Cat Lovers Community Group
For all those people who are slaves to their cats!
We have 4 cats of various ages, the oldest Tigger is 16, Spice is 14, Penny is 8 and Lucky is 3. We were wanting to have a dog, but didn't think Tigger would cope at his age, so was going to wait until he had passed on, however we had the opportunity of having a pedigree Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and couldn't resist. We took it easy with the cats, introducing them carefully. The puppy (alexi) is now just over 4 months old, and she knows Tigger is the boss, will chase the other cats, but won't chase tigger, and tigger gives her a good bop if she dares to !! Penny who is very maternal (had several litters of her own, plus raised one of her sisters litters) has accepted Alexi as well without too many problems, will go nose to nose with each other and give each other kisses. Tigger and Alexi were both up on the sofa together last night as well, so no problems there.
Spice well she is wary of Alexi, won't go too close, but doesn't have a problem being in the same room as her, providing we are there, or if we aren't there, goes up high out of Alexi's reach and is fine with that.
Lucky is the one we are having a problem with..........he is very wary of Alexi, won't be in the same room as her if he has the choice, has done so on a couple of occasions with us there, but very reluctant. For the first 6 weeks that we had her, we didn't hear a peep out of him (normally very vocal), he hid away in our airing cupboard or under our bed upstairs away from her, and only came out at night when she was safely in her crate ! after about 6 weeks he seemed to have forgiven us and came out to us when we were upstairs in our room and she was safely downstairs and started talking to us again and wanting attention........that was about 4 weeks ago, and it hasn't progressed any further. He has started recently disappearing for a couple of days at a time, then when we have taken her out of the house, he will come back in, and disappear upstairs to the airing cupboard, he'll still come out for attention when he hears us go to bed. We've had really cold weather -14 and snowing recently so was worried about it, but he is coming back without any ill effects (possibly found a nice warm bolt hole somewhere).
Has anyone got any tips on how to get him more used to the puppy. It would be nice if all 4 cats would accept her and come into the lounge when she's out with us in the evenings. So far 2 of them will, the third on occasions and Lucky, well we don't see him until we go upstairs.
Anybody else on here, had similar problems with introducing cats and dogs and can give any advice on how to get lucky and alexi to tolerate each other ? or are we just going to have to accept that those two will never get on.........
Spice well she is wary of Alexi, won't go too close, but doesn't have a problem being in the same room as her, providing we are there, or if we aren't there, goes up high out of Alexi's reach and is fine with that.
Lucky is the one we are having a problem with..........he is very wary of Alexi, won't be in the same room as her if he has the choice, has done so on a couple of occasions with us there, but very reluctant. For the first 6 weeks that we had her, we didn't hear a peep out of him (normally very vocal), he hid away in our airing cupboard or under our bed upstairs away from her, and only came out at night when she was safely in her crate ! after about 6 weeks he seemed to have forgiven us and came out to us when we were upstairs in our room and she was safely downstairs and started talking to us again and wanting attention........that was about 4 weeks ago, and it hasn't progressed any further. He has started recently disappearing for a couple of days at a time, then when we have taken her out of the house, he will come back in, and disappear upstairs to the airing cupboard, he'll still come out for attention when he hears us go to bed. We've had really cold weather -14 and snowing recently so was worried about it, but he is coming back without any ill effects (possibly found a nice warm bolt hole somewhere).
Has anyone got any tips on how to get him more used to the puppy. It would be nice if all 4 cats would accept her and come into the lounge when she's out with us in the evenings. So far 2 of them will, the third on occasions and Lucky, well we don't see him until we go upstairs.
Anybody else on here, had similar problems with introducing cats and dogs and can give any advice on how to get lucky and alexi to tolerate each other ? or are we just going to have to accept that those two will never get on.........
Some pets can be extra sensitive to drastic changes in the family structure & have to work thru this on their own terms & time but yes there are those that just can't seem to work it out so masters need to try & help it along.
I wonder if it could be a matter of the cat just can't build a trust of the dog. We did directly have that when we brought a dog into our house with a very possessive female cat. It finally took my husband to physically place the cat right on top of the dog, hold her there for a moment & it was like all of a sudden the cat realized, OK I guess this will work. But that might not always be possible I know that. If you can find ways to show the cat that the dog is a trusted family member & that the your cat can trust him-are there any ways to try small moments of physical closeness(stay in the same room together but don't let the dog approach the cat) maybe the cat will catch on that it's a family member to be trusted.
Have you spoken with your vet, sometimes they have good ideas that they've collected from other people.
It could be too that if you keep reinforcing to your cat that it is still very loved, it may be able to work thru it in it's own time.