🐕 My final piece of advice is the one that requires the most amount of time and effort at the start, but gives you the best chance of long term harmony. The aim is to maximise the number of positive (or neutral) meetings, to safeguard their relationship when (and it’s bound to happen sometimes) your dog upsets your cat or vice versa.
🐈 This means initially, you (or anyone else in your home) needs to be 100% alert to prevent negative interactions unfolding, every single time. Negative interactions could be the dog chasing the cat, showing her too much unwanted attention (sniffing, nudging, barking) or the cat blocking the dogs access through a corridor or doorway. Of course there are plenty more examples.
🐕 In these situations, the dog should be distracted and engaged with something fun to keep the situation from getting out of control (you can call the cat away too but dogs are usually much more responsive 😂). Exciting toys should be kept to hand and it’s essential you practice their training so you are in as much control of the situation as possible.
🐈 This is the part I found most overwhelming with Bucky as (being a puppy) his behaviour was sometimes relentless. But we have been careful and kept negative interactions to a minimum. His behaviour is now much more settled (at almost 2!) and if he annoys the cats (usually play bowing in front of them bouncing from side to side) they’ll scarper. But because of the resilience we have worked hard to build (and the set up of the environment), they recover quickly and soon reappear when he is a bit more settled or distracted.
🐕❤️🐈 It has been a very hard journey, but totally worth it if you put in the groundwork and set them up for success right from the off. 🐈❤️🐕
Note - If you are at all worried about your cat’s (or dog’s) safety, do not continue with the introduction.
#catanddog #catsanddogs
