Puppy and cat sleeping arrangements

[ToadiesCouzin]

We'll be bringing our lab puppy home in about 6 weeks, when he'll be 3.5 months old. We also have two cats, and ideally I'd like all of them to sleep downstairs in the kitchen diner. I was thinking we'd get a crate for the puppy, and that I would sleep in the kitchen diner too for a while, until we've got toilet training sorted (we have a sofa bed in there). I'm now unsure about the crate, but I don't know if this plan will work without one? We will let the cats upstairs during the day, as they're used to that, but we won't let the puppy upstairs. If we have the cats upstairs at night, they can't get out as their cat flap is downstairs in the kitchen diner, and it's not a long term plan as we'd never be able to set the house alarm. It really would be best if they got used to being shut in the kitchen diner together, they'll need to do that in the day eventually too. My friend who has labs thinks they'll be fine, and we don't need a crate. She thinks the cats will just find a spot out of the puppies way, and they'll get used to each other. Am I being nieve to try this? Am I setting myself up for some very sleepless nights? I don't mind that initially, I'll be on holiday for the first two weeks, but when I'm working again, not sleeping at all is not an option! Thanks for any advice.

I would never lock cats and dogs in a room together ever.

No way! This is not a good idea. You'll need to find somewhere else for the puppy to sleep for a while at least.

You will absolutely need a crate! But be aware out cat used to wake our pup up so I think you’d need them to be in separate rooms really

Please don’t lock the cats and dogs together.

You can’t leave the puppy and the cats together overnight. You will need to let them upstairs if you can’t separate them from the dog downstairs.
Cats shouldn’t be out at night anyway so they don’t need access to the catflap.

Ok, that's unanimous, we won't be doing that then. I think other solution would be to keep the puppy downstairs in a crate, and allow the cats upstairs, but with the door to the kitchen diner open so they can go out. Or we could shut the cats in the dining room as usual, and put the puppy in the living room. I'll have a think, thanks everyone.

Why shouldn't cats be let out at night? I've had cats all my life, and they've always gone out at night, with no issues. They don't go anywhere near a road btw, they just stay in neighbouring back gardens, they always have.

You can’t absolutely guarantee they don’t go near a road. Plus more risks of attacks from wildlife and sadly nutters who (rarely) hurt cats. Also dawn and dusk are prime hunting times and I don’t want my cat slaughtering the local bird population.

Generally the risk of fights, road accidents and injuries is much higher at night.

www.cats.org.uk/northherts/feature-pages/should-cats-be-kept-in-at-night

I have 2 labradors who were crated at night until they were 9 months old. When DDog1 was 9, and DDog 2 was 2 I introduced DCat to the mix. From day one they have all been locked in the kitchen diner overnight. No crates, cat flap locked. No issues at all and everyone safe.

I’ve never seen my 11 year old cats on the road. I think it’s highly unlikely they go on the road.

And that's fine - I mean, it's your choice after all.

I was just answering your question!

That’s not the only risk though.

Ok, thank you!

Op our cat goes out at night, altho has a cat flap to come in.
For us ddog is upstairs at night and cat has the run of downstairs

if dcat didn’t insist on waking the dog up super early we would of kept dddog crated
downstairs but we like sleep to much

Sounds like we have a similar situation. Our cat flap was in our kitchen diner extension, but when our lab/ golden retriever puppy came home that was the most suitable place for her to sleep. We got a gate for the bottom of the stairs so the cats could have a place upstairs that was dog free. I also got a plug in adaptil thing for the cats upstairs space as they were very anxious to start with. After struggling a bit with how to let cats in and out - they were using an open upstairs window and climbing down from the roof! - we put in an additional catflap in the living room.

It all works well and the cats and dog can be chilled out in the same room but I would never leave them unattended shut in the same room. One of the cats will go to sleep on the sofa with the dog now but it was slow gentle work to get to that point. My biggest focus with training was to teach our dog to be calm around the cats. I taught her to sit when she saw the cats or to come to me. I gave lots of treats and praise and put her on the lead in their company if I thought she might want to chase or play. I was also genuinely fearful that the wilder of the two cats might kill her early on so I kept them separate.

I would say don't rush it and train from day one. They are not natural friends but they can learn to feel safe in each others company if you teach it. There is a good blue cross video somewhere on dogs and cats.