Training a dog to except a cat

[mrose_s]

okay, we adopted Elliot on Tuesday, a 9 year old Siamese.
He is amazingly calm, he has already met Mac and she is now fine with him around the house, but Buster is our biggest worry.
I have elliot set up in the spare room now, he gets a couple of hours out during the day and most of the evening.

Today I opened the door to clean out his tray, buster was in the hallway and Elliot was a lot closer to the inside of the door than I thought. I opened it and Buster rushed straight at him. i blocked him with my leg, pushed him out, yelled at him and sent him off. I have never tolerated him showing any aggression to the other animals in this house he is ment to interact with.

I thought he would be okay, he lived his entire life with a cat. We will never leave a cat alone wiht all 4 because of what happened to my darling Willow when they broke open her cage when I was at school.

So I know I need to desentitize him. But I'm worrying things will get worse as this goes on. i was careful to make sure Buster never saw him inside the carrier, he has a thing about hating anything in a cage. The first time he saw Panda in a carrier he acted half weird around him even. Now I'm thinking this room is acting in the same way, its a secret and he's getting more nuts over it as time goes on.

I've discouraged him from sitting outside the room staring at the door which he's been doing plenty of over the last couple of days, he's now tied to my leg so he can't sneak off and obsess over Elliot.

I don't want him to associate Elliot with bad things so I'm not sure if I shoudl encourage interst in Elliot or discourage his somewhat "obsession"
he's looking at him like he looked at the rabbits.
I have to get him a beahviourist when I can afford it as is, but any work I can do before this gets worse would be good.

i know I can practice, holding him by the collar (he acts up more when on a lead) at one end of the hosue and getting someone to hold elliot at the other end of the house, slowy decresing the difference betwen them and clicking when he's calm. The problem with this is that he is perfectly calm, very still, very calm untill the thing in question is close enough to attack. I know how he'll act so it makes it difficult.

I'm putting a lot of work into his "focus" because Elliot is being very loud tonight and I'm praising a lot when I find him downstairs not outside the room. I'm also praising a lot when I call him and he walks by the room without a second glance, but that only happenss about 5% of the time.

I thought this would be easier, Buster has lived with Panda his whole life, they slept in the same bed, Buster who is a bit of a reource guarder would happily give up his meal to Panda and they got on great, I though how he is excepting of other dogs into the house, he would except other cats but he's down right dangerous at this point.

[DanL]

I don't have an answer but I'm real interested in reading the replies. We had to rehome a younger cat last year because we thought Gunnar was going to kill it at some point. The problem was the cat would run from him, which made him want to chase. The poor cat would hide in the basement day and night. We tried for months to get him to leave her alone- watching him closely and at the 1st sign of him looking like he wanted to chase, correcting him. I didn't like doing this because I didn't want him to think that prey drive was bad, and we couldn't monitor them 24x7. Our other cat is 14 years old, and he doesn't run, he'll just belly out and lay there, letting them sniff and nibble at him. If they get too rough (mostly Daisy) we correct.

[Jules]

I started very, very slowly... as in I would put a blanket or towel into the cat's room and in T-Bone's bed and after a couple of days I'd swap them out so each animal could smell the scent of the other animal and get used to it. I did that for about a week. Is there someone who can help you with the first times they meet? Maybe you can sit down with Buster and your mom could sit across the room with the cat... I would want to make those short meeting as pleasant as possible, so you could feed Buster some high-end treats and your mom could do the same with the cat. It will take time... but the key, IMO, is to keep the interactions as brief and as pleasant as possible for the first couple of weeks.

[mrose_s]

His meeting with mac was great, she got over excited at the other end of the couch, he looked at her then went to sleep. Same the next night, he slept when we brought her out and Mac came over and sniffed him. Now they are great toegether, Amc has a very healthy respect for cats as she was the smallest, alothough twice Panda's size he scared the pants off her. Now evrytime Elliot looks at her she freaks out. hopefully they'll get closer.

