Guide me through the process of bringing a dog into a household with two cats

[Hippopots]

I have a space in my home and heart for a dog. Experienced with dogs and lots of time and love to devote. He/she would have a wonderful life.

However my two resident cats - both rescues, aged 10ish - been with me for 8 years, they have no experience of dogs, one more confident than the other, probably won't be on board with this idea.

I don't want to blow their comfortable little lives apart . How do I do this?

It's just me and ideally I'd have a small to medium rescue adult dog. But am flexible.

How do I make this work?

I've got a 10 year old rescue cat and wouldn't dream of it. I think it's really unfair to bring a dog into their home. They'll be terrified.

You have to choose the right dog. This is harder than it seems as a lot of dogs in rescue are not going to be cat-friendly, and the ones that are might not fit other criteria for you as an owner, or them as a dog, so you’ll need a very open mind and patience to find the right one. Most terriers won’t be a good choice, or sighthounds. Avoid anything bred for a prey drive. I’d say spaniels are usually pretty human focused, as are other retriever breeds.

My dog is cat friendly in that she ignores them totally and is extremely calm, so we have a very harmonious household. She was 2 when we got her and our cats were 2 and 8 respectively. One adjusted within a week, one took about 6-9 months to stop living exclusively upstairs. The way to do it is with many places that the cats can be separate, observe from a distance, always have the upper hand and tell the dog it’s their territory. And food in my experience.

How do I make this work?

From your description of your cats’ temperaments, I doubt you will.

Honestly in your shoes I would wait. This can work- in fact it can work very well- but there is no way to tell in advance and you might make your cats' lives miserable and be stuck not knowing whether it's crueller to keep the dog or rehome.

I’ve had older recues and cats and now a pup and an elderly cat (who is dog savvy) and you need to be prepared to separate the two totally for as long as it takes if you do go ahead.

There are older, cat safe rescues if you look hard enough but it still depends a bit on your cats temperaments. Current cat is totally non phased by a silly adolescent terrier and just walks away if she tries to engage with him (they are still heavily policed). My sisters cat wouldn’t come out of hiding for a week after we visited pup was not allowed to bother the cat or scare him. He’s never lived with a dog. My cat lived with my last one.

We've never had an issue introducing cats and dogs. We currently have a six y/o beagle and three cats aged 8, 3 and seven months.

The only thing we have to do is feed the cats in a completely separate space to the dog and make sure he can't access their litter trays.

Keep the dog in one room for a while the cats will be able to smell them after a 2 or like 4 days (depending if you think it’s time to move forward let them see each other from a distance for a couple times a day. Any negative behaviour make sure they can’t see each other and keep trying. Reward for positive. When you feel like they’re ready let them get close and see each other but make sure there’s like a gate or something. Once they’re ready let them introduce properly with nothing in-between. With supervision. Keep rewarding positive behaviour and don’t leave them unsupervised once you feel like they can cope with each other without supervision leave them for a couple minutes etc and keep gradually going up!

this sounds like a lot but first meetings are SO important 🥲. Many do it wrong and can end up with dogs that aren’t fond of each other.

Hope this helps! 😊

Unfair to your cats I think.