Cat vs. Puppy

[helvetebrann]

I feel like I only ever post when something goes wrong, but here goes.

Abbey, our 8 month old pup, loves the cat...the cat is a squeaky toy to her. She barks whenever the cat walks by her crate at night (lots and lots of barking), lunges at the cat every time we pass her (she's leashed in the house until this problem is solved), and would basically kill the cat if I let her at her.

I feel like we've tried a plethora of things that simply haven't worked.

We've been exposing Abbey to the cat every night right before bed while she's in the crate and treating her when she doesn't bark or freak out at the cat. We've been letting them be in the same room when Abbey is on a leash and treat her for not paying attention to the cat. We've tried the water bottle (she thought it was fun), pennies in a can, a vibrating collar, and a shock collar.

We've made progress...kind of. She doesn't always bark anymore if the cat walks by, but it's basically a guarantee that she'll try to get at the cat if we walk by the cat with her on the leash.

Am I wrong to maintain hope? Is there something I'm not doing that I could be doing? Or am I being selfish in keeping both pets? (Aka, if there is no chance of this getting better, we need to rehouse one of them, which would break my heart.)

[Cassidy's Mom]

How long have you been actively working on this? How does your cat react to Abbey? Has the cat been around dogs before?

[helvetebrann]

Originally Posted by Cassidy's Mom

How long have you been actively working on this? How does your cat react to Abbey? Has the cat been around dogs before?

We've been actively working on it for about a month. The only progress has been a lessened amount of barking, but it's barely lessened.

The cat does not like the dog. We tried to let them solve it themselves when Abbey was 3 months, but the cat refused to defend herself. She just lets Abbey bite her stomach while she lays on the ground and squeaks because it hurts.

[RocketDog]

That happened to us too. The cat played with Rocket the first week or so, then as got got a bit bigger, the cat just like shut down and then we had to stop letting them play. Of course, the pup couldn't understand why his favorite friend was now off limits and it been very very slow progress. They can lay and sleep in the same room together but when the cat goes to move at all, Rocket immediately goes into "YAY!!! Chase!!" mode.


Sigh.

[teriod]

I have an 8 month old girl and two cats, we started at a very early age to get them under control, one basically sleeps next to the puppy and has a love hate relationship with the other which isnt too bad as long as the cats have an out,i,e a cat tree or other room or area which the can have some time off from the dog, so keep trying, consistency is the name of the game.....one thing, I never leave the dog alone with the cats, she always is crated when no one is home

[MamaTank]

I think you can keep the cats. Eventually, Abbey will calm down with them. When we adopted Caesar, he was a cat chaser-- and we knew that going in. He annoyed my older cat a few times too many, and Poe now OWNS him. It's ridiculous that my 100 pound WSGD is afraid of a 13 pound cat (still is, and probably always will be) but because Poe scares Caesar, he now has a healthy respect for my other two cats. He is as gentle as can be with my youngest, who is 4 1/2 months old. Willow will cuddle up to him, and I never thought I would see that.
He had to be taught to "leave it" when it came to the cats. But now we have a peaceful household with 3 cats and 2 dogs. Also remember that Abbey is still young.

[helvetebrann]

Originally Posted by MamaTank

I think you can keep the cats. Eventually, Abbey will calm down with them. When we adopted Caesar, he was a cat chaser-- and we knew that going in. He annoyed my older cat a few times too many, and Poe now OWNS him. It's ridiculous that my 100 pound WSGD is afraid of a 13 pound cat (still is, and probably always will be) but because Poe scares Caesar, he now has a healthy respect for my other two cats. He is as gentle as can be with my youngest, who is 4 1/2 months old. Willow will cuddle up to him, and I never thought I would see that.
He had to be taught to "leave it" when it came to the cats. But now we have a peaceful household with 3 cats and 2 dogs. Also remember that Abbey is still young.

That makes me feel much better. It's clear that she would be a cat chaser if allowed to, so it's nice to know that there are people who have mastered it. I think I sometimes forget that she's only 8 months and will be with us for years. We're still working on leave it with her; she has a hard time giving up on something she wants. It's probably why she has a hard time with the cat.

