Having solved the mystery of what was making Buffy bark in her crate in the mornings, I heard the cat wake her up this morning. My cat hasn't had much experience with dogs but when we first brought Buffy home at 8 weeks he just ignored her and swiped her if she got too close. They were happy to both sleep on the sofa albeit it at opposite ends. As Buffy has got bigger, she has become more confident at trying to play with the cat and has still tried it on despite the cat drawing blood a couple of times. So now rather than stand his ground, the cat has decided it's easier to run away. Argh! They are completely separated during the day. My cat is pretty lazy and just sleeps upstairs on our bed most of the time. We've also moved his food upstairs because Buffy keeps trying to steal it if we put it in the fenced-off part of the kitchen. So the only time they see each other now is if the cat comes inside while Buffy is downstairs. But now all she wants to do is CHASE him from the kitchen door to the stairgate. Obviously I am worried about the both of them and would like to put a stop to this, and to the barking in the mornings (5.20 this morning!). Buffy is fairly easy to distract with treats so I don't think her prey drive is that high, is it? She does the same to pigeons at the park. Would it make a difference if I played fetch with her more? I was also thinking of giving them both some tinned tuna with Buffy inside the fenced-in kitchen and the cat outside. So they can see each other but the cat isn't going to get chased. Then maybe they will start to associate each other with good things. Or is that a terrible idea? Am I doing the right thing by ignoring her barking in the mornings? She really goes for it, barking, howling, pulling the blankets off her crate. This morning I waited for a quiet moment before I got out of bed and as soon as she heard me, she stopped barking. But I don't want her to think she can get us out of bed any time she wants by barking. Thank you for any help!
I'm no expert on the cat/dog relationship and can only go from my own experience. My cats were 5 years old when we introduced Juno into the household and to say they were not impressed is putting it politely. I sprayed lots of Feliway around and used a stair gate to provide a safe area upstairs for the cats. I switched their food and litter tray upstairs so they could eat and toilet in peace and so Juno couldn't eat their food. Over a period of weeks life settled down and although the cats and Juno don't curl up together they get along fine and Juno gets to give them little licks and sniffs in passing. My rule with Juno was that she was never allowed to chase the cats and has to remain quiet if they come closer. Juno tries to puppy bow them to play and drips toys in front if them and they now know that she is trying to play but they usually just walk off. Sort can't help on the morning barking as not had to deal with it with any of our dogs.
I should add that I've always played a lot of games of fetch or find with Juno indoors as well as out.
When we adopted poppy 4 months ago we were told she was fine with cats. How wrong were they! We have 2 cats. I think patience is the key here. I have spent a lot of time on the stairs or in the door way between the kitchen and the utility room, Poppy on one side cats other with tins of sardines, or chicken. It is working slowly. Poppy has to be sitting and calm then she gets a bit of yummy sardine, if not the cats get her piece. We sometimes move 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. Lola and poppy are getting on ok , that because Lola is getting brave and has bopped poppy on the nose. Tizzy is still a work in progress, Don't give up And stay Calm. Good Luck
My previous two labs were very quickly trained by my male rescue cat who wouldn't move from his warm spot near the kitchen for anyone (and certainly not a boisterous Labrador puppy). Unfortunately he's no longer with us and my current cats run from Ripple who then sees it all as a big game. I feed them separately and they have a different room to sleep in and when the bravest one ventures into the room Ripple is in we do a lot of 'leave the pussy cat' click and treat. However I don't seem to be seeing an awful lot of improvement and I think this time it will be a long slow job. It's a shame really as the eldest cat used to sleep with my last lab and she really missed him when he died.
Tatze stays with my friend who has a cat - Tatze is hopeless with him and chases him whenever she can . My friend has the cat in a completely separate room at night or Tatze wakes up early woofing at the cat I think we can only rely on the cat standing its ground - it it doesn't all bet are off!
I've always worked on the basis that the cats and dog are different species so there us no reason why they should be best pals. As long as they are living in reasonable harmony I'm happy. The cats go about their lives in the house, curl up with us on the sofa or in their cat scratcher and Juno doesn't chase them. If the cats went to smack Juno in the early days they were told off and in return Juno has not been allowed to bother them
When Oban came our three cats were quite used to a dog. All liked the dog and one cat had a special relationship with Jet. Imagine how they felt when kind, gentle Jet died and I brought home 10 pounds of Holy Terror. The cat who especially loved Jet hid and didn't come if there was a chance of meeting puppy for a year. The other two would give Oban a whack when needed but chose to avoid him as much as they could. We made sure the cats had escape routes. They could always jump up on furniture, and we cut cat sized holes in the gates used to contain Oban. ONe thing I did was make sure to address the cats first. First greeting, first pet, first fed. I always made Oban last in line. Whether this had any effect on reassuring the cats they had not lost their place in my heart or whether it showed Oban he was not the centre of the universe I really can't say. But it made me feel better for introducing Mr Holy Terror into their calm cat lives. Give it time, make sure your cat has safe places to escape to and routes to get to them. Most dogs and cats in one household get along just fine. They might even become very good friends. As it say, with my one cat it took a whole year before she was willing to show herself to Oban. Now they sleep side by side at night. If the cat (name?) is teasing Buffy and making her bark, that's not fair. Can you arrange things so the cat can't do that early in the morning? It does sound like Buffy could use some training classes to learn to heed you instead of following her instinct and chasing. Are you doing classes? ONe thing I think made Oban look at our cats in a whole new way was I used the most laid back cat in our training. Our instructor said to do this if we had two dogs and I didn't so I used a cat. The instructor said, if, say, you are teaching SIT and the dog is distracted or slow to comply give the cat a treat instead. SIT, too slow, here Sadie-cat, have a yummy treat for free. I tell you, that little puppy bum hit the floor so quickly the next time you could hear it smack. This is sort of an extension of your idea of feeding them together, make the puppy work for it at the same time. I wondered, and you will have to watch, if this might instill jealously, but it didn't. Oban just looked at the cat almost as if SHE controlled the treats. I really think this was turning point in the relationship for both of them. It took a little longer for the other two. Oban was 5 months old.
I really like that training idea Snowshoe, my youngest cat is very greedy and I think if I could organise it she would love to participate in that sort of training .
Thank you so much for the ideas. I can definitely see my cat (his name is Ricky ) going for that training idea! I bought some tuna today so I can use that. I was going to classes with Buffy, we had a brief break because she went through a fear phase and the class said we would be best speaking to a behaviourist. Everything is improving now and I would like to go back to a class after Christmas. She'll be hitting the teenage phase soon and I want to be ready for it! I can't see Ricky and Buffy ever being best friends, but if they could go back to ignoring each other then that would be fine with me. If not then we might see if Ricky is happy being a house cat, he's getting on in years anyway so might not be bothered about going outside any more. Especially not in this weather.
