I have two cats, 2 and 3 yrs old. They have both been holed up in the room since we brought Logan home yesterday. He seems to be okay with them, no barking or growling when he did see them. He slept through the night in a crate with little fuss. I would like to help them get along but if it can't happen I'm afraid I will have to give Logan back. We are on a test run with him now. Any help would be appreciated.
I have a system that I use any time I bring a new pet into the family. I have a large dog cage and I set the new one up in there in hte middle of the living room. Food, water, small litter box if it's a cat/kitten. Keeping it in the middle of the living room allows me to keep an eye on what's happening, and also forces the new one to be around the family. I keep the new one in there for about 2 hours at a time. When it's out of the cage my dogs go outside for a while, or if weather doesn't permit then they go into a bedroom to give the new one a chance to roam some. I do 2 hour stretches this way throughout the day and evening.
Doing it this way the dogs are able to sniff the new one and the new one quickly learns that they can't get at it. Also the 2 hour stretch outside the cage also gives the new one a chance to sniff the house and get used to the dogs' smells along with the smells of the rest of the house. I have never had this system fail to bring about a smooth transition. The time it takes depends entirely on the animals themselves. I've had it take anywhere from 30 minutes with one new cat, to almost a week for one that was being stubborn. But it never failed and the animals all quickly became best friends.
The important thing tho, is that the NEW pet goes in the cage. If you put the pets you already have in there then they feel like they are being punished and may develop some resentment toward the new one.
You can't make any decision for at least two weeks. And even if it's not perfect, so long as you see progress at that point, give it more time. All animals will react differently to new animals entering their territory and adjust at their own rate. Please give it time and good luck! I'll bet in a couple of months you'll be posting a picture of the happy family!
Time will take care of it. I talking several weeks in some cases. It depends on the individual cat. As long as the cats have someplace to go (ours liked under the bed) and they can gradually come out more and more as they became acclimated to each other. In the beginning some cats only came out at night when the dog was sleeping. Eventually some of our cats would curl up and sleep with the dogs and groom them. Others merely tolerated them being in the house. Don't give up on Logan to soon. We've adopted many cats and dogs over the years and they always learned to coexit. Think Positive! Good Luck
We have gotten 2 new dogs recently (the first one got killed) and each time our cats would hide, hiss, spit, you name it, but each time they eventually came around. The only thing I really did was not to allow the dog to mess with the cats too much in the beginning. They would both want to play with the cats, but, of course, the cats were not too happy about that. Now they get along fine with just an occasional fuss. Good luck.
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