Prospective first-time cat owner & we already have a dog

[MrsMcEnroe]

DH has told DS that he can have a cat for his 8th birthday but quite as well as I love cats, despite never having lived with one.

Obviously I will do lots of research about cats and have made an appointment to have a chat with our vet next week to get her advice. In the meantime, what do I need to know? We have a six-year-old labrador - would a kitten or an adult rescue cat be better? I really want to adopt an adult rescue cat but I need to be fair to the dog and the cat .... Any advice/experience please?

Honestly ? I wouldn't do it. The cat might hate the dog, the dog may hate the cat, and you can't tell on past history. One of our cats is actual friends with a dog, but the others are terrified of the same one, and he chases them.

How does the dog react to cats? It needs to be a really well trained dog who will leave if you say leave. At least it's a gun dog, soft mouthed.

You could ask the rescues if they have a dog friendly cat or get a kitten and train the dog cats are friends not food.

Yes the dog is very soft-mouthed and we have chickens which she leaves alone (I've trained her to leave them alone - they all wander round the garden together and the dog just isn't bothered about them). I wasn't sure if some anti-cat instinct would kick in though!

Maybe ask at the cat rescue for cats that have previously lived with dogs?

When we got our first dogs as puppies one of our cats soon put them in their place and they learnt to leave them alone. The other cat moved upstairs and its weeks before she ventured downstairs) Although they never got to the cuddling up together stage the cats would often go up to the dogs, sniff their face and rub up to them.
Our new dogs are rescues and we specifically went for ones that had lived with cats previously now that our old cat is 15.
The new kitten (which incidentally our male dog found in a hedge on a busy bypass!) has taken the dogs presence in his stride.
Four months on from the kittens arrival, the dogs know not to chase him and that he wont 'romp' about with them, the female dog has also managed to virtually ignore the kitten.

The old wive's wisdom on this one (ie my mum and her coven friends) is that you can introduce a puppy to an established cat and the cat will instantly tell the puppy what's what, but not a kitten to an established dog. My darling fusscat came from a home where she'd been removed in the nick of time from a dog's mouth.
Having said all that, it's probably doable but you'll need to have eyes like a hawk and be ready to intervene, and be able to secure cat and dog in different rooms when no-one's there to protect the kitten.

Hi, thank you so much for all your replies, all my cat friends in RL are cat-only people (i.e. no dogs) so they don't really understand where I'm coming from with this. Fussbucket's advice sounds very reasonable - i.e. introducing a kitten to an established dog would be a nightmare. I would prefer to get a rescue cat, so I will contact the local RSPCA etc to see if they have any older cats who have come from a home with a dog. I don't think I've got it in me to train (do you train them? or do they train you? I have NO idea!) a kitten, to be honest. Yes, securing cat and dog in different rooms while we're out or asleep is definitely do-able ... and the dog comes to work with me so that wouldn't be an issue during the day.

I really love my dog and I don't want to put her nose out of joint too much by bringing an unfamiliar animal into the mix!

I was brought up with dogs and cats in the house - make sure the cat/kitten as an escape route - I used a baby gate so the cat could just slip through the bars.

A lot depends on the dog, some actually want to mother cats. I have memories of one cat grabbing hold of a golden retrever's tail and being dragged around the house, both quite happy.

At the moment a lot of cat rescues have cats from families who have been evicted and have been rehomed in council flats where cats and dogs are not allowed so you should be able to get a cat that is from a home with both dogs and children. Maybe two?

I got both the cats I have now as kittens when I already had a dog.

I did sort of cat test the dog first, I had no reason to suspect he'd be cat aggressive and he had been fine with guinea pigs and rabbits, so I took him to visit someone with a fairly calm cat, he gave it a quick sniff and then went back to showering affection on the cat's owner. I figured that boded well and went ahead and got kitten 1.

Kitten 1 was supposed to have met dogs, kitten 2 definitely hadn't - they both reacted the same way, for about a week they did full on Halloween car impressions with tiny hissing and spitting, then realised that the dog was completely ignoring what they were doing, he got fed and that actually his bed was rather nice if you put up with him sniffing you a bit enthusiastically.

Several times I caught kitten 1 chasing him away from his food, kitten 2 was less aggressive and just ate it with him

It was much harder to get cat 1 (as she was by then) to accept kitten 2 than it was to get either kitten to accept the dog.

That is a brilliant idea about testing the dog with a cat first - my next-door neighbours have cats, I will ask them if they wouldn't mind being assaulted sniffed by our dog

Great idea re the baby gate too, thank you.