Hi,
A few details: The new puppy is a 9 week old female German Shepard/Irish Terrier cross. I already have 3 cats, we live in a 1 bedroom rancher style house with large yard. 2 of the cats are very close in age 3 and 4 and they are both male. Then we have 1 older cat who is 13 and female.
TL/DR: Puppy wants to play with my cats, cats are younger boys who aren't really scared but definitely not down with puppy level interactions with the sniffing and jumping, how far do I let things go? Do I just let them sort it out? Do I intervene at every interaction? Do I keep the puppy on leash at all times in the house?
Long version:
The first night I brought the puppy in things were actually very smooth, even my older cat who is VERY skittish wasn't even hiding in the bedroom like I thought. She was out and about and the puppy was just kind of looking around at everything. I did slowly introduce each cat 1 at a time. I think the older cat who has major difficulties with change could sense the puppy was pretty low risk. This puppy in general is pretty calm, especially compared to the littermates.
As an aside I have babysat my sister's dog in the past and that dog is a beagle/bulldog cross would is pretty aggressive towards cats (guessing it has a major prey drive due to the breed) and would dash towards any cat movement AT ALL, which resulted in my older cat just completely hiding in the bedroom the entire time that dog was there.
Back to the puppy sitch, that first night things were going way smoother than I had predicted. The 2 younger boy cats were walking around and the puppy would just sit and watch them from a distance, no confrontations at ALL, I was shocked. Even at one point I had the puppy sleeping on my lap and the older cat came ONTO THE COUCH and was laying beside us which surprised me a lot. The next day things changed and I realized the puppy was actually probably just scared of the new environment resulting in a very calm demeanor. The next day she got MUCH more confident and was starting to look at the cats to try and play with them. So the older cat is obviously not happening, they had a couple run ins and the cat will use STRONG body language to get TF away from her, she has even swiped the puppy twice now resulting in big whining reaction. So I'm pretty sure they will just need to avoid each other but I am happy that the cat is not hiding while the puppy is around. But my question here is more about the younger boy cats. Once the puppy got her confidence back she was going much more direct at the boys cats whenever they moved around the house, she would run up to them, the cat would stop, they'd sniff each other, then the puppy goes in for the big sniff and the cat is like no way and runs away, now with the cat running the puppy is like okay chase time and gallops towards them, cat finds a chair or table and turns towards the puppy and they face off, a moment passes and this is where the puppy goes into play mode and starts lifting her front paws off the ground and stomping down trying to get the cat to play, cat doesn't react and puppy starts to bark. This is the moment I usually step in and call the puppy away with a toy or something. The puppy is easily distracted with the right toy. I started putting a short leash on the puppy when she's inside with the cats and holding it back when she got too close to the cats but the puppy HATES this, she starts whining and freaking out when she realizes she is being restrained.
So the question here is do I allow these interaction to continue? Should I even step in at all if the cat is not obviously scared? The cats just seem to be annoyed but the puppy is definitely breaking their bubble of comfort by getting too close and once the puppy starts doing the paw stomping and barking they do get a bit more concerned. We have a big yard and lots of time on our hands, we play with the puppy ourselves with toys and bring her outside so the cats get a lot of time without her bothering them. And FWIW it does seem like the boy cats are somewhat interested in her just not to the level of letting her ponce on them or bark at them. If anyone has some similar experiences please let me know any strategies that worked for you. Cheers.
submitted by /u/abenevolentgod
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