Who gets priority - resident cat or visiting dog?

[nomorespaghetti]

We want to invite MIL over for Xmas. We’ve recently moved house, and we have a spare room that she can stay in. Our old house was too small, so when we had her up we’d pay for a hotel for her to stay in.

MIL has a little lap dog. Lovely dog, no trouble at all, literally just sits on MILs lap or follows her around. Gets slightly overwhelmed by our young kids, but is easily calmed.

We have a cat. He’s the best. He’s super friendly but quite skitty, goes outdoors but tends to stay in a lot in the winter/when it’s raining. He is, fairly understandably, not keen on a new animal coming into his space, and will generally make himself scarce when the dog is here. The dog will bark at the cat. Natural enemies and all that. Fine if the visit is for a couple of hours, but the Xmas visit would be several days.

MIL lives too far away to travel there and back in one day. She can’t host at hers due to space/living situation. It’s unlikely anyone would be able to look after her dog over Xmas, and she wouldn’t put her in a kennels. MIL doesn’t have loads of money.

Wondering how to make this workable. Solutions so far include:

• MIL and dog come up, stay here, cat has to put up with it (we’re not keen on this, and tbh I don’t think MIL would feel it was fair on the cat either)
• We invite MIL but make it clear dog isn’t invited (bit mean?) She then either has to leave dog somewhere or get a hotel that the dog can sleep at
• We invite MIL and pay for a hotel that she and the dog can stay in. Although we could afford this, it would add an extra big expense to an already very expensive period!

Appreciate it’s a first world problem! Any thoughts helpful?

YABU - dog gets priority
YANBU - cat gets priority

I also think that residential pet gets priority however I wouldn’t put it as “no dogs” rule outright. We all should give and take at Christmas pets including.
Im cats person by the way.

Don’t invite MIL. Problem solved.

Try not to think in terms of 'fair' though... Think in terms of minimal stress to both animals.

It may seem 'fair' to shut the dog in the kitchen, let the cat have the run of the rest of the house.

However if this results in a distressed dog in a kitchen, which is an unknown quantity for the cat and the cat will pick up that the dog is stressed, and the cat will be aware the dog is unsupervised at least some of the time, that may well end up more stressful for the cat than the dog being wherever their human is, supervised and not so stressed.

Shutting a cat who is used to having the run of the house into one room again changes the situation even more than there just being a dog in the house, and increases stress, its an additional change to routine and I wouldn't advise it unless absolutely necessary.

Finding a kennels/sitter this close to Christmas... not a chance, at least, not a decent one you'd want looking after your animals. The good ones will have been booked up since around last Christmas/January, and whilst even great ones will have the occasional cancellation, it's certainly not something I'd bank on!