Dog wound up by neighbour’s cat

[Ferniebrook]

Neighbour has a new cat and it is on next door’s shed looking into my dog everyday. Dog goes completely mental but it doesn’t go. Lots of other cats in area but they all keep a distance or scarper quickly when barked at. It’s stressing me out because dog gets very wound up and is then causing a disturbance. I have put netting up so cat can’t get in and tried to block the view but nothing is working. Any ideas?? Thank you

Course you can - just point and shoot!

If you’ve never had a prey driven breed/ hunter possibly difficult to understand. They can’t hear/ see or smell anything once eyes are on the prey, it’s like an off switch to the rest of the world. That is why they were so good at what they did.

If your dog can’t be left outside without barking at everything that moves then it can’t be left outside unsupervised.

Because while the current distraction is the cat, clearly there will be other distractions, maybe a bird, maybe a squirrel, your dog is clearly easily wound up and barks as a result, so it is your responsibility to ensure that it doesn’t.

What qualifications? Like real ones? Or ones she printed off herself?

My childhood cat used to enjoy winding up next doors Rottweiler. The Rottweiler was an aggressive dog that was neglected by its owners.

You have a dog problem. There are some really good Facebook groups for dog training. I think as the owner of the more capably aggressive animal the onus is on you to train the dog. The alternative is summer of barking…

We’ve been here for 4 years - everything else ok. Cat is putting its face to garden boundary and dog is not having its territory threatened. I think points about doubling effort to block view most useful. Going to try to find a better blocker.

No, you really can’t. It’s the OP’s dog which is being the nuisance, it’s her responsibility to do something about her dog not about the cat.

I do know about dogs with prey drive, and the likelihood is that this dog is the type which can never be let off lead, because it can’t be trusted not to go after birds/ducks/squirrels etc.

It’s highly unlikely that it’s just this one cat that is the problem.

If her dog barked at "everything that moves", I doubt she would be posting specifically about this cat, don't you?

ABTC trainer and behavioralist. Google it

If her dog barked at "everything that moves", I doubt she would be posting specifically about this cat, don't you? except she didn’t post only about this cat.

She said that the other cats ran away from her dog when it barked at them and this one didn’t. So it clearly isn’t just about this cat, it’s just that she’s pissed off that this cat isn’t afraid enough of her dog which barks at cats and has a high prey drive, to not sit on its shed in its own garden.

Just a point of detail it isn't its shed, its own house is a different one...

My dog is a small dog, no idea who would come off worse in a fight. Have put the netting up so we never have to find out

I have a dog that would go bananas if there was a cat around.
Equally I would see this as my problem to resolve.
You can't stop the dog reacting but you can train him to change his reaction.
Teach 'quiet' and 'speak'. It will take a lot of repetition but if he comes to realise that doing x (going in him bed, lying down quietly or just ignoring) when he sees the cat equals good things he'll soon learn.
I successfully did this with the postman (trained the dog not to bark at the postman... I didn't train the postman)

If your neighbourhood is as overcatted as most of the UK, that cat might not have a wide choice of places to rest in peace. And it's really important to them to have somewhere high to sit. So no, spraying it with water would not be fair. Much better to screen the area, maybe with with some outward netting to stop the cat climbing it (like they do with catios).

yeah it is built so it could be short of places and there are so many cats in a v small vicinity. Also quite a few dogs who all bark at the cats but generally the cats stay in the places without dogs and not too much drama, until now. Definitely going to try for some robust screening so they can hopefully both be in peace.

I have wolfhounds. Very high prey drive. Youngest was only allowed out in the garden on lead. Then with me. Now still only when I’m very close by. It’s taken me months and months to get to this point. It’s possible with hard work and consistency.
Any trainer that says certain breeds aren’t trainable isn’t worthy of the title.

*built up

My old cats used to wind up next doors dog by sitting where he could see them and washing their paws and face. They dog went mental and would get told to 'fuckjng shut up' by the neighbours I swear my cats were smirking when that happened

Squirty bottle of water for your dog. Fixed a dog vs lawnmower that way, she doesnt bother now whereas she’d dash out and bark and try to nip the wheels constantly from the minute she heard it( would go nuts in the house too)

Why not water pistol the dog? It's the one barking.

My goodness these people's comments are so unhelpful. I love cats too but they can be an absolute pain in my arse as a dog owner