THE CANINE BEHAVIOR SERIES By Kathy Diamond Davis Author and Trainer

When a cat and a dog share your home, do you live in a peaceable kingdom? Or do they “fight like cats and dogs?” The reality could turn out either way, depending on several factors.

Peace between the species starts with the individual animals you choose for your family. How you introduce the new housemates can make or break the relationship, with those all-important first impressions. The introduction process may need to continue for a considerable length of time for success.

Day-to-day management of a cat and a dog represents several challenges. You’ll want to consider in advance whether you want to live with the household changes that may be required. No one can guarantee that a particular cat and dog will be safe together unsupervised.

Sometimes the prior history, breed, or temperament of either the cat or the dog raises a red flag about the match. Knowledge is power, every step of the way in running a dog-and-cat household.

Matchmaking

Whether you’re adding a cat to a home with a dog, a dog to a home with a cat, or for some reason getting both at the same time; take full advantage of every opportunity to choose the right match. Choosing an animal whose needs you can meet is the first step to a responsible and happy relationship. Physical safety and freedom from unnecessary fear represent basic needs for any creature.

Cat Selection

Cats are extremely instinct-driven, more so than most dogs. Breed makes a difference in how likely a cat is to get along with dogs, so if you’re selecting a purebred cat you can research this trait.

Kittens need to be accustomed to litter boxes, scratching posts, and human handling when young. They also do best if they learn “dog language” at a young age. Dogs and cats have different instincts, behaviors, and body language. The ability to easily learn a language is far strongest in early life. A kitten raised with a cat-friendly dog has a huge advantage throughout life in relating to dogs.

A kitten raised with a dog who is unfriendly to cats has a disadvantage. If you are raising the kitten yourself and have a dog who is not good with cats, keep them separated. If you are thinking about adopting a particular cat who grew up with a dog, find out all you can about that relationship. A cat who has already had rough times in life with a dog is likely to be best off in a home that either has no dogs or can keep the cat away from having to deal with a dog.

A cat who runs from a dog stimulates the dog’s chase instinct. If the cat is frightened of the dog, being chased will make that fear greater. It will also further stimulate the dog’s predatory instincts and make the situation more dangerous to both of them.

Some people think the cat scratching the dog will teach the dog to leave cats alone. Cats tend to be muscle, bone, teeth, and claws covered with lovely fur! A cat can inflict considerable damage on a dog, especially if the dog is smaller than 50 pounds or so, or to the eyes on a dog of any size. The cat scratching the dog also risks getting the dog so aroused that a fight will ensue and the cat will be injured or killed. Letting them work things out by fighting is not a plan. We’ll get back to the plan shortly.

Dog Selection

Breed makes a big difference in a dog’s ability to live safely with a cat. Some dogs can have an ideal upbringing but will mature into instincts normal for their breeds that just will not work for a calm dog-and-cat home. When this happens you may be able to train the dog for sufficient control when you’re supervising the two animals, but will need to separate them at other times.

You’ll want to research the breed’s propensities toward cats in advance. If the dog is a mix of two breeds, expect the dog to be high-risk with cats if either breed in the mix tends to harm cats. Better safe than sorry is a good rule to follow when an animal’s life depends on it.

Herding dogs may try to herd cats. With the right upbringing and training, the chasing instinct can be controlled toward cats as it is toward livestock. Without training it can lead to bad news for the cat.

Retrieving and other hunting dogs may go after cats to pick them up and carry them. These dogs, too, are trainable if the early experiences with cats are good ones. Herding and hunting breeds are dogs bred to work all day at strenuous tasks, though, chasing and controlling other animals, and certainly some of them are unsuited to living calmly with cats.

Hounds and terriers have been selectively bred to hunt independently or in packs and kill the prey, so it’s reasonable to expect a lot more risk from putting one of these dogs with a cat. Certain other breeds are known for preying on cats, too, such as Siberian Huskies and Chow Chows.

Breed is a factor, not an absolute. Some individual dogs of breeds normally okay with cats are not good with cats, while other dogs of breeds notorious for killing cats will, as individual dogs, be okay. One risk, though, is that the dog will be okay just until something triggers the instinct. Then suddenly you can wind up with a lacerated or deceased cat.

People tend to feel this is murder. Dogs and cats are not capable of the motives for murder, and are only acting on their instincts when they kill. A dog who kills a cat is probably not at increased risk of injuring a human.

