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Old December 2nd, 2012, 09:28 PM
Anomoley Anomoley is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: California, US
Posts: 3
Question HELP! Dog and Cat Relationship

Hello everyone! Sorry in advance for the length of this!

I'm brand new here, hoping to get some help/words of advice from those more experienced than myself.

Hubby and I have had a WONDERFUL, calm and very sweet Cavalier King Charles Spaniel for over a year now. He's fantastic in every way, gets along with everyone and everything.

We've now introduced a new kitten into our household a week ago. Lynx point siamese. Very sweet to me -- purrs, wants to be petted constantly, extremely vocal and doesn't stop following me around. A bit more shy with my husband... tolerates some petting from him, but that's about it. We figure he'll be better once he adjusts to both of us (since it has only been a week).

Now, the problem and source of my confusion: He's absolutely hating our dog! We introduced them in a very controlled way (held the dog, who was lying down and not moving anything but his tail -- couldn't stop wagging it), and let the kitten do his exploring on his own time. The kitten came up to the dog, sniffed him, and ran off.

Now, when we let the kitten out of his room (which we just started doing yesterday), he walks around our place exploring... the minute he stumbles upon the dog (who doesn't chase him but just sits quietly on his bed observing as per our command), he hisses, scratches the dog, and runs off!

I'm just not really sure what to do at this point. The dog is now afraid of the cat and is hesitant to sit still on his bed when the cat is out roaming around... he usually runs to one of us for protection as soon as he sees the cat. We were hoping they'd have a good relationship, we were expecting it knowing how sweet and loving our dog is... little did we know the kitten we'd be getting is a little terrorist in his own right.

Any ideas on how to help them develop this relationship into a better one, or at the very least stop the cat from scratching the dog? It did cross my mind to make some sort of loud noise (coins or an air compressor) when the cat "attacks" the dog... but I don't know if this is a good idea since I don't want to cat to associate the dog with fear, either.

Any thoughts from anyone with experience would be VERY much appreciated. Hubby's sort of hating me for bringing the kitten into our happy home at the moment... trying to find a way to make things "normal" again.
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