Elliot has spent a while sleeping in my bed, which is where Buster sleep so hopeully he'll be able to smell him. I've heard of putting something that smells of the cat under the food bowl so the dog associates the smell with good things, but worry maybe he'll associate the smell with food.

Busters a very funny dog, like he can't meet dogs on leash or on neutral territoy. But on his own territory and off leash he can.

Ellot is gorgeous, he decided toight he wants to go outside but we'd rather keep him inside so he's been so annoying, we've resorted to holdign him and carrying him everywhere like a baby which shuts him up a bit.

My mum is much more into the "quick fix" idea though and we've already had arguments over introductions. For instance when she carried him out last night, i turn around and she's carrybing this poor boy half clawing over her shoulder with three dogs staring up at her. We'd alreayd had one win with Mac getting close enough to sniff him, why make this harder than its already going to be. Which ofcourse I get in trouble because "i've spent almost 50 years with cats and dogs, you think i've never introduced them?"

Also, I know by now Buster is not entirely dog. I'm rethinking my approach to his training to incorporate more canine things. But havn't put a lot of thought into that either.

We took mac to the beach today, she ignores other dogs, other people. Doesn't want anything to do with that dog up the beach or the staffy walking past. i think about how much work my sister HASN'T put into mac and yet she's turned out so well, Buster is just this constant battle. I love him dearly but he's so difficult.

[Buddy'sParents]

To be honest... you can not make a dog accept a cat. Or a cat accept a dog.

adobe was born into a home with dogs, so we were lucky. We also got him at 8 weeks so he was with the dogs as much as possible.

Apache was a stray and to this day, STILL does not like the dogs, nor will she tolerate them whatsoever (except for Banzai- but who wouldn't love Banzai? ;) ).

So, with that warning loud and clear....

I suggest having the cat sleep around some towels and the same with the dogs... give the dogs a cat towel, give the cat dog towel so that they become familiar with the smells of each other.

We introduced Adobe via a crate. He was in and each dog was allowed their time to sniff around the crate and at him. Then all three were allowed together and we gradually upped the time.

Then, we would hold adobe and let one dog sniff at a time.. expose more of Adobe and let each dog smell, etc.. It helped that our dogs know "gentle" so if they got too rough, we could call out a soft "gentle" and they would back down.

After weeks of this and then Adobe's quarantine from everyone he was gradually allowed more and more free time in the house... with one dog, then two dogs, then all three dogs.. by the time he was allowed to have full reign of the house the dogs were familiar with his smell and thought he was the best fast moving squeaky toy ever. They love chase, lol.

[Cessena]

I just got a dog in June to live with me and my two cats. I found this article from the cat site to be really helpful:
http://www.thecatsite.com/Behavior/50/Introducing-Cats-to-Dogs.html

It has also been my experience that cats don't really do anything in a "quick fix" kind of way. They take a long time to adjust to change, especially when they are older. (My cats are still upset that I moved the furniture last week.) Some cats may do better than others but generally the key is to take it slow.

Since your dogs are SO much bigger than the cat I think the priority should really be to keep the cat safe. Everything I've read recommends teaching your dog "down" and "leave it" and keeping them in a down stay (on leash) when the cat is around. Eventually the dog will learn that the cat is not to be bothered. Actually getting them to like eachother is much harder with adult animals according to everything I have read.

Also, Siamese are typically VERY vocal cats from what I have read, so I wouldn't expect him to start being a quiet kitty any time soon.

[mrose_s]

Its okay, we knew he's be loud, its very cute but at midnight when he's been doing it constantly for house and still won't shut up it gets old. I think he's annoyed, he wants outside but we don't know any of his background so we want to keep him in.

Buster has a pretty solid down and leave it command. I learnt that when one of my rabbits jumped out of my hands right in front of him.
And I don't expect them to like each other, but to be able to simply have them in the same room would be nice.

He has so many weird issues like not being able to see something confined without hating it and not being able to meet anything on leash.
I wish this was a case of him being overexcited like mac, not aggressive.