And yet when a dog kills a cat in the family, people often have that dog euthanized because it is so upsetting to the humans. It’s also common to get rid of the dog. Considering that killing a cat can cause a dog to lose a home or to die, the decision to put a dog and cat together is not one to make lightly.

Dogs bred primarily as companions to humans can be the easiest with cats, as indeed they tend to be the easiest in other ways, too! Most books and articles about specific breeds will mention how the breed tends to do with children, other dogs, and other animals. That’s a good starting point on your homework for selecting a dog. Experts in the breed, including those involved in the breed’s rescue, are good people to ask about the breed’s cat-friendliness.

Some people do “cat testing” on dogs. This is often done in particular with retired racing Greyhounds being prepared for pet homes. Some Greyhounds are (illegally) trained with live prey, so someone gets a dog bred to catch and kill rabbits who has been trained to do it with real rabbits. Not a good risk for cats.

Testing a dog’s reaction to cats requires protecting the cat from harm or fright. The safest way is the same way you would introduce a dog to a cat, described below.

Introductions

Start by letting the dog and cat smell and hear each other through a door that blocks the view. After at least one day, preferably several days but definitely as long as it takes for cat and dog to be relaxed, try reversing their locations so the dog is where the cat was and the cat is where the dog was.

It’s useful to switch them back and forth several times. In cases where permanent separation turns out to be necessary, one way to give each animal time with the humans is to rotate their locations. When you make the change, guard against any slip-ups that would allow accidental contact between the animals. You could, for example, crate both animals, move each crate to the opposite enclosure, close the doors between the enclosures, and then open the crates.

If both animals remain calm, the next step would be to put two barriers between cat and dog, with a distance of several feet or more so both animals will feel comfortable that actual contact can’t happen. Then you let them see each other. One of the barriers might be a see-through door, window, or crate confining the cat. If it’s a baby gate it must be one the cat can’t get over, under or through.

The dog needs to be confined away from the barrier the cat is behind. You could use another crate or enclosure, or perhaps have the dog on leash. Even if both animals are completely calm at this point, that’s enough for the first day, maybe the first several days. Don’t rush to the next stage.

If either animal is nervous when viewing the other, go back to the setup of hearing and scent without sight. Be careful to maintain their trust by not allowing accidental contact.

Cats can take a long time to get used to things, commonly months. Taking things too quickly can set the process back so badly that it’s far better to go painstakingly slowly.

If the dog is the agitated one, consider the dog’s age, training, and the nature of the dog’s reaction to the cat. A puppy or adolescent dog has a long way to go before you’ll see the mature reaction to cats. This dog isn’t ready to be loose unsupervised in the house anyway. Plan for a long probation and training period, and reserve judgment on whether you’ll be able to leave the dog unsupervised with cats at some point in the future.

Training

The objective is for both animals to be calm in the presence of the other. If you have a helper, the cat can be on a leash attached to a cat harness. The helper’s job is to keep the cat from getting close to the dog, and to reward the cat for calm behavior. If you don’t have a helper you can put the cat in a crate and give the cat treats yourself.

The dog needs to be on leash. Maximum control would include a head halter or muzzle to control the mouth. A prong collar or electronic collar could trigger a defensive reaction in the dog toward cats, so only an expert should attempt the use of either of those tools.

A professional trainer might use an e-collar for this training to accomplish it faster, but that risks making the dog even worse toward cats and creating new behavior problems. Training of this type that is done gently over a longer period of time tends to be more stable training with a greatly reduced risk of unwanted side effects.

Reward the dog for calm behavior in the presence of the cat. Your goal is to keep the dog calm. You do not want to let the dog get excited and then punish. You want to establish a strong habit of calmness, so calmness is what you practice. Use a focused attention eye contact exercise to get the dog’s attention on you and off the cat. Reward this response, over and over and over. Eventually the dog will automatically turn to look at you instead of at the cat.

When you have both animals completely calm in each other’s presence, start releasing the dog’s attention more and more, for longer and longer periods of time, to look at the cat. Watch for any staring or other intensity in the dog’s attitude, and interrupt that by having the dog give you the attention of the eyes.

Doing this training gives you control so that eventually you may be able to control the dog off-leash around the cat. That level of training is feasible with most dogs if you are willing to put in the time.

What you can’t control is whether or not the dog will ever be safe alone with the cat. That is something you’ll have to determine by observing both animals over time. Never leave them alone together until you feel sure they would not fight at all. Realize that time may never come.

