dog & cat as friends

[B2023]

Hey guys so just as a background

our dog is called Checo - he’s a 4 month+ Kelpie cross.

our cat is called Ozzy - he’s around 2 weeks younger than Checo.

We had Ozzy a week or so before we got Checo.

Ozzy was very timid, until we brought Checo home. Now he’s always wanting to be around Checo and that’s when he’s at his happiest.

our issue isn’t that they don’t get on, they constantly want to be around each other. Our issue is that Checo gets very excited, and starts pay biting, jumping, and using his giant paws to play. He also chases Ozzy. We are trying to work on this of course, we want both pets to be happy and safe.

does anyone have any advice ?

we want them to enjoy each others company, but Ozzy is so so tiny, I don’t want him to get hurt by accident. We just want Checo to understand he can play but be gentle.

With two so close in age the cat will be nervous of the much bigger dog and a kelpie even a mix will instinctively want to heard, chase and bite

I have only ever brought dogs into a home with already grown or mostly grown cats so it's a very diggerent dynamic as the cat was always big enough to put the puppy in its place if it was too rough

I would suggest baby gates and let the cat choose when to interact with the puppy and be very careful about allowing the puppy to play any chase games with the cat

You need to separate them and slowly allow them to spend supervised time together. I would not be allowing the puppy to chase the kitten, things can go wrong very fast and puppy will think it's ok to chase cats when out.

What on earth were you thinking getting a kitten and a puppy at the same time?!

Just to add, I don’t allow the dog to chase the cat, I instantly try to put a stop to this. I wouldn’t let the cat be under any harm at all.

originally the dog was scared of our cat, the cat isn’t scared of the dog, he wants to play with him on a daily basis.

We keep both animals separate and let them interact under supervision. They both sleep in separate rooms, the dog is in his crate of a night. I’ve been trying small interactions every so often, but they always end in the dog being too over excited and rough. I also keep the dog on a lead when the cat is around him, as I don’t want anything to go wrong.

I’ve previously had a puppy and a kitten at the same time, both unfortunately passed now due to old age, and they got along perfectly fine. As do our current puppy and kitten.

the problem is just that the puppy wants to play and doesn’t realise his own strength so I was looking for some advice based on this

“What on earth were you thinking getting a kitten and a puppy at the same time?!”

The kitten was a recuse from someone we know, they made an impulse decision and decided they no longer wanted the kitten and intended on putting the kitten in a shelter. I couldn’t personally allow this to happen, and decided the right thing to do would be to give him a home with us.

we had already paid a deposit for our pup at this time. We both definitely knew what we were getting ourselves into, and the hard work it would be. Even with past experiences, it’s a learning curve for us

I understand it’s definitely a lot of hard work, but I’m willing to put in the work to allow both animal to be happy and healthy and have a good relationship between each other.

I would absolutely never let any harm come to either of them, I’m willing to take every precaution and consider every piece of advice given in order to make this work.

Thank you for your suggestions if slowly interacting them, I will keep trying this and hopefully something will come if it, with a few other methods. I will also definitely get some baby gates. Thank you both, I appreciate your time and your suggestions