Couple of questions about my new kitten

[matth3w]

I just rescued a gray/white tabby at two months. I also have a very friendly two year old mini Doxie puppy.

My first question is about feeding the kitten. While I wish to leave the food out like most websites suggest, I don't want the dog eating her food. What is the total proper amount that she should get throughout the whole day? Is there a website link that shows the increasing amount of food needed as she gets to be a full grown cat?

How did you introduce your kitten to your resident dog? The way I am doing it, is letting her hang out under the bed and be by herself for most of the day. Several times per day I take her out into another room where she can't run into the bedroom and play with her AND the dog at the same time. He licks her a little bit here and there, and I pet her to sooth her while he does it so she isn't scared. She is hissing at him a lot less than yesterday (the first day).

Any suggestions?

 

[mom of 4]

I would not leave the kitten and dog, no matter how friendly, alone together for many months. We had Zoey for 3 months before I have to leave her alone her alone at home for long periods of time with my three large dogs. My dogs are herding dogs and were very afraid of Zoey.

We have a baby gate blocking the doorway of one of the bedrooms. Zoey can go over the gate or under it (my dogs are way bigger than yours) to get to her litter box and food.

When we did introduced Zoey to the dogs, we set the gate up so that she had half of the house and the dogs had the other half. They could look at and smell each other, without endangering either one. We could spend time on each side of the gate, so no one felt left out.

We left it to Zoey to decide when she was ready to cross the gate. By that time, she had swatted one of the dogs on th nose (causing a 110 lbs dog to be terrified of the 5 lb kitten). She has lots of places to run to, so the dogs don't run over her.

She tends to like to go where they go.

Within 24 hours of moving in, Zoey was crossing the baby gate downstairs.
We had not anticipated that it would be that quick. We left up gate up, with escape space below, for two weeks. Now it is back upstairs to keep the dogs out of her food and litter box.

Don't rush it, it will go quicker than you think.

 

[sharky]

Start reading this

http://www.thecatsite.com/Behavior/5...s-to-Dogs.html