Dogs & Cats

[CharlieDog]

OR, alternatively, teaching a highly driven dog that cats are not for eating.

Simon is extremely interested in cats. TOO interested. He becomes fixated and obsessed with them. It's slowly getting better now that he's around them more, but he would dearly love to harass them. He hasn't hurt them, but he likes to mouth them, and poke them with his nose, and thankfully they're used to dogs and know not to run, otherwise I think he'd hurt them if he caught them.

I do not let him do that, by the way. But he has been out in the yard and the cats like to do cat things, which is whatever they d@mn well please pretty much, so it's been a bit difficult to control every single interaction he'd had with them.

I've been doing a combination of LAT with them, which is sort of working and sort of not. I have not found anything he'd prefer to staring at the cats through whatever barrier it is between them, nor from his obsessiveness over where they were. No food I've tried is enough to distract him except momentarily. When it does work, we have a party, but it's never for long.

And I've been correcting him when he's inappropriate with them, rewarding when he's being appropriate. I let him sniff them, just to get over the whole curiosity thing, because I don't think he's ever actually been up close to cats before, and then reward if he turns away, looks at me, etc.

Is there anything I'm missing? One of the cats hates him, and is immediately confrontational, so I avoid letting him even remotely close to him. The other cat couldn't care less and ignores him, and this is the cat I allow him to sniff, on my terms. If he's "bad" or unmanageable, I correct him, and then crate him and let him think about it. I may not be going about this the right way, I've never had a dog that couldn't live with cats, or at least peacefully coexist before, so this is all new to me.

Even all the Schutzhund dogs that have paraded through here for a week or more for in home boarding were never this interested in the cats.

[aivzdog]

I have three dogs and two cats. Two of my dogs are fine with the cats but one of my dogs gets so excited and tries to nip at the cats. Good thing cats know how to run but it would be nice to get my one dog to stop being so fixated.

[Taqroy]

I wish I could help but I have the same problem with Mu and squirrels. It's slowly transitioning to cats although most of them are about her size so I don't think she'd actually do anything to them. Lol. We're doing pre-macking (as recommended by Lizzybeth I think) and using the leave it command a ton. It's.....not really working. I'm getting really frustrated to be honest.

[CharlieDog]

Yeah, its so not working here either and the LAT game is only seeming to make him more obsessive about looking for the cats.

[Taqroy]

If you find something that works you should definitely let me know. I tried to take Mu on a walk the other day and made it a block before we had to turn around. I just couldn't deal with it - my patience level is low anyway and that day was really bad. And I'm pissed because we were thisfreakingclose to having a LLW....and now it's gone. She spends the entire time at the end of the leash looking for squirrels. Sorry for the rant lol.

[Pops2]

some dogs instincts are too strong for traditional training to work and you HAVE to get pavlovian on them to get through to them. even then they may only be safe w/ your housecats but not strange cats.

[CharlieDog]

Originally Posted by Pops2

some dogs instincts are too strong for traditional training to work and you HAVE to get pavlovian on them to get through to them. even then they may only be safe w/ your housecats but not strange cats.

I'd be fine if he'd just ignore our two cats. I don't care to or want to have him buddy buddy with them, but not chasing these two or putting his mouth on them is high priority. What would you suggest? I'm running out of ideas, everything is seeming to make it worse.

[JessLough]

Let him close to the confrontational cat (on leash) and let the cat teach him a lesson?

I'm not much help LOL

[Snark]

Kind of along the lines of what Pops said... I adopted a dog, Sam, who was extremely aggressive with cats. He was a shelter dog and the people there said he was very interested in the cats but never did anything... guess they never really let him get nose to nose with one.

Anyway, a combination of crating, keeping him on leash out of the crate, praise when he ignored the cats and a squirt gun when he didn't, eventually taught him to tolerate the cats (Sam hated being squirted and it was enough of a deterrent to make him stop trying to chase/kill the cats).

Used to board our horses at that time, and usually took the dogs along since the barn owners didn't mind extra dogs around. I caught Sam going after a barn cat just as I was about to dump a water bucket. I threw it on him instead and he'd been so intent on the cat, he had no clue where the water came from. It turned out to be perfect timing, he must have associated getting drenched with chasing the cats because that was the last time he tried it.

Sam did eventually get to the point where he'd accept the cats rubbing on him but he was never trustworthy around kittens. They were too close to rat size , I guess, (Sam was a terrier mix) because he'd fixate on them until they reached a certain size and then it was, oh... a cat...

[SarahHound]

I'm in a similar situation with my new greyhound Lucy. She had never met a cat before coming to live with me, and she is at the stage where she will chase if the cat runs, and does the nose nudging and extreme sniffing thing. She is slowly getting better, but her prey drive is very high, at the moment she seems far higher than Todd (who actually killed a cat in his previous home).

I have 2 cats, one old man who takes no crap from dogs, he stands up for himself, and a little one who runs when she is scared, so its her we are having the problems with. It really is a case of yelling NO when she looks at the cat and rewarding when she doesn't.