Multiple Dogs

The risk of dogs harming a cat increases as you add dogs. The dogs join together in pack behavior and cooperate in the “hunt” by instinct. A group of dogs will do things that no one of them alone might ever do. Every dog you add to the numbers increases the risk to the cat.

In some breeds, two dogs may do okay alone with cats, especially indoors. When you get to three dogs, the risk greatly increases. Above three, they are likely not only to hurt the cat, but to fight among themselves, too. But as with cat-safety, the breeds involved heavily influence how well the dogs can get along in a group.

It’s common for dogs to calmly accept cats inside the house but treat them as fair game outdoors. Some dogs seem to be okay with the family cats but go after other cats that enter the yard. This is an unstable situation that can easily progress to going after the family cats or indoor cats, too. If you need a dog who is gentle with cats, don’t let that dog chase any cats.

With multiple dogs or cats, be sure to train each one individually before trying them as a group. If, for example, you have two dogs and two cats, it will be wise to work each dog with each cat before trying them all together.

Multiple Cats

Cats like to cuddle up together for warmth. Watching a cat move, you realize what body awareness they have. Petting a cat reveals how thoroughly a cat can soak up the sensation of touch. And yet it is the dog who is a pack animal. The cat is a solitary hunter.

Male cats fight over females in heat, and female cats who are not spayed or bred will go into heat over and over and over. Socially they are very different from dogs. They will defend their young and possibly other members of their home groups against dogs. There are cats who will attack dogs.

Multiple cats mean more stimulation for a dog who gets overexcited by cats. This works against your goal of keeping the animals calm to reduce the risk of triggering predatory instincts.

Management

Cat food is not good for dogs and dog food is not good for cats. Having a cat steal the food or even be around when the dog is eating will lead to food guarding in some dogs that can extend to attacking humans who come into the room with the food dish. A cat should not be allowed near the dog when the dog is eating. You don’t want a dog to feel any need to protect the food dish.

Both the cat food and the cat litter box need to be placed where the dog absolutely cannot get into them. Training is not adequate to keep a dog from raiding a cat litter box for “poop treats.” Dogs like the taste, and raiding the litter box results in a “food reward.”

If the cat is young, you can place the food and possibly also the litter boxes in locations higher than the dog can jump. If the cat can’t jump and is smaller than the dog, you can use a baby gate just high enough off the floor for the cat but not the dog to squeeze under. Another option is to fasten a door so that it opens enough for the cat to get through but not the dog. There is at least one commercial cat litter box enclosure designed to keep dogs out, and homemade options work, too.

Cats need one litter box per cat, plus one extra box for the group, and if the house is multi-story there need to be one or more boxes on every floor. If a cat feels bothered by a dog or any other obstacle when headed for the litter box, the cat is likely to abandon the litter box and start having accidents. Cat waste smells worse than dog waste.

Housetraining is a habit, and eliminating in the wrong places becomes a habit just as easily as eliminating in your preferred places does. If the cat starts having accidents, that scent is likely to cause the dog to eliminate in the same spots. This makes it well worth maintaining the cat’s sense of safety and privacy in the litter box.

Buddies?

Some cats and dogs only manage to be civil to one another after painstaking training and with your close supervision. Some learn to live calmly in the same home paying little attention to one another.

Sometimes the cat lies on the dog—that’s because the dog is warm and soft and the cat enjoys those sensations. The dog may actually enjoy the contact, or just be tolerant.

For the dog and cat to play together without it escalating into dangerous interaction is tricky. The best thing for you to train, encourage, and reward is calm behavior in each other’s presence. If they find their way to sharing games as time passes, that may be okay. You do not want to do anything to escalate the excitement of any games between them, or reward or try to teach them to play together. If they both enjoy it, it will be its own reward. If it starts to get too wild, you’ll want to go back to rewarding them for ignoring each other.

Sometimes it’s not feasible to have two dogs, but you desire to have more than one animal and your dog might like some company. On occasion a cat can provide that little extra bit of company for a dog. It depends on the dog and the cat, their histories and their genetics. We can’t force them to become friends, but we can give them the best chance. And whichever way it goes, we can keep them safe.

Date Published: 9/12/2005 11:32:00 AM

    

Kathy Diamond Davis is the author of the book Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others. Should the training articles available here or elsewhere not be effective, contact your veterinarian. Veterinarians not specializing in behavior can eliminate medical causes of behavior problems. If no medical cause is found, your veterinarian can refer you to a colleague who specializes in behavior or a local behaviorist.