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Dog chasing cats
My husband and I have four cats, and have a lot of dogs in the house(we do rescue/foster them) so we have dealt with a lot of doggie problems,. However-we have never dealt with this one. About a month ago we got a foster, Libby, that we loved and decided she made a great friend for our other dog, so we kept her. She is a wonderful dog, but is obsessed with our cats. She isn't aggressive at all, but does chase them everywhere. She gets pretty crazed about them. Today we came home to find she had torn our couch trying to get to where one was at(Our fault for forgetting to crate her). When she sees a cat she get overwhelmingly excited, and barely listens to us.
We need to find a way to train her out of this. We love her a TON, and since we work in rescue there really is no way we would get rid of her. Other then the cats, and some puppy excitement she is well behaved. She is about a year and a half old, and we think she is a cattle dog/pit bull mix. Any advice would be great! I feel bad for the cats really, we have a room gated off for them so they have a dog free zone, and they barely leave that one room. Thanks for reading!
Re: Dog chasing cats
How much exercise is she getting? Mental stimulation?
We have four cats and three dogs, two of which are pittie mixes. One of them is very interested in the cats. It's made my life a lot easier to separate her every.single.time I can't be around to supervise her. I could see her chasing the cats or getting ready to, and I could say, "Elsie, eh, eh", and she would turn around and come back. We have pet gates throughout the house, and when we leave for the day, all dogs are crated and separated from the cats, so the cats get free roam all day.
She gets a fair amount mental stimulation, and unfortunately lately(the last couple weeks) her only physical has been in the yard with the other dog.(I'm pregnant and recently have started having bad back problems, which luckily are getting helped) I plan to start her walks back up tomorrow. But even when she was getting two good walks a day she was just as bad with the cats.
We have a Kelpie who came from a shelter. He'd been a stray and while he never had any issues housebreaking, it was clear he'd never lived in a house. He wanted to eat our cats for probably seven months after we got him.
The key is to never let it happen. You are the boss of that dog, and she has to do what you say. You can't let her chase the cats because it's so fun...it's self-perpetuating.
So when you're home, tether her to you. Cal was crated constantly when we first brought him home. He was never allowed in the apartment (it was like 600 square feet with 3 cats and a dog) unsupervised with the cats. For months we never even let the cats around him. We slowly introduced them, tethered, crated, corrected, etc. He learned (after many, many months) that the cats weren't snacks. It took a loooooong time and a lot of patience.
ETA: Exercise exercise exercise. A herding dog mixed with a pit is going to have some serious exercise requirements. I'm sure you get this. It took a while for us to get Cal on a good exercise regimen. It meant that I had to take up running, but finally we figured out how to get him tired enough to behave himself (running 5+ miles a day, plus playing ball, plus a walk, plus a Kong, plus dog park). Unless the dog is physically injuring itself, I'd say that you pretty much can't get it too much exercise.
My Lunch Blog
I had to come out of lurking to comment.
One of our dogs, Jigs did this when we first brought her home from the pound. We live on a working ranch and we couldn't allow her to chase the animals, especially the cats. She would get in a trance at every cat she saw, start to shake and charge them.
We taught her the "leave it" command and it has worked wonders!! I can't tell you how handy this command has been for us. Truly a savior.
Good luck!