He has so many issues and the more I read in the training forum the more I know I don't know anything about training him

[mrose_s]

Thismorning, I was asleep, my mum and sister were outside. The dogs were out the back. Our back door system is really weird and there are certain ways you have to close both the screen door and the glass door as the screen door slights ll the way across. And Elliot was inside.

grace (my sister) noticed Mac inside, thats okay, Macs fine around Elliot, Elliot was doing his normal meow every 10 seconds thing so the odgs knew he was inside. gracethought "oh no" and start trying to find the other dogs, she looks up to the backdoor and Sophie and Harry are looking through thre screen and Buster has his head stuck right through into the house without coming inside.

His behaviours gone mad in the last week, I don't know why but he just showed me he can still be a good boy, even when the cat is inside and he has access. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction.
Harry has also stopped barking wildly at him everytime he see's him. now he just wags his tail.

*sigh of relief*

[scout_chi]

I am going through a sort of similar situation right now so I'll tell you what I am doing. I work for an animal behaviorist and often will pet sit for a lot of her clients "problem dogs". Some of the animals will stay at my place. Right now, I am watching an extremely animal aggressive shepherd/greyhound mix. Now, this dog has a history of biting animals and has to wear a muzzle to leave the house. Once he knows the animal, he is fine, but getting him used to the other dog takes time. We spent several days getting him used to my dogs. We would play games with him around my dogs, so he would be having fun while they were near. These games consisted of him having to focus on us. We'd move around and have him follow us, sit when we stop and get a treat. If you move fast, the dog thinks it is fun, like he's chasing you. Or we'd have him do his tricks (down, high five, target, etc). When he was focusing well at a certain distance, we'd move my dogs closer. Eventually the dogs were right next to each other. Having Toby focus on us, we'd let one of my dogs sniff him. Then Toby would get to sniff my dog. In no time at all, they were playing together and were all friends.
So, now I have Toby at my place. He is great with my dogs, but he has never been around cats before and I have 2 cats plus some foster kittens. Knowing Toby's history of aggression, I was concerned how he would be around the cats. While it wouldn't be difficult to keep them separate until Toby goes home, I would prefer to expose Toby to the cats in order to broaden his socialization, thus making things a little easier on his owners (plus my cats are used to difficult dogs). So, I first had the cats in my bedroom for a day. Toby had the rest of the place and didn't know the cats were in there. The next day, I introduced him to one cat. It is my advantage to have a completely fearless (to a fault) deaf calico, Kelsey. Kelsey will go up to any dog, no matter the size or temperament, and either want to play or boss them around. I had Toby on leash (with his muzzle on, just in case) and let Kelsey out of the bedroom. I started to work with Toby, having him focus on me. The problem was that I could not control where Kelsey went, therefore I couldn't control the distance between the two. Kelsey of course wanted to come meet the dog (which is when it was a good thing that Toby was muzzled). Kelsey got too close too fast and Toby tried to go after her, but I luckily had control over him. Kelsey thought it was a game and wouldn't back off. This is when I realized that I needed a different method. So I put Toby in the bathroom with a bone for him to calm down a bit. But my brat Kelsey was determined to meet the dog, so SHE would lay by the bathroom door and try to put her paws in the crack under the door (I blocked it off so she wouldn't loose a couple legs). After a while, I put Kelsey in a crate at one end of the room and worked with Toby at the other end, slowly moving closer. So far, we've gotten so Toby can be next to the crate and not react. Next we'll try letting Kelsey out. Once Toby is comfortable with her, then I will start with my other cat (who is also fearless, but is smaller and disabled). I probably won't allow him to meet the kittens. Now this has worked in my situation because I know my own animals very well and have been able to pick up on Toby's body language pretty easily. If my cat was fearful of Toby, I wouldn't crate her as it would probably increase her fears. Timing is critical!!! It is so important that the dog is completely comfortable before moving him closer. Kelsey is a great cat to introduce dogs to because she loves it when new dogs come over (she is a weirdo; its a good thing she is indoor only or she'd find a dog on the street that she couldn't handle). I don't know if any of this will help you, but you know your dog best. Follow his signals and don't move too quickly!!