Over the weekend my Angora cat finally had her kittens and I will admit I was very skeptical as to how my GSD was going to react to them, considering he loves to chase and bully the cats around. But he has been positively wonderful. He is very interested in them, very gentle and careful. When she was pregnant he was very protective over her and now he keeps a very close eye on "Mommy cat". When she comes to eat he only allowing her to be there, keeping the other cats away, he also keeps the other cats away from the area I have her and her kittens in, infact when we are there looking and petting the little ones he is right there watching very carefully. When they start meowing and if she isn't around he herds her back to the area. Is this normal? Does he realize that she has had the babies and that they are indeed babies? This is the first time he has been around newborn kittens, and the first dog I have had around newborn kittens so I'm not sure what to think. Any ideas-or is he just getting crazier as he gets older? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I'm with you Dee

Theres no logic that I can think of for his reaction, but I'm sure some of the others will have an detailed analytical explaination for it, maybe? I've heard of females being surrogate Moms but not males.

Sounds like he is thinking like a human instead of a dog, but dogs don't do that, do they. He knows that these are babies. Could be their part of his pack/flock thing. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Dogs befriending cats, isn't that a sign of the appocolypse?

 Quote:

Originally posted by Dee Dee Lulloff:
loves to chase and bully the cats around. But he has been positively wonderful. He is very interested in them, very gentle and careful. When she was pregnant he was very protective over her and now he keeps a very close eye on "Mommy cat". When she comes to eat he only allowing her to be there, keeping the other cats away, he also keeps the other cats away from the area I have her and her kittens in, infact when we are there looking and petting the little ones he is right there watching very carefully. When they start meowing and if she isn't around he herds her back to the area.

Your dog is exhibiting what is called a fixed action pattern. (FAP) It is not uncommon in behavior studies.

In simple terms: The dog is forcing the cat to care for the new "pack" members.

Our spayed female GSD allowed our tiny kitten to nurse on her when we brought him home. Obviously all he was getting was comfort, but she treated him like he was her own pup. We have an older cat as well, but she just hissed at or ignored the kitten when he arrived.

Five years later she still looks after him ... he can push her out of her food, and basically gets away with murder. When we got our younger dog, she hovered around protecting the cats from the pup, and the pup from the cats.

They all get along amazingly well now.