reintroduce cat to new dog?

danih

We got a new dog, a westie 4 weeks ago. We have had Max, a king charles dog for 4 years. We have had the 3 cats, all toms, for 3 years, 2 years, and a year.

Our 2nd cat, Alfie came to us at a few hours old. My husband found him under a bed in work with mum and sister. There was talk of drowning the kittens, so my wonderful husband came home with them. Mum hated Max, Alfie has grown up to tolerate him. They would have slept on the same bed or sofa, although never side by side. We rehomed both mum and sister.

Our other 2 tom cats are v comfortable with both our dogs. They sleep side by side, and these 2 cats will keep the dog in its place if it gets lively.

Since new dog, a rescue, arrived, Alfie has bn miserable. Every time he sees Teo, he hisses, spits, & runs away, Teo thinks this is great fun and chases him, it usually happens too fast for me to intervene.

We have a spare bedroom up stairs. The window is always open. The door is always closed, so its a dog free zone. Alfie now has a food bowl in there, and has been sleeping there. But he won't come into the rest of the house now.

Alfie is an odd wee cat, he's v thin, not great with other cats or people. He has had several small injuries from cat fights. I worry about how he will manage if he decides to completely move out because of the dog.

I have an idea. I'm thinking about closing the window of the spare room to keep Alfie in, and doing a gradual reintroduction to teo-with lots of strokes for alfie, and a lead and water spray bottle for the dog to distract him when he gets playful. I would repeat this several times a day for a couple of weeks.

Is this a sensible idea? Is it terribly cruel for the cat? Any other Ideas? What do you think?

the_pink_panther_2

I don't have a dog/cat example, but a cat/cat one istead which might help; my cat had a single surviving kitten (got pregnant v young before being spayed). She freaked out and tried to eat her kitten so I removed her and for first 48 hours looked after her. Mum then bonded with kitten when her milk came, but the moment she stopped feeding her kitten at about 8/9 weeks she despised her kitten. I thought that they would eventually grow on one another. The mum sounds similar in personality to your cat; aloof, didn't get on with other cats that well. 2 years later it broke my heart but I decided that it would be for the best to rehome the mother as she constantly hissed at her daughter and generally didn't seem happy. (the mother rather than the daughter was re-homed as there was a third cat also involved, who was the mum's brother. This third cat got on splendidly with kitten but the mum was indifferent to him so seemed the fairest solution.) When I was trying to resolve issues between mother and her kitten I did try using feliway diffuser, if you look at its reviews it has some positive reviews for such situations. Unfortunately it didn't work for me, but might be worth a try? My point about the cat/kitten is that there is a possibility that the situation won't get better unfortunately. I don't know if it's the same with Alfie, but I always felt that th eproblem with my cat was that she was posessive and jealous and it was sharing attention which she was unhappy about.

danih

There is certainly an element of this in alfie. He is v loving towards me, and to a lesser extent my husband, and I do think he would be delighted if he was the only pet in the house.

I am really concerned that after carrying out my plan things won't have improved - looking for plenty ideas from other readers please.

Bn testing the water spray today on new dog - bn working v well. He's a good dog, but loves to play! He's only a year old. Poor Alfie can't stand him.

Pink panther, I'm glad you got your situation resolved - can't have bn easy.