Cat and Mouse turned Uggly

[TwoTirants]

I am not a cat a person, I'm a dog person, a big dog person, specifically a GSD person, but my parents have cats. Unfortuantely my two pups are less than welcome at my parents house due to my older one's obsession with cats.

Godrick is currently just under two years old, and I have been bringing him around my parents' house since he was about 5 mo. At first it was his overly curious nature, he just wanted to get close enough to give the cat a good sniff, and then he would move on. Unfortunately for all parties involved the cats weren't about to let a 60lb smelly thing near them. From then on it's turned into a game (at least for Godrick) of finding the cats in the house, only they don't want to be found. As soon as they hiss a switch is flipped and he goes into commando mode, barking, lunging, snarling, the whole nine yards. I'm 99.9% sure that if he could just get a good look at them he would leave it alone, but I can't traumatize the poor cats any more with his barking.

Now that I live closer to my parent's house I am here more often and my younger puppy, about 11 mo, is starting to pick up the trend of events. I really don't want to be banned from my parent's house with my dogs, but I'm afraid if i can't get this behavior under control I wont have much of a choice.

Any suggestions are welcome

[Cassidy's Mom]

I've had cats and dogs (GSDs) for 25 years. They can definitely be trained to live in peace, but I still don't leave mine alone together when I'm not home or at night when we're asleep. Since these are not your cats I don't know how much time you'll be able to spend training your dog to leave them alone, and it also depends on whether or not your parents are willing to let you practice using the cats they love in your training efforts!

It can be a big investment of time, and it's worth it to me because I love all my animals and want them to be safe and happy. But if I didn't have cats I don't know that I'd go to that kind of time and effort with someone else's cats, I'd probably just leave my dogs at home when I visited them. The attitude of the cat/s makes a big difference too - cats who run are prey, cats who stand their ground or jump up onto furniture so they're at or above eye level, are often seen differently by the dog. So if their cats were not raised with dogs that's going to be more difficult than it would be if they were dog savvy.

If you do want to continue bringing your dogs to your parent's house, at least please keep them on leash so they can't chase the cats.

[selzer]

My parents' dog Cujo LOVES for me to bring over other dogs. (I have all girls, and he loves girls.) However, Cujo has epilepsy. Having my girls over for even a short period is a special category of stress. When they do not know the cause of siezures, they call it idiopathic epilepsy and do suggest limiting stress. There are stresses that we can limit, and stresses we cannot limit. Bringing one of my girls to their house is something that can be limited, so they are not welcome. I'm ok with that. The resident critters have the right of way.