# Dog and Kitten not working :(



## GoldenSail (Dec 30, 2008)

Today I am devastated. Last weekend I adopted a little black kitten from the humane society with the hope that he and Scout would become companions. From the day he came home the dog was anxious. He was in a separate room and you could not pry her away from the door with all the cookies in the world. I didn't introduce them right away and they were never alone together--Scout was always on a leash. Last night he was on the couch and jumped off to play with a toy and she grabbed him and shook him before I could react. 

I immediately rushed the little guy to the emergency vet where we stayed until past midnight. He's only two pounds--smaller than some of the dog's toys. I went through hell feeling like that little guy might die, but thankfully he is ok. No broken bones, one small cut, a staple, antibiotics, and pain killers and we came home.

But now I wonder where to go from here. Vet says kittens are pretty resilient and he is probably already over it. I am not sure now if this could ever work. Has anyone else out there had to deal with this? Did it ever work itself out?


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## Jige (Mar 17, 2011)

Yep been down that path before with pit bulls and there high prey drive. You need to work on leave it. When ever Scouts walks past the kitten praise him up good not to get him rowdy but tell him good boy. When Scouts looks at the kitten it is " No leave It". It will take some time but all of my dogs leave the cats alone. I have 6 dogs and 5 cats here that all live together peacefully.


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## fostermom (Sep 6, 2007)

It may work out eventually. I had a very high prey drive corgi mix who killed anything she could catch in the yard. When I brought home a small kitten, she wanted to eat it. She would shake and whine while trying to get to the kitten. I put a muzzle on her every single and took her into the bedroom where the kitten was. It took a full year for me to finally let the kitten out of the bedroom (she wasn't really a kitten anymore at this point). I personally would never want to have to go through that again.

There was a person who used to post here who adopted a black lab that had been a foster and he had high prey drive. She was able to train him to leave her cats alone. 

My worry would be that there's always a chance that the dog could go after the cat, though my corgi mix never did.


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## GoldenSail (Dec 30, 2008)

It breaks my heart but I decided to rehome the kitten. I did have people tell me it could work--but is it fair to the kitten? I do not want a repeat incident. Guess my dog has too much prey drive. Next time I get a dog if I want a cat I will look at getting them both together young.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

I have no personal experience with this, but was going to suggest borrowing an adult cat, experienced with pushy dogs, from a friend, to put the fear of cat into Scout. Or adopt an adult cat.

Our Lu was a barn cat failure because he had no fear of dogs or horses. So he would get under hoof and flop to show his belly to the owner's cat-eating shepherds. 

He worked out for our house because our two guys (Sam and Dan) grew up with the early nose swatting education from our Buttons. While they still had a lot of prey drive in them, it did not apply to cats.

The nice thing with Lu was since he was an adult when we got Jacks, he was able to teach Jacks bite inhibition at least where it came to him. You might not have that with a kitten and a puppy together. So Jacks and Lu will playfight (they both go up on their backfeet and box and mouth at each other), but Jacks is careful not to actually hurt the cat and will back off immediately when Lu has had enough.


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## mylissyk (Feb 25, 2007)

GoldenSail said:


> It breaks my heart but I decided to rehome the kitten. I did have people tell me it could work--but is it fair to the kitten? I do not want a repeat incident. Guess my dog has too much prey drive. Next time I get a dog if I want a cat I will look at getting them both together young.


I'm sorry it didn't work out, I think you are right the kitten's safety has to come first. An adult cat that could defend itself might be a good lesson in a home environment, but you would be risking that cat as well. 

Maybe if you could find a way to do desensitizing training with her and cats and get her to the point you can trust her, you can try again after that.


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