Will NOT leave the dog alone....

crazycalico

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Hey all, I used to be active on this forum, but haven't been for quite a while (though I've lurked on occasion).

We now have a dog, she is 9 months old. We trained her pretty darn well to not bother the cats. The bedroom, storeroom and bathroom are baby-gated off. We have scratching posts, toys, catnip, food, water and litter in that area. The livingroom/kitchen area is where the dog hangs out. There are also several high safe places in the livingroom for the cats.

Ollie did VERY well when we got the dog (older cat, kind of grumpy). He growls when there is proximity and otherwise him and the dog ignore each other. Hemi is the problem. Younger bratty calico with huge polydactyl paws. She has been obsessed with the dog from day one. She followed us on walks, ate out of the dog's food dish etc and the dog never bothered her for this. Her and the dog used to sniff at each other occasionally and that would be it. Seemed good. Some interactions have been downright cute....Hemi actually licked the dog's eyebrows last night, and all the dog did was sniff back and go back to napping.

Hemi will NOT leave the dog alone. She has started running up and batting at the dog, then running off a few feet and stopping (she never goes to the "safe places", she just waits for the dog to catch up then rolls on her back!). The dog is still a puppy technically at 9 months, but she is over 55lbs....big and can be inadvertently rough. Hemi will not stop harassing the dog, even though she has been thoroughly freaked out several times. The dog loves the idea of this play, but loves it too hard I guess, calling her off works to a point, but with the cat instigating its pretty much impossible to stop all together. Hemi has TONS of places to be, and has no reason to go into the livingroom-kitchen (which she does even when we are in the bedroom). I should add that this got worse when we started keeping the cats in 100%, there has been an upsurge in our area of predatory wildlife, so its not as safe as it used to be (I know outdoors is never completely safe, compared to some places I've been, its pretty good). Yes, Hemi is bored, but despite having toys, and us trying to play with her as much as possible she seems to ignore all of that in favor of harassing the dog, which we are scared will inadvertently end very badly. I have also tried removing Hemi, buy putting her in a safe place, playing with her and giving her toys....she'll still take off, jump the baby gate and go back to the dog.

We are implementing additional training to increase the dog's self control, but no matter what, at a certain point she can't be truly blamed for playing with the cat when she seems to keep being invited to do so, she's just too puppy-clumsy making her rough. The dog is barely the fault here, Hemi keeps batting and harassing the dog out of the blue. Does anybody have any suggestions on how to deal with Hemi? Squirt bottles have been suggested to me whenever she starts batting at the dog, but I'm reluctant to do that to her, although if it does turn into a choice between that and potentially having her get inadvertently killed by the dog I'll be kind of stuck. I also don't feel that I should be penalizing the dog by kenneling her all day because the cat won't leave her alone...its a more fair solution I'm looking for. I know cats aren't known for being trainable enough for obedience competitions, but if there is a good (and preferably fast) way to do this I'm all ears!
 

skippymjp

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I'm afraid I won't be of any help.  I took in my sister's dog when they sold their house and had issues with the new one, but she was older, laid back and hyper relaxed, and basically was just a warm pillow for the cats.  I don't have any rambunctious cat/puppy input.  :(  
 

lokilove

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I read this a couple times and I'm still not sure how this is a bad thing besides a possible accident. Have either the cat or puppy been injured in this type of play? I don't know much about cats and dogs interacting, but would one day like to get a puppy as well so this thread interests me in that respect. I know of people who's cats have trained the dogs to do things for them. One cat in particular gets regular back scratches by putting his back in the dog's teeth. 

Maybe an example of when the cat was "thoroughly freaked out" would put this in perspective a little. I do understand that play can get out of hand and even dog and cat friendships can end badly. I've heard some horror stories about that :(

Keep training the puppy. As she gets older she'll probably get bored of the cat especially if you keep up with the training.
 

nerdrock

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think she's worried about the dog/puppy inadvertently hurting the cat during play. 

My cat will run up to the dogs, swat at them and then run a few feet away to see if they will chase/play with her. If they do, she'll hiss and bat at them more, or take off and go under/on top of something they can't. It's a big game to her, and them, but if you didn't see her swat them initially, you'd think they were scaring her. I DO have worries about this because I use my dogs for hunting (rabbits, ground hogs, etc) and there is always that thought in the back of my mind that their prey drive is going to kick in one of these times and something bad is going to happen to her. 

I would suggest crating the dog/puppy while you're gone, if there is a reason that you don't want to do that (dog is for protection, etc), I would suggest keeping the cats in a separate room when you aren't home. At least when you are home with them, you can intervene if it starts going wrong, this way everyone is safe when you can't watch. 

I would also start to work with the dog/puppy in a high distraction setting. Mostly, I would concentrate on the commands leave it, stay and come. If she has the commands down at home, move out to your driveway or yard where there are more things going on. Once she's doing the commands there, go to a park that's a bit busier, gradually up the distraction level until you can be in the middle of a really busy park and she will listen to you. This way, if something does happen, you will have verbal control over the dog. 

What breed is the dog/puppy? If it's a mix, what are the dominate breeds (if you know)? Do you know the approximate adult weight of the dog? 
 
