Hello all

I know I'm a new face here, but I thought I'd post an email I recently sent Cindy to see if you all had any suggestions.

Great forums! Big fan of Leerburg!

My fiance and I are the proud owners of a one-year-old German Shepherd named Maxwell. We've gone through pack training and training basics with your DVDs and have the e-collar one as well. We've had Max since he was eight-weeks old and he really is becoming a fabulous dog.

One of our largest challenges has been playing referee between Max and my fiance's two cats. He simply will not learn to leave them alone. Small little things that run and our gigantic shepherd with a fairly active prey drive just aren't a good mix. That being said, it's gotten to a fairly livable set up. He knows to 'leave it' when we say so, and will obey our "here" and "place" and "crate" commands, so for now things are fine, it's just something to improve on a little every day. Still, he seems a little stressed about them and wonders where they fall in the pack order, hence the constant testing.

But, in a few months, I'll be moving in to his house and bringing my cat, Eliot, with me. So not only will we be introducing cats, we'll be introducing a new cat to our energetic juvenile dog with an active prey drive. Every thing I've read on your web site is about introducing a new dog to a house hold with cats, but nothing about introducing a new cat. I was wondering if you had any suggestions for this introduction. Since we have a few months I was wondering if bringing the cat over for brief visits and letting them all get acclimated a little at a time would be a good idea? Or would it be counter productive to bring the new family member in then remove it repeatedly?

Eliot grew up with a dog for his first year or two, but it was an older, lazy beagle. I really would love for Eliot and Max to be friends. So other than isolating him in a room, scent sharing, removing the other pets, letting him explore at his own pace, and the feeding at the door so they're friendly thing, any other suggestions for me?

I want to thank you all in advance for all your help! it's greatly appreciated

cheers,
Valerie

I don't have a good answer for you other leave it for the dog, pretty strictly enforced, and enough separation so that the cat can stay out of harms way. What tips did Cindy give you?

Well, I recently added a stray (dumped) cat to my home and I also have a male GSD with strong prey drive and one female chihuahua.
Well, when I saw both the reaction of the cat and the GSD I have decided not to take chances and to keep the GSD and the cat separated. The strange thing is that the cat and the chi get along just fine, aside from a little rough playing by the Chi, so maybe size does matter.

It seems to me that it all depends on the reaction of the cat to the young dog. Fear of the cat and her movements will ignite the prey drive in the dog, if the cat stays calm and ignores the dog, the young dog will find the cat boring and leave her alone.

Cats need more time to get adjusted to a new home and the other cats(I know this from experience, have raised many since I was a kid and domisticated wild ones). I'd would give Eliot time 1rst to get adjusted to his new home (and the other cops of Law & Order SVU, joke!)
After that I would put the cat in the crate to check out the reaction of the dog and go from there. Be realistic in your expectations though because there are a very few cats who aren't afraid of big dogs (ok, aside from siamese cats) and Max's behaviour towards cats will not likely change.

I hope this will help a bit.

Nice to meet another dog and cat lover

Btw: I have posted a Q about introducing a new cat, I think it was under Animal on Animal agression or something.