Does your dog "get" cats?

[milos_mommy]

How do they interact with cats?? Chase aggressively, play too roughly, treat them like another dog, scared of them, ignore them, other?

Milo grew up with a cat...and was usually fine with her, although sometimes he would get a bit aggressive if she did something to **** him off, he never hurt her and could be called off. He'd annoy her by nudging her and trying to get her to play, most of the time. She died before his aggression issues got more serious, though.

Now, we have two cats, and Milo is mostly separated from them except when closely supervised. One of the dumbass cats thinks chasing him, darting out at him, etc. is hilarious, and seemingly had a death wish (Milo growled at him a few times when he startled Milo, which the cat thought was incredibly amusing, so their bonding time has been cut VERY short).

But recently, Milo's been a lot more tolerant of surprises, and the cat has been a lot more interested in just chilling in the room with him instead of hiding atop bookshelves and leaping into his face unexpectedly. So, they've spent a bit of time together, which usually involves Milo running from me to the cat with a big stupid grin on his face, and the cat pawing at him, to Milo's extreme delight.

Tonight, my dad was petting the cat in the living room, and I let Milo in to hang out. The whole family was there, and since Milo was being super nice to the kitty and was really relaxed and happy, he got 3x the praise he usually does around the cat, which nearly made him explode with happiness. He kept running up and licking Dash's ears and then darting a few feet away, so I said "Milo, he's gonna getcha!" which is what I say when Milo and I play chase, so Milo took off across the house.

When he realized the cat was not following, he tried again. No luck. So...it was time to problem solve. He ran, grabbed a ball, and threw it in the cat's face before playing bowing and spazzing out. The cat was not amused, but the ball bounced enough that I'm pretty much Milo thought Dash was responsible for it. So he spent a good 15 minutes throwing his ball at the cat, then prancing around in full bliss that the cat was playing with him every time the ball rolled away.

He really does enjoy the company of other animals, and it makes me so happy to see him playing with another dog, or our cat, after all the work we put into it. It would be worth it, even just for the peace it brings and having a dog that doesn't flip out around other animals, but it seems 100% more worth it when he's racing around with the other dogs or smiling so hard at the cat it looks like his face will fall off.

[Red.Apricot]

According to Elsie's body language, inside, cats are dogs (friends). Outside, they are rabbits (food).

So no.

[JessLough]

Well, it is very important to me that any dog in my house knows that animals inside must be tolerated.

So inside cats are respected and given space. Cats (and other animals) outside are things to chase and scare off.

[yoko]

Yoshi... I won't say she gets them but she's pretty good with them. All she wants to do is run up and sniff them but then she's usually done.

Sometimes if a cat swats at her she thinks it's playing but it's never rough it's just her jumping around.

In the house and outside of the house she's the same.

[Lyzelle]

Zander plays like cats like he would puppies. So I'm not sure. He's gentle with little animals in the house, and he'll be polite outside if I tell him to. But I wouldn't say he "gets" them.

Given the opportunity, he wouldn't turn down the chance to run, aka chase something that ran outside.

[Katem]

The cats and the dogs coexist in the house...not necessarily peacefully, but they tolerate each other. Bear is quite happy to ignore the cats entirely, although his patience for them wanes a bit if they swat at him. He also has a far lower tolerance level at night for some reason. If they slink about when it's just the dogs and I up and everyone else is sleeping, he tends to go into 'alert' mode and really wants to chase them off. He settles for making pitiful whiney growly noises while staring them down.

Pig and the cats have a love/hate relationship. Pig loves them, they hate her. She doesn't understand why they won't play with her. Sometimes they'll chase her around and she thinks it's the greatest thing ever. The cats aren't exactly in 'play' mode when they chase her, but she doesn't care as long as they're chasing her. I have a feeling that if the cats did actually play with her, she would get too rough with them.

Outside cats are fair game. Pig is very interested in them, but she looks like she just wants to play. Bear thinks they need to be watched carefully off of the property. On the property they need to be chased off and possibly mauled/eaten if caught. Luckily he's never caught one. He did 'tree' one after chasing it up a lattice wall. I had to physically put him back in the house because he didn't want to leave it.

[Panzerotti]

My old guy, Solo, completely ignores the cats. Pan gets along really well with my Siamese. She can get a bit rough sometimes, but then he will bite her legs/face to tell her to back off. I wouldn't say she "gets" cats in general though. I don't trust her with my old tabby cat because he'll start fights and that gets her overstimulated, fast.

[Saeleofu]

Gavroch chases cats, and so I don't let him near cats unless he's on a STRONG leash. I really only trust him around cats with my brass-hardwared Ella's Lead slip leash because that sucker is HEAVY DUTY.

Logan LOVES cats, but the cats hate him. He wants to play sooooooo badly, and they just smack him upside the head. Poor dog. Since usually if I have one dog downstairs I have them both downstairs, Logan doesn't get to see the cats often.

Whn I had tango he LOOOOOOOOOOVED the cats and played with them as if they were dogs...and the cats played back in the same way, because they're pretty sure they ARE dogs lol.

[Dizzy]

Bodhi understands cats better than she does other dogs. She's amazing with them, and even befriended the last cat we lived with who was a renowned dog hater. A cat that used to be called Tyson....

Fred has met cats, but doesn't really understand their purpose. Do you play with them, stalk them, chase them, lick them or what?!

[Dogs6]

Tika treats cats as if they are annoying puppies. She'll sometimes snap at them if they're annoying but that's it. Although she and they work together stealing food.

Taz, pretty much just ignores them but the cats like to cuddle up to him.

Fudge ignores our cats inside, wants to sniff and poke at them outside and chases strange cats and ours if they run.

Scamp considers inside cats ours, knows he must never even think about looking at a cat in someone else's house and chases/attacks any cat outside unless they're tabby (our inside cats are tabby and come out to play with the dogs). Our cats have ran up, attacked his tail and ran off and he just ignores it.

Aura knows that she isn't allowed to bother the cats but she desperately wants to make friends with them but she is far too rough with them.

Diesel gets bullied by our cats. They love sneaking up on him, beating him up and sprinting off. They especially love it when all mum sees is him chasing them so he gets yelled at. They will do this over and over again. But if Diesel ever gets too rough they can pin him to the ground with one paw and then they bite his ear.

Ozzy doesn't know we have cats lol

If I ever yell at the cats (fighting, clawing furniture/me, etc) all the dogs come flying and I have to be careful extracting the cat without it getting hurt because as a pack they would attack a cat if they got too excited.