Puppy chasing cat!

[LalaLeona]

Hi all, first time poster in this section! Just looking for some advice as I feel we are doing this completely wrong! We have an otherwise pretty mellow shih tzu/bichon frise cross puppy who is 15 weeks old. We crate him at night but in the day he is 'loose' on the ground floor. 70% of the time he is quite mellow or focused on food and ignores the cat, but the rest of the time he tries to chase the cat! He also pins her to the floor trying to play. We try to distract him with treats, praising him when he takes his attention away from her. This doesn't always work. If he chases her or snaps at her we have been putting him in a time out. Putting him in a small hallway for a couple of mins. I am worried this is the wrong thing to do! The other prob is the cat is a rescue cat but she is a 'ragdoll' cat and has no defence instincts really, she is completely unthreatening to the dog and doesn't scratch etc..please help but be kind, as trying my best! if you were me what would you do? Thank you so much xxx

Ps I Should add, the cat does not seem unduly bothered about the dog in fact she will come straight back near him when he chases her. But I still want to stop this behaviour as concerned the dog could become predatory, he already tries to snap at her sometimes!

So cute!!
Sorry no advice, every dog we had was soon put in its place by the cat but if your cats won't do that then maybe she's not bothered and if he did hurt her she would soon " tell" him.
If not could you make chasing the cat an unpleasant experience somehow? Don't know what you found to without upsetting the cat as well though

We got two young cats when our pup was 6 months old. They got on well and are now best friends, but our dog (now 18 months old) still chases them sometimes. TBH the cats like to be chased and come back for more, and then rub up against the dog and snuggle up to her. Then later on they'll have another chase around. Your pup is young and wants to play. As long as the cat doesn't mind I wouldn't worry about it. If the cat was worried it wouldn't come near him. The cat will be the boss of the dog everytime!

If the cat doesn't seem particularly bothered and the dog isn't much bigger than the cat (my guess based on breeds is that he isn't) I'd carry on working on discouraging snapping but let them play.

My cats chase each other and wrestle round on the floor, that's how cats play too...