- Joined
- Feb 20, 2014
- Messages
- 147
- Purraise
- 17
Just a quick backstory. Back in February, my daughter adopted Porter. Porter is a 10 year old gray tabby who got the bad end of a cat fight before the shelter picked him up. She was told by the shelter staff that he was socialized with dogs. Apparently, he is only socialized with small dogs and the shelter staff assumed that Porter would equate a pomeranian with a Labrador, which has turned out not to be true. If Porter sees either of my two Labradors, he hisses and spits and makes this horrible howling sound.
Porter is getting plenty of socialization and play time with the people, but we have to keep him separated from the dogs and my husband would like to be able to have them just sit in the same room without Porter freaking out.
My daughter is considering getting her own place and taking Porter with her.
I'd like for Porter to be able to come hang out with us in the evenings to watch TV.
I don't believe that you can't teach an old cat new tricks, but I'm concerned that Porter may actually be afraid of my dogs and I'm not sure how to tell if he's just fearful because he's not familiar with big dogs like mine, or if he's actually had a bad experience in the past.
I have tried feeding them through a closed door. Porter is fine with smelling them, but the minute he sees a dog, he reacts badly. My dogs handle this by ignoring him while I scoop up the cat and carry him back to his safe place, which I guess is something.
I'm really tempted to see if there's a cat behaviorist in the area, just so I can learn more about cats and their body language. I can tell you right now, that my dogs are totally unconcerned with the fact that there's a cat in the house and they both wonder what his problem is. LOL! With Porter, I just don't know. I'm not as familiar with cats.
Any help you can offer would be useful!
Thanks so much!
Porter is getting plenty of socialization and play time with the people, but we have to keep him separated from the dogs and my husband would like to be able to have them just sit in the same room without Porter freaking out.
My daughter is considering getting her own place and taking Porter with her.
I'd like for Porter to be able to come hang out with us in the evenings to watch TV.
I don't believe that you can't teach an old cat new tricks, but I'm concerned that Porter may actually be afraid of my dogs and I'm not sure how to tell if he's just fearful because he's not familiar with big dogs like mine, or if he's actually had a bad experience in the past.
I have tried feeding them through a closed door. Porter is fine with smelling them, but the minute he sees a dog, he reacts badly. My dogs handle this by ignoring him while I scoop up the cat and carry him back to his safe place, which I guess is something.
I'm really tempted to see if there's a cat behaviorist in the area, just so I can learn more about cats and their body language. I can tell you right now, that my dogs are totally unconcerned with the fact that there's a cat in the house and they both wonder what his problem is. LOL! With Porter, I just don't know. I'm not as familiar with cats.
Any help you can offer would be useful!
Thanks so much!