Advice for introducing dog to neighbours' kitten

[tinymeteor]

Our good friends next door have a new kitten. We have a 3yo beagle who is not keen on cats and territorial about our back garden. I don't want their first encounter to be there, so thinking of doing a managed introduction (or several) in the neighbours' house, on the lead, when kitten is a bit bigger. Will this help, or will we just stress out the cat to no purpose by bringing a dog into his home?

[tinymeteor]

Thanks, yes I'll make sure we have a couple of escape routes. The dog's not a climber so no worries there. He gives chase to any squirrels that come down the garden fence so I'm expecting the cat to provoke a similar reaction. No idea if he'd actually attack it but obviously we don't want to take the chance. I agree cat owners bear a degree of risk if they let them out, but it would obviously be friendship-altering if our dog killed their cat. (I'll be checking under the car for a while too, by the same logic.)

[Tamberlane]

Its hard to know. Considering theres a chance your dog might kill the kitten when its unsupervised do you really want to give them a false sense of security?
plus the kitten,if its to be an outdoor cat,needs to learn that all non family dogs are potentially dangerous as yours likely isnt the only garden its going to get into.
Letting cats roam freely takes on inherent risk.cars,dogs and cruel people.
By all means try intoductions but its a very different thing when the cat invades a dogs territory compared to meeting face face to face...if it runs it likely will be chased.
Personally I'd make sure there was an escape route out of the garden as long as it doesnt affect the dog!

[Wolfiefan]

Would they consider cat proofing their garden?
The thing is you could introduce them but then when the dog is in the garden and the cat runs. Disaster.
Don't let dog in the garden without you. Check for cat first.
Teach leave. There's some good advice on this on retired greyhound website. Good based reward training.

[tinymeteor]

That's a good idea, we could try a kitten visit to our place with the dog on the lead. I just want to get them through the "what the hell is that" phase without injury, after which they'll hopefully work out boundaries for themselves.

[Sparklywine]

I think unless your dog is a regular visitor to the kittens house then there is no point in making that the venue, also it's the kittens territory and safe place if you see what I mean. Encounters in the future are likely to occur in your garden as the kitten gets bolder, so I would see if they can bring their kitten round to your garden and, keeping your dog on a lead, let kitten sniff around. The kitten needs to be familiar to your dog, in the setting he's most likely to encounter it, so that whilst he might still give chase he sees kitten as a pal and not an intruder to perhaps injure in some way. I say this as owner of three cats and now a puppy, and to be honest the cats stay out of the garden whilst puppy is out there so you'll probably find the kitten is the same. You could swap scents a bit by stroking them both in turn as well.