MojoPuppy, I hope that things improve for you too! Bit harder I guess with a slightly older pup but it is early days.

Thanks
L