Dog Acclimation, Postpup-um Depression

[basilleaves]

Hi y'all. This is quite an over-addressed topic, but I'm in a pickle and need some honest advice/opinions specific to my situation. Sorry for providing my entire life story. This is seriously all I can think about.

My SO and I have two cats: an 11-year-old dilute calico, 5lbs, always happy and braver than any cat I've ever known, and a 7-year-old domestic black shorthair, 11 lbs, who has the physical attributes of a rag doll but the petting threshold of a bear trap. Both are female. We introduced them 4 years ago and have been living in relative peace ever since.

We recently came down with dog fever. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to get one -- once fostering a retired greyhound who tried to eat my calico, then trial-adopting a senior border collie who tried to eat my SO -- we struck gold with a 2-year-old, 35lb mutt with very mild cerebellar hypoplasia (his butt wobbles). He is housebroken and awesome in his crate. Despite being untrained and extremely rude, he's made excellent progress with the "come here" command during the week we've had him. His personality is pretty doofy.

He met my kits on adoption day. More interested in the newness of our house, he initially disregarded them, even though my black cat was 4x her usual size and hissing grandly from her perch on the cat tree. My calico quietly observed from another high place. Eventually my dog began to whine at my black kitty, so I moved both cats to their safe space, my bedroom. Later that night, my calico came through her baby gate while the dog was sleeping near my SO. Another leashed introduction occurred, and my SO was able to pet both of them concurrently. This is literally how my calico acts all the time.

My SO and I royally effed everything up two days later. After a few hours of exercising doggo, we crated him and allowed the cats into the living room under the assumption that he would whine, watch them, and ultimately lose a modicum of interest. Nope! He began barking hysterically and lunging with enough determination to physically move the XXL crate one yard into the living room to get closer to them. My calico's defense mechanism is to run for the hills, and her panicked reaction immediately exacerbated doggo's interest. We basically dangled a carrot in front of him.

My brave little 5lb senior calico has been traumatized. She will not set foot out of the bedroom despite two baby gates, a closed door, a crate, and a thousand square feet between her and the dog. If/when she does toughen back up, my SO and I are now terrified that her size and habits will rouse a deep chase instinct in doggo, and he'll just scare her all over again.

All the "introduce your dog to your cat" advice I see relies on my dog knowing how to sit, stay, or leave it. He does not understand "no" yet. A cookie is different than a cat. We don't know how likely he is to acclimate to a particularly small, fast kitty regardless of new commands, and we don't know how to introduce them again without teasing one and imposing the fear of god unto the other.

This situation has launched me into severe depression. I have not slept, eaten, or accomplished work in six days. I am torn between loving the daylights out of my new dog and resenting him for being.. well, a dog. His rescue knows that our cats are our breaking point, so I informed them of our issues and have internally decided to give it at least another week. I'm getting very attached to him, but I fear for my cats' emotional wellness in the present, as well as her physical safety in the future.

Any outsider opinions are welcome. Advice, two cents, empathetic stories, encouragement, discouragement. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I had to let it out somewhere.

 

[Cataria]

I'm sorry this happened! It's clear that you want what is best for your cats and your dog, so thank you for being such a caring and dedicated pet owner. One way or another, you'll get this figured out.

Let me first say that I don't own a dog, and the only real experience I've had with dogs and cats together is with my grandmother's dog and my siblings having cats and dogs together, so I haven't tried it personally. Hopefully somebody will more experience with this sort of thing will stop by soon.

However, my thoughts are that the first and most important thing to figure out what the motivation was behind your dog's reaction. Does your dog have a strong prey instinct? For example, if he's outside and sees a squirrel or something, does he want to chase it or even attack it, does he get really excited and curious about it, or not interested? I think as long as there is not a strong prey instinct involved and your dog is just overly excitable, then there is something you can work with.

Are there any dog behaviorists or trainers in your area? I think if you discuss what's going on, they may be able to evaluate your dog and whether he's safe to be around and can adjust to cats without actually getting your cats involved. I would expect that an overly excited dog would eventually get over the novelty of a cat.

