We have recently taken on a female ex racer on a trial basis (she was no good for racing given her laid back / timid attitude) and we already own a two year old greyhound who we have had since a pup. We also have a cat who our dog sees as his best friend, but whom we obviously need our new lady to adapt to for her to make a permanent home with us.
We are fairly experienced dog owners, and have done plenty of reading on how to keep both pets safe whilst we try to see whether she can be desensitised or not. She’s been here a week or so and any interactions with the cat are always supervised, with her muzzled and on a lead. We have stair gates in place so they can see but not get to each other the cat has safe places, we are using positive reward and she is learning commands such as ‘leave’ and ‘away’ . Shes made small progress - she’s calm in the presence of the cat (doesn’t bark, pull or lunge) and she’ll follow me away from him when told, although still shows a lot of interest at times so not yet trusted to roam freely around him whilst supervised. We are also hoping our dog will be a calming influence as she sees positive interactions with the cat from him. We are trying not to overload her or the cat, so we are doing several sessions through the day. We’ve also tested her with small dogs (again muzzled and on lead, and then on lead without muzzle) and she has so far been fine.
We know it will be a potentially long and slow process to get this right (we have time and won’t rush) but I just wanted to see if anyone else has successfully tackled this scenario, how long it took, and if there is any specific advice that can be given to help the process?
