Dogs and Cats...

[areias]

Haha, the age old battle.

I have had a lot of family problems lately...some major changes which I would rather not get into. Basically I have made the decision to move back in with my mom. Me moving out was supposed to be permanent....therefore picking up a stray here and there, was no big deal. So now I have three dogs of my own and a cat. My original three (Sam, Casey, and Boomer) stayed at my moms house, and she also obtained another dog after I left, because like I said it was supposed to be permanent. This makes it seven (7!!!) dogs, a cat, a bird, and fishies.

We've never been able to have a cat with Sam there. Sam does NOT get along with cats as far as I know. He bit a fake cat in a vets office once (kind of amusing ). I'm not sure about Boomer either. Is there a way to condition the dogs to get along with the cat? I would hate to have Kiki live her life in my bedroom. Or any other options that you can think of?

I will NOT rehome this cat unless by some miracle someone I knew were to fall in love. I don't trust people enough. My mom's said before, over something else-why don't you just put her down if she's sick?? (she is leukemia positive). Umm...NO! She's perfectly healthy at the moment.

So I'm not totally sure how to go about doing this. Never been a real cat person, never had to do this before.

[Glacier]

When you introduce them, keep the dogs leashed and make sure the cat has an escape route at all times. Let the cat hiss, spit and do whatever else she wants to. I usually use a muzzle too the first time the dogs meet a cat.

I don't allow my dogs to interact with my cats. No playing, no chasing, ect. The house is the cats' domain and if the dogs want to be inside, they must leave the cats alone. Takes some of them longer than others to figure that out!

Good luck!

[areias]

Thanks for the advice. I agree..I should probably have highly supervised "playtimes" with muzzles on.

When I got Skye home, she started chasing the cat and acting like she was a chew toy. At first I would run over and seperate them (She was supposed to be fine with them...) but then I decided I would close the door so the cat couldn't run under something, and she would teach Skye a lesson (she wasn't aggressive, just mouthy) but all the cat did was bat at her a little-no hissing, no real trying to claw at her, etc. She dosen't defend herself very well. So we'll see what happens.