Monday, 14 January 2019

Preparing to socialize two cats with a housemate's dog

I'm searching for some best practices to ease a transition coming up - basically if all goes to plan I should be having a housemate move in with me at the end of this month to help me tackle some bills (since I am going through a breakup with my ex-fiance, who is still on the mortgage with me, but has moved out after we split). The housemate will be bringing his 9-year old female dog with him. She's kind of a mutt, looks a little like a Scottish terrier to me, but according to him is quite calm and well-mannered, plus is housebroken of course.

My only concern is that I have two cats already, both male, and around 2 years old. One is a tuxedo cat, polydactyl, and the other is an orange tabby. I have no idea how they will react to a strange dog. When I had to introduce the orange tabby to the tuxedo cat (adopted them separately from different shelters/different times), the orange cat was very people-wary and he and the tuxedo cat fought constantly, but with long periods of counseled introduction and a cat pheremone emitter on the wall, things worked out, and now they get along fine, with just some occasional play-fighting. But they have lived indoors most of their lives and I do not have a dog...

I'm counting on this going well or else the housemate won't really be able to move in. What can I do in the meantime to make my cats more comfortable with a dog around? How does one introduce cats to a dog? I have concerns about the dog being there with the cats at all times when the housemate and I are both at our full-time jobs throughout the day. I would love to get rid of the cats in general, if it were only that simple... yet I really need to recoup the loss of a second income from my ex-fiance and I separating, and this is the best way to do it. To me it is more important that I get the housemate; however, the thought of doing something that could potentially harm my cats is not sitting well with me.

Any success stories or advice?

Thanks. :D

submitted by /u/SqueakyLycan
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/afych2/preparing_to_socialize_two_cats_with_a_housemates/

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