Cat and new puppy. Help!

[redfaerythinker]

Hi guys. I have a 4 year old, male, neutered, de-clawed cat, Leo. And I have recently purchased an 11 week old Mastiff puppy, Hera. Right now Hera is being crate trained so they are rarely ever together. Hera can only see the cat through the kitchen gate, or on the way outside to potty (always on a leash). Right now Hera thinks that Leo would be an awesome friend to play with. Leo is not as thrilled with that idea. He will sit there and watch Hera wriggle around in the "please play" posture, but as soon as Hera starts to bark or lunge towards him, he runs for the office. The office is where his litterbox, etc. are housed and it is gated off so he always has a place to hide. There has been no animosity shown by either animal, other than Leo puffing up a little bit once or twice. I think it's mostly just a case of puppy not speaking cat and cat not speaking puppy.

So my question is... Do any of you much wiser animal owners have any tips? This is my first dog and I want to screw up as little as possible. It's also really important that we get this worked out now because Hera will quickly grow to just under 200 lbs and then we would have a problem. Mastiffs don't really have much of a prey drive, but I would love for them to get along so Leo doesn't have to live in the office. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! TIA!

 

[Liane]

Here's one way to do it. I'm not guaranteeing that it'll work for your dog or that it's the best way of doing things, let alone the One True Answer, but it's one option that you can try, since your puppy doesn't seem to have a high prey drive directed at the cat (which would require a much stronger intervention than this basic training). My dog is great at ignoring our two guinea pigs now, which is good because their pen has an open top and he could easily snack on them if so inclined.

Use the cat as a distraction while you work Look At Me (from My Smart Puppy, by Brian Kilcommons and Sarah Wilson -- a great training book, although as with any other book, it shouldn't be your only one).

-- Put the dog on a short four-foot lead.
-- Have a handful of small treats ready (kibble is good if your dog will work for kibble, otherwise turkey hot dogs chopped into kibble-sized pieces works).
-- Wait until the dog is not looking at you, then call the dog's name and pulse the lead gently.
-- Reward the dog with praise and a small treat when the dog looks at you in response to hearing her name.

Once the puppy is showing good attention and reacting quickly when there are no distractions around, try doing it when the cat is present but not very close. You want the puppy to pay attention to you and totally ignore the cat, but if she makes mistakes, that's why you have the lead: things can't get too out of control. Keep working on it until the dog is able to focus entirely on you and isn't so interested in the cat. Eventually the novelty of "ooh cat!" will wear off.

Meanwhile, the cat will gradually get used to this strange interloper, but let him take things at his own pace. He was there first and the dog is going to get a LOT bigger than he is, so it might take some getting used to. As long as he's not scratching or biting at the puppy in fear and has a safe place behind those gates where the puppy can't reach him, I wouldn't worry about it too much. He might become friendly or he might just ignore the puppy, but eventually he'll figure out there's no danger to him.

 

[redfaerythinker]

Thanks for the response Liane. I had read about that technique before and it seemed like a good one, but it's nice to hear that it's good from someone else ya' know?

 

[Haven]

We trained our dog to ignore the cats. We did this by correcting her behavior any time she went to sniff them, or lick them, or follow them around. We just gave her a quick light jab to her hip and said a firm "No." Once the cats were obviously comfortable around the dog, we then allowed her to pay attention to them.

Now they all snuggle up together (in the middle of our bed) at night and keep each other warm.

I think the best thing you can do is to give your cat his own space, and it sounds like you've done that. We put baby gates up to keep the pup out of half of our house so the cats had a dog-free zone to roam in until they were comfortable with her. When we took the gates down we trained the dog to only go into the restricted part of the house when we said it was okay.

Now that our cats are comfortable around our pups, they have a habit of chasing new dogs around the house when they first come over. They cornered my best friend's Cavalier and kept him there for ten minutes the first time he came for a visit.