How to Bring a Dog Home when Cats are Present

If you love animals like me, you pretty much want to have them all living with you. But, as you can imagine, while you can live with them, all your pets might not be able to live with each other. The hardest animal to get used to other animals is, in my opinion since I have two of them, is the cat and bringing a dog, their arch nemesis, into the picture can be quite challenging and funny. Here are some helpful tips I've learnt through experience.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Dog(s)
• Cat(s)
• Patience

1. Once you bring a dog into your home, nothing will be the same! While the dog will absolutely love the cats when first introduced, as they are a friendly animal, the cats will not like it so much. The trick is to remember that it will take some time and they will slowly get used to each other.

2. They will fight. The dog will try to become friends with the cats but the cats will take some time before they'll let him. They will bat at him and hiss at him and, for some unknown reason, he'll keep coming back for more. There might be blood but if there's not a lot, there's no reason to worry (and it will not deter the dog at all!).

3. Discipline them all equally. While you might feel you have to be easier on the dog since it's a new home and he's dealing with cats (oh my god!), you still have to discipline him like you would if he was the only animal in the house. Plus, the cats won't come to resent him as being the 'favourite' and 'getting away with everything'.

4. The main ingredient is time. It'll take time for everyone to get used to each other, but once they all fall into their own routine, or back to the one they're used to, everything will work out.

Tips & Warnings

• It can be quite amusing to watch the interaction between the two animals, but just remember, cats hate being laughed at and take way longer to forgive then dogs.