Introducing my cat to a dog and cat

[mbeth426]

Hi, I'm new, and I was looking for some suggestions. Hopefully some of you may have some for me. Sorry, this is going to be a rather long post, so bare with me.

Ok, here's the background story. My male cat, Calvin, is 1 year old and neutered. I brought him home as a kitten (adopted him from an animal shelter), and he lives with a 10 year old female German Shepherd, and a cockateil. Now, the German Shepherd is VERY timid and shy. She really never bothered Calvin whatsoever. In fact, Calvin would sleep with her and kneed her as if she was his mother when he was a kitten.

My friend has a condo, and we were hoping I'd be able to move in with her soon. She has a 8 year old female Husky and a newly aquired female kitten (not fixed). Her Husky and kitten are much more hyper and playful than the German Shepherd Calvin is used to.

Now, we're up to current. My friend went to AZ for 11 days and I'm staying at her condo to look after her pets. I also brought Calvin with me, to hopefully have the animals get used to each other. I'm not planning to move in relatively soon, so I'm wondering if that I even succeed, will I have to go through this all over again when I do move in and this is all pointless to begin with? I was thinking that they might remember each other if they end up getting along, but I'm not sure how that all works with animals....

Anyway, I tried introducing him right away, and her dog chased him around and my cat growled, hissed, and moaned. He's never hissed or growled before, and he even growled at me. :sad: I have a separate room where I keep him while I'm sleeping or at work. But the dog seems to be really obsessed with my cat, she will stand outside the door and whine while the cat is locked up. She will lay in front of the door too. I've been bringing my cat out and leaving him in his carrier for a bit to let them get used to each other that way, because that's what I've read is best to do. The dog will approach the carrier and sniff the cat, and continuously whine and howl a bit. The cat will hiss and growl (which I read is normal). While this is going on, her kitten seems to be unphased and not even care about the cat.

Right now the cat is in a carrier on a table, and the dog finally calmed down and is laying on the floor right next to the table. The cat is not growling or hissing. But when I take the cat out, the dog gets overly excited and starts chasing my cat, and my cat runs and hides in the corner. The dog will stand by the corner, and not let the cat go anywhere. I even tried letting my cat out with the dog and kitten locked up, so he could explore the new environment by himself, but whenever the dog would whine from being locked up, the cat would run in the corner and hide again, just from hearing the dog whine in the other room.

The dog doesn't seem to have the intent to hurt the cat, but wants to smell him and play (she tries to bite him playfully, like she does when playing with the kitten). But my cat is not used to that type of play, because the German Shepherd never played like that.

I'm not sure if this may be a lost cause or what. It's only been 2 days, and I know this takes time, but I feel bad keeping my cat locked up a lot. I also feel like that the dog is scaring him so much, that he may get traumatized from it. He's a very sweet cat, and I don't want his personality to change.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to do this a better way? Should I just be persistent? If I let the cat out, and when the dog chases him in a corner, I usually retrieve him and put him back in the room where he'll feel safe and secure. Should I not do that? Should I just leave him be for a bit? The dog doesn't seem to leave him alone though, so the cat doesn't even have a chance to go somewhere else.

And after 10 more days, I'm going back home with my cat....so I'm wondering if I should even be doing this to begin with....

Thanks for reading my loooooooong post. I appreciate any advice or suggestions you may have!