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Cats and Dogs: Peaceful Coexistence
The typical comic strip of a dog chasing madly after a cat, all its hair standing on end, has always made us believe that dogs and cats can never get along, no matter how long they know each other. Dogs, we are told, loathe cats while our feline friends have only to look at a dog for them to start hissing savagely.
The thing is, a large part of that picture is probably true. What I mean is, dogs and cats are naturally mistrustful of each other, and it takes a great deal of patience and effort on the part of a pet owner to persuade his dogs and cats to accept each other. Should he succeed, the cat-lying-between-dog’s-paws picture will become very real.
Gina Raven, a 65-year-old retired teacher, runs a household that includes two granddaughters, three dogs and two cats that came in about a year ago. “When the cats first came to us, my daughter was not sure about the idea of keeping them on, because we were already going mad with the dogs and the kids. But I couldn’t turn the cats away – they were so neglected and abused,” says Gina.
A year later, not only have the cats – Biscuit and Jill – fitted in perfectly, but also have actually had a calming influence on the dogs and kids, claims Gina. “Jill in particular is so calm and reserved that she compels those interacting with her, humans included, to be as dignified as she is,” laughs Gina, who put in months of effort to get her dogs Dandy (Labrador retriever), Roy (Westie) and Biggle (fox terrier) to view Biscuit and Jill with anything other than deep suspicion at best and open hostility at worst.
The main problem is that most dogs are natural predators, designed by nature to chase and catch smaller animals for food. And this predatory instinct has persisted despite the fact that dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years. Of course, humans have played with these instincts by the principles of selective breeding. Thus, we have created several new breeds of dogs, each meant to perform a certain function. Therefore, these dogs display a difference in their levels of “prey drive”, which determines how long they take to accept cats. Terriers, for instance, have extremely high prey drives.
However, there are several ways of training dogs with high prey drives to coexist with cats. You ought to begin by teaching your dog that your cat is off limits altogether and not to be disturbed under any circumstances. This will require great patience on your part, and you should take your dog through several short daily sessions during which you place the cat within its visual range and insist that the cat not be approached in any way. Make sure to reward your dog for staying put.
Repeat this procedure every day, bringing the cat a little closer each time, and if at any stage your dog makes a lunge for the cat, jerk him back immediately and bark an order at him to LEAVE the cat. Every time he does so, praise him for obeying you and ignoring the cat. When he sits calmly or ignores the cat even when it is right next to him, let him walk around the room while the cat is present. But be very careful to prevent any ideas of a chase IMMEDIATELY, because if a dog does it once, he will do it again!