My puppy is six months and I also have two cats, The cats are teenagers and mostly live upstairs during the day sleeping and come down for meals, the puppy is crated still at night so cats have the run of the house between around 10pm and 8 pm Our downstairs is open plan so we have stairgates in place to separate cats from the dog during the day.
I had anticipated the cats being interested in the puppy but mostly steering clear and this is what happened for the first few months. But now our boy cat keeps coming into the spaces the puppy is in in what feels like a territorial way. He can easily jump over the gates we have in place, following the puppy around into whatever room he is in. If I move the puppy to a different space the cat follows. The cat will sit in the middle of the space, sometimes lying on his back and swiping at the puppy as he goes past. Or he will sometimes sit and endure having his face licked, sometimes he will hiss or swipe at the puppy if he is too boisterous . Neither of them have hurt each other at all and obviously I want to avoid this.
The puppy is increasingly getting hyper at these encounters - bouncing on top of the cat, mouthing his tail and trying to play. The cat is undeterred and rarely retreats. I try and keep them separate and sometimes put the puppy on a lead when that's impossible and never leave them alone unsupervised. But I had hoped they would have learnt to coexist by now. Will things settle as the puppy gets a bit calmer? Is there anything I could be doing to help?