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crazycalico

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She's a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, luckily small for her breed, but she's still 55lbs at 9 months old and expected to gain at absolute minimum another 5-10lbs (normal adult weight for a Swissy is anywhere from 80-130lbs). It certainly is inadvertent harm that I'm worried about, she MAY grow out of most of it, but that'll take time and I'm a little worried about what could happen in the meantime. She was perfectly trained with the cats for a long time, we worked on it when she was little, teaching her to be calm around the cats, and to not chase them. Its the instigation/chasing by Hemi that is causing it (I mean really, who can reasonably expect a puppy to not want to play back!). We are going to keep working with her on her self control, which is pretty good all things considered, but if we get it even better she may be able to resist being prodded at a little better.

We've had an incident or two where they've been "playing" and in puppy fashion she got rambunctious, the dog actually pinned the cat to the ground and had her mouth around her throat, there was NO pressure, that much I could tell for sure, but Hemi squealed pretty loud. When I came running in from the bathroom and I said "Leave it" the dog looked up and let go of the cat who rolled over and there was a little bit of claw action, and maybe some teeth. This of course makes the dog get even MORE into rough play mode. Hemi got away no problem, and this has only happened that bad perhaps once. The other "freakouts" have been Hemi not liking being pawed and she cries a bit (being a drama queen sometimes I think!). It just boggles me that every time she will go back for more within 5 minutes, even if she has been freaked out! Whenever the cat cries about anything we will crate the dog for a few minutes (kind of not fair, since she didn't really start it, but what do ya do!) Right now, it isn't really horrible, but I'm worried about it escalating. If the dog got a really serious slash with claws I could see her leave play mode and enter defense mode. Puppy or not I'm sure you can all imagine the horrible consequences of that.

We're not fond of the idea of crating the dog all day while we are at work and all night while we are sleeping, we can, but she gets pretty stir crazy not being able to roam around the kitchen/livingroom. I'm probably going to do it for a couple of weeks during a "training program" for her, so at least for a while all interactions are supervised training sessions. Same with confining the cats, although we have a spare room I'm going to try to turn into a "kitty paradise" and we should be able to keep them in there at least while we are working.

I'm trying to figure out the best approach for training the cat though, to try to get her to start it a little less.....I don't really want to use punishment though, but I'm not sure if ANYTHING will top the potential for play that she seems to find in the puppy. I could start letting her out again to burn energy, but after a recent incident that is SO scary!
I don't know much about cats and dogs interacting, but would one day like to get a puppy as well so this thread interests me in that respect.
Although as you can tell we haven't been fully successful with it we've done pretty good (the other cat rarely gets bothered at all, other than his simple dislike for canine proximity). If you do get a puppy here's a hint to at least get started on some desensitizing to the cat: keep the dog on leash, walk her near the cat to just before when she wants to dash (EASY to see in body language), tell her to sit (or down or whatever) and give treats for being calm....decrease the distance until they are practically touching and there is no urge to chase. We even treated positive interactions, a sniff, or nose and then ignoring etc (helps to be sure that a sniff isn't what it takes to set her off!) Took a couple of weeks of doing several short sessions a day but worked like a charm UNTIL the cat started instigating (we had 3 months of relative peace!). I'm starting this program again, but not sure how it will work if the cat isn't actively harassing during training.....

OH WOW, just had a brainstorm typing the above. I'll try getting my husband to play with the cat with a cat toy while I do our little desenzing routine. If the dog can resist trying to go play with the cat during that Yippeee, we may have a solution, at in terms of the dog anyway....the cat will still need a little training at least, but this is a HUGE start.

If it works I'll be sure to post it in case it helps anyone else, and if anybody else has any suggestions I'm still all ears, especially if its hints on how to convince the cat that going over the baby gate to play with the dog is a BAD idea.

Thanks all, your posts helped me think through this!!!
 
 

nerdrock

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What about getting one of those compressed air things? I think they're called SSSScat or something like that. You could place it near the baby gate so that when they go close to it they'll get a blast of air (with no human association) and not jump the gate?

My dogs are crated during the day when I'm not home or when I can't watch them, they get into everything and haven't earned the right to be loose. They are loose in my bedroom at night on most nights, I let them sleep in the bed with me most of the time. I highly suggest crate training at least to get them used to it. You never know when you'll need it and it can be a life saver. You never know if you'll have to crate your dog for a medical reason (surgery, lameness, etc), it's hard enough when they have to be on crate rest without crate training adding to that. I also call the fire department whenever I move to tell them that there are dogs (and a cat) in my residence and where their crate is located, just incase something were to happen. 

If you want to leave her out in a few rooms, what about getting a few extra baby gates so that you can stack them when you're not home and the cats won't be able to jump over? 
 

semmett

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I think the cat is doing it for attention. The dog is new. Like a new toy. The cat wants the attention and see the dog as a play thing. The cat needs something to do. Have you tried to love the cat in front of the dog? Or maybe you need to find a way of communicating better with the cat. Cats are hard to read sometimes. 
 
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rafm

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I get that you are worried about inadvertent injury but really, I wouldn't worry too much. When the dog pinned her, you called her off and then the kitten got up and got her pound of flesh.....they are learning each others boundaries. Their play will lead to a wonderful bond as they grow older together. I would keep them apart when you aren't home. We had a daschund that we would kennel when we weren't home, but the kitten would constantly tease the dog when he was kenneled so that by the time we got home,the dog would go nuts when we let him out. It was ridiculous....pure mayhem. But then they would curl up and nap together later. 

You are dong the right things by training the dog but I would just keep an eye on them and let them develop their friendship. 
 
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