My cat and His dog

[diaanaa86]

I’m afraid for my cats safety. My boyfriend has a rot/Pitt/mastiff mix. Not breed hating, but no one can tell me that isn’t a worrisome combo. He got this animal 5 years ago and didn’t train her. He’s left her with his parents who baby talk her and his brother who feeds her anything he’s eating and rough houses her just to walk away. We have been together two and a half years and his dog just started living with us 3 or 4 months ago.
I have had my cat for 5 years. She has gone everywhere with me and I would kill for her.
His dog will not calm down around her. She sees her through the gate and has actively smashed into the gate trying to get her. At first the barks were very vicious but after me being like ‘calm down or I’ll kill you’ she doesn’t as scarily come after her. My cat didn’t have a problem with dogs before this one. I think after his dog coming at her so many times she doesn’t trust it. Does anyone have any advice on how to train a dog to be calm and controlled while around a cat? My cat can’t stay locked up in a room for the rest of her life just because he wasn’t a responsible dog owner for the majority of his dogs life. I’m so tired. Does anyone have advice? She’s very prey driven i.e goes burserk over any animal (or person) she perceives as being in “her area”

 

[patience7]

@diaanaa86 This dog is going to kill your cat 99%. I’m all about behavioral conditioning and working in reactivity when it seems like the outcomes will be positive, but it’s only a matter of time before someone accidentally doesn’t latch that gate and the dog gets to your cat.

If you can, move the dog back to his parents house where the dog doesn’t have an aggression trigger and your cat can be comfortable in your home.

 

[stacia32]

@patience7 This is the answer. This dog will kill your cat. It's simply a matter of time and bad luck. But it will happen if you don't take steps to rehome the dog or the cat.

 

[slayer8995]

@patience7 Please listen to this, OP. This dog will kill your cat. It will be horrific & traumatic & the fallout will also be the dog's life, the relationship, but most likely both. Trust your gut, protect your cat. Figure out a better living arrangement because the dog will get to your cat someday.

 

[savannahmarieclark]

@patience7 Please listen to this person. My family adopted a reactive dog years ago when I was a child, and he eventually killed my rabbit because my family relied on using gates to keep them away from one another. I’m so sorry you are in this situation. Best of luck

 

[kateetak]

@patience7 Can confirm. Had a dog that killed three cats. Sometimes he’d wait 2-3 years for his shot, almost became friends with the cat, then BAM no more cat. (It was on a farm and cats were free range, dogs were guards, all animals living outside).

 

[paverabek]

@patience7 you cannot out-train genetic prey drive and instincts OP.... watch out. good on you for worrying about your cat. agree with this commenter 100%.

 

[soberarthur]

@paverabek You can sometimes overcome prey drive with training for specific “family cats”, but you need to actually be in control of your dog instead of tiptoeing around it and only ever reinforcing training by bribing it with food.

this dog doesn’t sound very trainable at this point in her life, even if her owner was trying to train her properly. Which he isn’t.

 

[paverabek]

@soberarthur dogs do not have a prefrontal cortex, ergo you can only do associative/Pavlovian conditioning and hope it never fails. that is what i meant by "you cannot out-train instincts/prey drive" (with 100% certainty). If you are dealing with a similar issue, I hope whatever you're doing works out well for you and you never come home to a mauled animal. however, I and many others categorically would not take the risk, similar to OP.

 

[soberarthur]

@paverabek It didn’t fail with 4 separate Rhodesian Ridgebacks and 6 separate family cats. All the ridgebacks would have mauled a strange cat. None of ours got seriously chased (as in, for more than a few steps in “play”), bitten, or mauled. This was over a total period of about 15-20 years. “Management” wasn’t practiced past the first few days. We just left the dog(s) and cat alone together. Mostly, the dogs weren’t even raised with the cats from puppyhood.

Either you can train for it reliably and simply, or else my family of dog amateurs should be hailed as far better than the professional trainers everyone keeps harping on about

I’m not saying every dog can be trained not to maul a specific cat. I’m sure a lot - especially pit bulls - can’t. But these dogs all had a significant prey drive, and would chase-to-kill strange cats even if they looked exactly like ours.

 

[soberarthur]

@paverabek In my experience the big danger from properly introducing your well-trained, big, scary-looking, prey-driven dog to a cat isn’t that the dog’s training won’t be good enough - it’s that you’re also unwittingly training the cat to lose its fear of dogs.

I saw this happen in varying degrees with most of our cats. One “alley cat” female learned our dogs were friends, and played with them, but she never lost her fear of all other dogs. Most of our other cats did become complacent with dogs. Mercifully, most of them got chased by a strange dog and narrowly escaped, and never repeated the error. One was ripped apart by a strange dog, and I assume it may well have been because we had unwittingly taught him not to fear dogs.

I’ve met few dog people who have successfully got prey-driven dogs to co-exist with other animals, and I think this side effect is not well known.

 

[val355]

@patience7 Yes, please listen to this person! Your cat is not safe and that dog either needs to go back to his parents or to the vet for BE.

 

[arj100]

@diaanaa86 One mistake and your cat is dead. That's not a risk I would be willing to take. Your cat knows that dog is not safe and you know that dog is not safe around your cat, don't wait for something horrible to happen. This isn't a training issue.

 

[arnee]

@arj100 I bet your partner doesnt give a shit about the dog being aggressive with the cat.

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@diaanaa86 That dog will kill your cat the second it gets a chance. Regardless of if you believe that breed genetics matter or "it's how you train them", your boyfriend is a bad dog owner and the prime example of someone who has a dog that ends up mauling animals or children. This situation will not improve, imo even likely with training, because his dog has a high prey drive and already has gone without any sort of training its entire life. Because of this, I doubt your boyfriend will put any work into training and it will fall onto you and that isn't your responsibility. Dog needs to go back where it came from. That's something I wouldn't budge on if I were you.

 

[mayragarcia23]

@imagebeastmarkbeast Totally agree. If it were me being the cat owner in this situation, I would even break up with the dog owner to keep my cat safe.

 

[jen06a]

@mayragarcia23 Same. This is unacceptable.

 

[arnee]

@mayragarcia23 The relationship will end anyway when the dog kills the cat!

 

[mayragarcia23]

@arnee Yep, so why not end it now and save the cat? Just my opinion.

 

[thefixer]

@imagebeastmarkbeast The dog could possibly still learn and improve with an owner who cared and put in the effort. Unfortunately she doesn’t have that owner.