Suggestions on training? Should we be forcing her to be around the cat more often while under leash?

[Cassidy's Mom]

A month may seem like a long time, but really, it's not. I got Elvis when Cassidy was about a year old. He was 12 weeks old and about the size of her head, lol! She was very excited by him and I wanted to make absolutely sure that he was safe, so for the first 4 months he lived in the spare bedroom. I brought her into the room with me for supervised visits every day. I rewarded good behavior and she could hang out there with us as long as she continued to behave, but if she got too excited and scared him she got banished from the room. Some of the time Elvis hung out at the top of the cat tree, so they could see each other but were not very close. If he came down lower they could sniff each other but he had an escape route back up the tree. On the days that he wouldn't come down and get any closer I put him in his carrier and set it on the floor (I'd remove Cassidy temporarily while I did this and then bring her back in). I'd sit on the floor with her and feed her treats for staying calm. This got them used to being in close proximity to each other under controlled circumstances. Cassidy had severe leash reactivity so I didn't want to put her on leash because I knew she would get frustrated and even more excited, which would scare him. Four months, before I ever let them out into the rest of the house together.

And then for the next month or so I only let Elvis out while I was directly supervising them - if I was doing something where my attention couldn't be on them 100%, I left him in his room. I hated that Elvis wasn't getting as much attention as he should have during this time, but it was too risky not to take it nice and slow. At this point I put a citronella collar on Cassidy so I'd have a way of slowing her down if she decided to charge him. We had also worked a lot on the "find it" command, which meant that there were treats on the floor for her to find. After a couple of weeks with the citronella collar I just started throwing treats at her with the find it command. I could take a piece of jerky and pinch off tiny pieces which I would rapid fire at her. The treats bouncing off and hitting the floor would break her attention off him and she'd stop to sniff them out. I knew it would be okay when it got to the point where Cassidy and Elvis would be side by side on the floor, scarfing up the treats together.

Cassidy is long gone and Elvis is 10 years old. I still never leave my cats and dogs out loose together in the house if I'm not here or at night while we're sleeping, even though I don't think Keefer or Halo would hurt them. There is a baby gate across the doorway to the cat room so they can eat, sleep, and use the litterbox in peace. They know how to evade the dogs and are probably annoyed by them a lot, but are definitely not terrified. Cassidy used to grab Elvis by the head and drag him around on the hardwood floors. He'd be covered in dog slobber, and it looked scary until we got used to it, but he was fine. And when she was calm and sleepy the cats would go up to her and start grooming her face and ears. They knew when she was likely to chase them and to keep their distance, and they knew when they could safely approach or walk by without being mauled. They also learned how to turn off her prey drive by jumping up on the furniture - being at or above eye level made them equals, not prey.

After Cassidy died we got Dena. Here is Elvis grooming her:



By then he was totally dog savvy, which makes a big difference. A cat that runs is going to be looked at differently by a dog than one that calmly holds their ground, which is why I asked about whether your cat had been around dogs before and how s/he acted around Abbey.

I would try to get them around each other with her being calm and under control as much as possible, and any time you can't be watching them that closely I'd make sure the cat had a safe place to be. The more she finds out how much fun kitty chasing is, the harder this will be to fix, so prevent that. I would continue to work on focus and attention, leave it, and other things to break her focus off something else and redirect it - find it is great for this. If you can do this in a small room with the cat there but at a safe distance, all the better. I've brought Keefer & Halo (separately) into the cat room before for training. The funny thing is, they're both much better around the cats when they're on kitty turf. Could have something to do with the 'tude of the cats when they're in their own special place.

This video is great for teaching impulse control, I fed Halo many of her lunch meals doing this game:

"It's Yer Choice" - YouTube

"It's Yer Choice" - YouTube

This is the kind of thing that would be perfect to work on near the cat. When I was teaching Cassidy the watch command in the living room sitting on the couch, not only did she have to learn to maintain eye contact, she also had to learn to ignore Elvis, who was in my lap trying to dive headfirst into the treat bag!