cats and dogs.....

[shalva]

I have a ragdoll kitten on the way..... he is a week old at this point and his name will be Russell when he finally gets here at 12 weeks. I have five retrievers who have been brought up with cats but are none the less dogs.....
kitty will not have been brought up with dogs, but I really like hte breeder.

We are working on dog behavior.... while I don't believe they will deliberately hurt a cat.... we are working on not chasing cat at all.... the kitties they were brought up with were older... one (he died in december) was very good about putting dogs in their place, the other Maureen also 15 is not but she is a very timid shy kitty..... so dogs do try and chase her if she runs. If I catch them I put a stop to it and most of the time 99% I do catch them... but they do still try it.

I timed kitty to come home in such a way that dogs will be outside most of the time as it will be spring..... but I am sure that they will still be curious about new kitty..... my question for you all is what is the easiest way to introduce Russell the new cat on teh block and five rambunctious retrievers..... (3 high energy flat coated retrievers and 2 goldens)

I haven't had a kitten in a long time and I am nervous about the cat and dog situation..... any insight would be helpful. We have built a fairly tall cat tree that will be put behind a chair where the dogs cant get to ... so the cats will have a place to be where dogs can't go.....

any other thoughts???
thanks
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[phenomsmom]

As long as you introduce them correctly I think it should be fine. I think the new kitten will learn very quickly that he cannot take anything from the dogs. Hopefully they will be happy brothers and sisters!

Try doing a search on introducing dogs and cats, there are a lot of multipet owners on TCS! Good Luck!!

 

[tuxedokitties]

Here are some nice articles:

Base Camp - How to prepare for your new cat (click here)

Cat to Dog Introductions (click here)

Of course you'll also want to take the time to introduce him properly to your other cat, so things go smoothly on that front as well.

Cat to Cat introductions (click here)

Since you've already had cats with your dogs, I'm sure you're already aware that a pack of dogs will behave differently than an individual, so you'll need to be careful to introduce the dogs individually so they won't overwhelm your kitten, and then gradually increase the numbers, always carefully supervising and making sure the kitten has a safe place to go if he feels overwhelmed.

Don't forget to post pics for us too

 

[shalva]

thanks for the articles I have printed them out and will start reading.... thanks a bunch.
s

 

[goldenkitty45]

We have a lab who will not chase cats IN the house, but will chase the barn cats OUTSIDE the house. Doesn't matter how many times we tell her NO, she still will do it - tho not as much as she used to.

The dogs instinct is to chase if the animal runs - so its very hard to break them of that habit.

As far as intros, do NOT introduce the cat to all 5 dogs at one time! Take one at a time and keep the dog on the leash until you can see the reaction. I'm assuming your dogs are well trained as far as sit, stay, and leave it. The last command you should teach all dogs so that they will ignore living or dead things

Pick the most calm of the 5 dogs to start - then work up till all of them have seen/smelt the cat. You also might want to keep the cat in a carrier at first to see the initial reactions.

And make sure the cat has a room to escape in where the dogs can't go - like using a baby gate. As the cat gets older, they will be ok. Most kittens "freeze" and don't fight back when they are a few months old.

Our lab "mothered" most of our kittens in the house.

 

[shalva]

thanks for the help.... I planned on doing it in stages one dog at a time then possible two .... dogs in an out of crates ..... so that was very helpful.... I know that they will be fine and we do have places for the cats to go and we are adding to that but I was hoping I would get some ideas.... thank you so much for helping... I want this to go as smoothly as possible.
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