SIL freaking out about dog: how to introduce to her cat!

[eyeslikebutterflies]

We're going to stay with SIL this weekend. She has a cat. We have a 2 year-old rescue dog.

I've arranged to stay in a hotel if it all goes wrong, but would like advice on introducing her cat to my dog in her home. My dog has lived with cats before, has a very low prey drive and, as she'll be freaked by being in a new place, will be very subdued. She's a quiet and quite anxious dog.

My thoughts were: dog on lead, lots of treats to distract, keep everything quiet and calm, allow cat to approach but with escape route so she doesn't feel trapped. Then, keep dog barrier-ed off from cat at all times. Anything else? Any tips gratefully received!!!

the poor cat will probably be incredibly stressed by the whole experience
Depends on the cat really, one of my parents cats was quite confident and did approach my (leashed) dog and the other cat was quite shy but he wasn’t distressed, the dog was leashed by me at all times so he just carried on doing his own thing, well away from dog and me.

if your dog has the desire to chase, it will also be stressed and on-edge the whole time
This i agree with.

Not fair on your sister's cats.

There's absolutely no way we could have anyone bring a dog into what is essentially our cats territory. She wld def not cope with that at all, don't think this is a good idea or fair on the cat.

I have cats and have looked after a friend's dog. Dog was, and is totally bomb proof with cats and it was fine.
I think the decision about introducing a dog visitor to a resident cat has to be the decision of the cat owner though.
Same cats, different dog recently didn't go so well. Dog was on a lead but lunged at my cat. No harm done but cat was scared and it happened very quickly.

Is your SIL happy for you to stay? If not, rethink.

It’s not up to you to say you’ll bring your dog and it’ll be OK because X, Y, Z.

It’s up to your SIL to say it’ll be OK and set the rules.

@Schoolchoicesucks

Even if your dog is the calmest most sensitive dog around cats, the cat is likely to be stressed and unsettled around a strange dog coming into its house.

Cat owners bringing a dog of their own into the house is different- in a weekend, the cat will go through the stress and not get to the acceptance stage before the dog leaves again.

A one hour visit where the cat could be outside and avoid the dog is ok. But not to stay for the weekend.

Use a petsitter.

I agree with this.

We have 2 cats and introduced a laidback-to-the-point-of-horizontal dog. The cat who had lived with dogs before and on paper should have been fine spent 3-4 months living only upstairs where the dog was not - fed up there, never came down. The other cat who we thought would be a problem adapted within a week. We now have a very harmonious cat-dog household. But if we have visitors with their own dogs, both cats will be scared & make themselves scarce (& the dog isn’t hugely keen to share either!)

It’s not really fair on anyone and if your SIL is freaking out just don’t stay over - you’ve booked the hotel so use it. Anything other than a few hours visit isn’t the right thing to do.

Actually this has just reminded me of something that happened with one of my cats and a dog.

My DD's then bf had a rottie. Lovely dog with people, but being a rottie I imagine it had a pretty strong prey drive.

It had either ran off or was stolen, can't remember, it was a long time ago, but it had been missing for quite some time.

Anyway, for some reason when the bf pick the dog up from the dog warden he ended up coming to our house for about half an hour and the dog was put in the garden - I didn't have a dog at the time, and knew nothing about dogs.

My cats were in the house and my lovely ginger boy, who loved everyone and everything, caught sight of this great big dog in the garden and started walking up and down, head and tail up, in front of the large glass doors that lead onto the garden where the dog could clearly see him.

Dog got very irate and ended up almost throwing himself at the door while the cat continue to calmly walk up and down, up and down.

I had to pick the cat up in the end and remove him from the sight of the dog. As the poor dog was getting more and more wound up.

Have no idea what the cat thought he was doing, taunting such a powerful animal, but that was clearly what he was doing. Even when the dog threw himself at the door the cat just kept on walking.

Weird and slightly evil.

Thats like my mums old cat, she had a wicked side too.
DMs NDN had a very sweet old dog and a gap in the fence, the cat loved to swish her tail through the gap until the dog appeared and poked its nose under, at which point she would smack the dog who would yelp and she would swish her tail again and hit him again, and again, and again.

Yes, some cat's definitely have an evil side.

I think it's part of why we love them