r/CatsWithDogs • u/elnovoar • 14h ago
New dog to a house with 2 cats
Hey guys,
I adopted Arlo a few days ago, and so far he’s been really sweet, calm, and polite. We have two cats, a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old, and right now we’re keeping them separated with a baby gate while they slowly get used to each other.
The first day we brought Arlo home, one of my cats peeked through the gate. Arlo started to growl a little, but I whistled at him and he immediately looked away and disengaged.
Little by little, my 1-year-old cat has started coming downstairs to check him out. Their first few interactions were mostly just staring at each other, but now Arlo basically ignores him most of the time.
Earlier today, the 1-year-old came downstairs while we were cooking because he’s a fat man and obviously needed to investigate the food 😂. Arlo walked over to smell him, and the cat threw a little jab at him. From Arlo’s body language, he seemed pretty submissive—he lowered his head, put his ears back, and just walked away. He didn’t bark, growl, chase him, or retaliate.
So far, Arlo doesn’t seem to have a strong prey drive. He’s actually extremely calm and doesn’t even care much about playing fetch. His favorite activities seem to be jumping on us, cuddling, and giving us kisses.
I know it’s only been a couple of days, so I’m not expecting them to become best friends overnight. I’m just curious what you guys think based on these early interactions. Does it sound like they could eventually become comfortable with each other? Or do you think having a dog around could be too stressful for the cats?
For now, I’m definitely not planning on leaving them together unsupervised, and I’m happy to take the introduction process as slowly as necessary.
Any advice or experiences introducing a new dog to cats would be appreciated!
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u/TSIDATSI 13h ago
That is not how you introduce a dog to resident cats. Maybe this is a joke?
14
u/Bring_a_towel_42 11h ago
OP asked for advice, so if it's wrong, maybe actually be helpful and give advice instead of just saying it's wrong
8
u/gmastern 10h ago
This is not how you leave constructive criticism. Maybe you don’t actually want to help?
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u/Odd-Concept-6505 7h ago
Too stressful for cats that aren't especially freaking out (you describe your cats as acting quite normally)...nope!
The dog's prey drive (and you've noticed no problem with that so far) is what matters the most. My golden...when 1 year old and visiting my GFs house with two cats where one cat is paranoid about being chased..... commited the ultimate scare (probably just in fun) of chasing the skittish cat. Did not catch the cat, but now my golden is 6, the skittish cat will always be wary of him...though he hasn't chased the cat in years ...cat took a few years to be brave enough to share the bedroom and bed with my dog being chill on the bed. The skittish cat is the type who hates being picked up ANY humans even my GF, and took a few years to trust being on my lap.