Elderly cat - introducing a new puppy?

[crumpet]

We have an elderly cat, who is used to being on her own, prefers to be a house cat unless the weather meets her exacting requirments, and is much loved. The children are desparate for a dog. We used to have one in pre cat days (we adopted the cat when she was about 13) , and they would love to have another dog to play with outside etc.

Has anyone had experience of introducing a dog to an elderly cat? I really don't want to have to deal with her spraying all over the place and becoming too stressed/agitated.

We also have free roaming chickens to add to the mix, so any suggestions on breeds also welcomed!

I've always had big-ish breeds (retrievers. collies etc) and none of our cats - some getting on a little - have ever been much troubled by their presence as long as they had a place to go to get away from puppy annoyance. (They seem to regard dogs as big stupid lolloping lumps who can pretty well be disregarded most of the time.) The same could not be said of trying to introduce other cats!

We've always forbidden the dogs to go upstairs though - bedrooms etc are human and cat territory only - so maybe that division has helped.

Big dogs should be fine with free-roaming chickens in my experience although collie pups do have a tendency to try to herd anything that moves - chicken, children, leaves, anything.

Who is going to exercise this puppy by the way? It can be a massive time commitment if you're to have a calm and relaxed dog when they're inside the house.

When I finally decided to get the very long awaited puppy I raised the issue of elderly, chronically poorly DCat with my vet. The advice was to choose the dog carefully and to avoid all terriers. You certainly need to have a dog free zone in the house, mine is upstairs, so the cat knows it can get away from this annoying intruder!
I went for a pedigree as so many rescues have a bit of terrier in them. DCat has been in charge from day one and DDog has received many swipes across the nose. They are such good mates now that when we stay with my daughter my DDog protects DCat from her terrier by putting himself between them. DCat & DDog have lived together companiably for 18 months now.
BTW - DDogis a corgi who ignores ducks and free range chickens we have to walk past to get to dog training!

I'd be edgy about terrier breeds as well. That's just me though.

I am not a dog owner, nor ever have been, but BuggersMoggy came to us when his previous human (a neighbour) got a young puppy and the then middle-aged moggy ran away from home. When it was realised that it they wouldn't happily co-exist, this was formalised with the neighbour.

Of course this might not happen and neighbour's dog was particularly boisterous. They also lived in a small flat which I can't imagine helped with ensuring the cat had a safe place to retreat to.

Yes - a small flat, no safe space and a boisterous puppy aren't, in total, good news for anybody let alone an older cat. So many people underestimate wildly how much exercise a dog needs to get everything out of its system. (Our collies needed a minimum of 3 1 hour hard walks a day and they would have been even happier with 6!)

I see so many dogs - some of them big breeds - round here who are being dragged out for a quick 'shit walk round the block' (sorry, but that's all I can describe them as) before the owner goes off to do something else. (I can tell by the frequent glancing at phones/watches.) If you have a dog which isn't calmed down and happy within the house then that's not so good for a cat I think.