I am thinking of getting a kitten. Right now our lab is just over a year old. I am debating looking at a kitten soon or waiting for another year for Owen to settle down slightly. Does anyone have any experiences with getting a kitten while having a lab a year or two years old?
Yes but my Lab was already used to an older cat who had laid down the law. Still, if Owen is obedient and you can supervise and provide escape routes and safe places for the kitten I'd go for it. Make sure you can return the kitten if there is no way it's going to work. We lived with a cat hating dog for 10 years and it was not fun. But I think that is unusual, most dogs learn to tolerate if not really like their own cat. And in my experience young kittens LOVE dogs.
Years ago we went to the Humane Society to get two kittens and came back with a 4yr Lab and two kittens. We did take the Lab (Ginger) over to the cat area to see how she would react, and see was fine with kittens. She raised the two kittens, and one of the two was still around when we got Tilly, so what goes around comes around. Cooper would probably be a bit of a trial to a cat, but she would probably learn to behave pretty quickly. If I had a 1yr old Lab, I would probably want to introduce her to some kittens and see how she reacted. Years ago I had a Malamute, who lived with two Siamese cats, sort of an armed truce. Any other cat he considered prey.
We got a kitten with a 1-year old lab, a 5-year old lab, and an older rescue dog already in the house. The labs got along well with the kitten and were very gentle with her as a kitten. As a cat, occasionally the 2-year old lab will chase her the lab has not been exercised, but they were gentle with her when she was a kitten.
