My eco solution to rat problems

[CatieB]

We lost our silver tabby last year and have realised how much we miss having a cat around the house. So we have rescued a cat. They don't know much about her as she was found in a street but they put her at about 6 months. She is clearly socialised and wasn't bothered about the dogs at the rescue centre. We deliberately chose a youngster in the hope she would become friends with our dog, who is a 2 year old shih tzu.

 

However things are not going well and I could do with some advice on the way forward.

 

Currently the new cat suki is living in our downstairs loo. She has been with us about 10 days and had to be kept alone as she had an injury from being spayed (is that the right term) it did not heel and she had to wear a collar so we had to extra careful with her. On the odd time she came across coco initially she was unbothered and in fact wanted to go over to coco, who was on her lead.

 

But this time apart and awareness that suki exists seems to have wound coco into a state of over excitedness. Now at the merest hint that suki may appear or be around coco barks yaps and generally misbehaves. I have no doubt it's well meant and that she wants to play ie chase poor suki. Suki is now terrified and will either hide escape or hiss and snarl.

 

How do we work forward.

[bluekarin]

Very slowly I would say. We did ours the other way round, a new pup introduced to our existing two cats. It has taken almost two years and they will sleep on the sofa near each other now, but the dog still chases the youngest cat and is chased by the older one. Her bed is a cubby of a large office desk which we put a mesh door on, and we would shut her in so the cats could see and smell her, but both feel safe. I am not sure if my advice would be correct, but I would try having your dog and the lead on the same room as the cat and do distraction methods so the dog is not focusing on the cat. That way the cat can see it is safe to be in the same room. Another thing you can do, is have a stair gate across a door way, so the cat can escape if it needs to and the dog can't follow. I am sure someone will be along who has some much better advice though It is so stressful introducing animals to each other. When we got our youngest cat (after our oldest cats brother died) it took several weeks of keeping them apart before slow intros. The older cat then took to sleeping I a corner of the kitchen, and not eating for quite a while, but now they get on fine. There is the odd spat, but nothing major.