I've been working on a slow intro, adopted a cat in mid-february and still working towards harmony. I've had my rescue shiba for about a year now and she's pretty anxious but also very low-key so even after reading about high prey drive and slow intros I somehow convinced myself it would be easy. Instead it has taken a lot of time and training (I've learned a lot!) we went from training with the cat in the crate (pictured) to training with the cat roaming free in the living room behind a gate with the dog on the other side for short amounts of time like 20 min. My dog seemed to be adjusting well enough that I tried training with them in the same room and while my dog did ok in some ways (could be distracted enough to take food or eat a frozen kong) she got worked up a lot and would run after the cat and whine and bark, plus the cat actually approached her a few times and seemed like she was trying to either play or antagonize her a little bit…My dog lived with other shibas as well as cats at the rescue I originally got her from and they said she was fine with both but I realize that now that she has a home of her own the dynamic is different…anyway today was just discouraging because it feels like it has been taking forever and when I read about other people's shibas they're just curious/want to play with cats whereas mine is in this grey zone of still getting comfortable and I wish I could just know for certain they can live together in peace. Would love to hear from similar people who did slow intros with dogs who had to really learn to self-regulate!! I’m wondering how normal this experience is and if there’s still hope, also thoughts on how to approach this (go backwards?)
the other tough part is my dog has a super sensitive stomach and is on the HP diet so it seems like she can't be given peanut butter or a bone or something to occupy her with, i've been wetting food down and freezing it but that only lasts for so long…
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