 

[tinydestroyer]

I'm sorry this stressful situation is causing you some depression. I have nothing but encouragement for you, though!
We recently went through the cat / dog intro, except in reverse, so I don't have a lot of experience introducing an untrained dog to resident cats, but I do have some helpful hints. When introducing my new cats to my dog, however, my saving grace was my dogs ability to respond to a few basic commands. "No," Leave it," and "stay" were all integral in our intros, and should be worked on ASAP, IMO. In all of my research for my own experience, I definitely believe it is possible to have a happy coexistance in your furry family, even if you have a couple of setbacks, or a less-than-perfect first intro. Our dog met our 2nd cat after someone just threw him in our house. Needless to say, both of the animals were way stressed / hyped up, but with a lot of work, we were able to get them to be friends, and even cuddle-buddies. Here are some things that helped us:

1) I'm sure you probably already know this, but, don't ever, EVER leave the cats / dog alone together until you are sure the dog is trustworthy. We worked for a month on each cat intro (we got them 1 at a time,) to ensure that everyone will be ok when we leave for work. Even then, we leave lots of high areas and places where the cats can get away from the dog with gates. Even if the worst doesn't happen (i.e. nobody ends up injured, or worse,) you want to minimize the stressful interactions for each pet, because every negative interaction out of your control is a setback to their overall harmony in the home. As I said, most setbacks can be reversed, but you don't want to have to work through that.

2) Use treats liberally! As with any dog training routine, postive reinforcement is very helpful. Not only in learning the basic commands that will get you through the intro phase, but in creating a strong positive reinforcement for the dog with the cats. Speed is the key! You want the dog to know what you're giving a treat for. Keep a small pouch of treats with you any time you are in a training session, and keep them accessible for praise-worthy moments. Something like this really helps: PetSafe Treat Pouch Sport
This would be especially helpful to you, as your pup is still learning the basic commands, but can still understand that treats are good! Dogs generally WANT to please you, so be consistent in the words that you use for commands, and they'll catch on.

3) Use multiple styles of introduction, and switch them up. You've probably seen this on dog / cat intro routines, but using the crate, the leash, and the cat carrier at various times in our introductions helped both pets feel each other out safely. For example, I might let the dog sniff the cat in a hard shell carrier, or let the cat roam around in a room where the dog is leashed (giving him treats the whole time for sitting or staying calm, and removing him from the room if he gets rambunctious. Start again as soon as he's calm again.) Also, simply letting each animal explore a room where the other animal was being kept, and getting used to each other's smells, is very important. We basically combined everything from each acclimation article we read, and rotated methods.

4) Another helpful observation is trying to figure out if the dog is exhibiting a strong prey drive, or is just overly excited by the kitties as playmates. Honestly, by the way your dog went to exploring the house first thing rather than cat-chasing, I hope that he is just looking for playmates. Dogs, especially young ones, can be overly interested and excitable in cats who are not nearly as excited about playing with a huge pup right away. Fear on the part of the cats or on you can exascerbate the situation, as some dogs really feed off these social clues as they try to navigate their new home. Training a dog with a prey drive might be more of a challenge, but is by no means impossible. If you need some encouragement / inspiration, check out this person who trained a racing greyhound to get along with kitties: Dog Owner's Guide: Dogs and cats together

5) Training the dog is the main key. We also found that with very active dogs, like ours, there is almost no threshold at which they will be "too tired out" to play with a new playmate. Our pup is 10, so I can only imagine how high the threshold is for a pup. You can and should definitely give him plenty of exercise for his extra energy, but we found that mental stimulation / training and exercise is the best for getting him to focus on us in a stressful or abnormal situation. Give him multiple, 10 min training sesssions throughout the day. Get him to successfully follow a command, immediately give him a treat, and then move on to kitty time, gradually letting him have more and more contact. The above link I sent outlines a really good set of steps to get the dog to "ignore" the cats as they go about their daily activities. The forums on here also have a lot of good regimens for the same. Many of the steps require or work best with 2 people, so its good that you have your husband to help.

6) Make sure your cats get plenty of solo attention and play during this time too, but don't force them to play with the dog, or even be around him, until they're ready. I'm sure you know your cats best by this point, so you'll know when they are feeling safe, and when they wanna just escape. Listen to them, and they'll be more comfortable around the dog, too. Another good thing to look in the forums, as my cats were kittens and easier to acclimate to our dog. How To Safely Introduce A Cat And A Dog


Sorry this was so long! I really do believe that you and your husband can do it, but I empathize with your frustration, as it can be difficult! Getting this done is a lot of work, and a lot of self-discipline on the part of everyone involved, but is very rewarding in the end! I believe in you and your babies. Feel free to ask me any questions, and please keep us updated. Good luck!