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View Full Version : Do Dogs eat Cats?



ScoobyDoo-Doo
06-07-2004, 03:19 PM
I know this is a stupid question but has anyone had a dog kill their cat? I know they chase eachother. There are alot of dogs and cats that get along great and love eachother! I am asking because I am thinking of adopting another cat.
However, I have 3 dogs and 1 cat already. The cat never saw a dog prior to my adopting Scooby and Shaggy. Now they "Co-Exist" with eachother but don't get along. Scooby and Shaggy BOTH act like they like cats. Dirtnap barks at the cat and will block her in a room. He will lay on the stairs so she can't go down them.
I tried to adopt a kitten last year. I introduce it to Scooby. He sniffed it and then tried to bite it's head off!!! I had to ask if the kitten was free if Scooby had bitten it's head off! :p I felt Scooby may have been trying to pick it up by the scruff of the neck and NOT trying bite. Any which way I wasn't going to keep holding a kitten with claws very much longer!:eek:
The cat doesn't know it is a cat so I am not sure how it would except a kitten. Most likely I would have to get a full grown cat. I just want to adopt a cat so Miss Thang won't feel outnumbered and has a friend just like her. She is 9 years old and stuck in her ways.;)
So do ya think it would be okay to adopt another cat and it be safe? I can separate them if necessary but I want everyone to atleast co-exist. Thank you.

catnapper
06-07-2004, 04:30 PM
First off, when we got Allen, our dog at the time also tried to bite his head off. We had to keep them completely separated for a few weeks. Then we slowly introduced them and left them alone onlt after Allen was large enough to take care of himself.

When we got Pouncer, it was a bit hairy at first. Hissing happened a lot. But as with all things, you need to slowly (and painfully :p ) introduce the new animal. It took us two weeks before Allen and Pouncer were allowed to spend any alone time together. Before, Poncer was in a room himself and then with Allen dueing supervised visits. We must have done it right because my boys LOVE each other immensly (just check out my signature... if thats not two happy cats, then I've never met a happy cat! :) )

Nicki basically gets along with both boys, though she doesn't trust Allen (with good reason - he likes to jump onto her back and swat at her when she's not expecting it!) She's just now starting to learn that Pouncer won't do that to her, but she doesn't like that he steals her cookies when I give her one. :D

Glacier
06-07-2004, 08:30 PM
Absolutely dogs will kill cats. I have 8 cats, 18 dogs. One of those dogs thinks that cats are tasty little snacks. I've done everything possible to train Kayleigh not to eat cats with NO success at all. Her prey drive is so high that almost anything smaller than her is prey--she's a 120 pound mal-mix so most things are smaller than her! Kayleigh can not be safely around a cat in any situation. When she comes inside, my cats get locked up. I've told my neighbors that if their cats end up on my property and Kayleigh kills them, I won't take responsibilty for that. If she gets loose and kills a cat, that's my fault!

Some breeds are more prone to small animal aggression than others. Huskies and other Northern breeds are notoriously bad with cats. I've been lucky that the vast majority of mine have learned to leave my cats alone. For some of them it's taken a great deal of work and training to make them cat tolerant. Mainly I think because my cats are indoor only. The dogs see them as house animals only. I would not guarentee the safety even of my own cats if they were loose outside.

I'd never leave a dog, even a proven cat-friendly one, alone with my cats. I've heard too many horror stories of dual pet owners coming home to dead cats.

Karen
06-07-2004, 08:54 PM
My very first best-dog-in-the-whole-wide-world and still the smartest dog I've even known, Sheba, was a German Shepherd mix with a high prey drive. She would certainly kill any cat - or rabbit, squirrel, skunk, woodchuck - you name it - that she could catch. She killed every woodchuck in such a wide area around our neigborhood that one did not reappear in a neighbor's garden until 10 years after Sheba died. No lie.

The cats in our neighborhood - of which there were plenty - knew at any given moment where the nearest tree was. We had very speedy felines in our neighborhood - survival of the fittest. Sheba could never be trusted around any cat.

Twisterdog
06-07-2004, 09:21 PM
Absolutely dogs kill cats. Even dogs and cats that have lived together for some time.

My sister's dogs killed her cat one day, after living in the same house for over a year.

My dogs would kill a cat in a second, if given the chance. Keito has killed a few cats over the years.