My girlfriend and I have a kitten. Our roommate is babysitting a puppy for 3 weeks. Should we keep them apart?

My girlfriend and I have a kitten. She’s never gotten along with other cats, even prior to her adoption. My girlfriend and I are considering getting a puppy at the end of the year so I was hoping to get some helpful tips for that too.

We live in a 2br 60sqm apartment with another roommate. She’s currently babysitting a puppy for the next 3 weeks. Here are their details:

Kitten:
Species: Feline
Breed: shorthair calico
Age: 5 months Sex: Female
Neuter status: not yet spayed
History: vaccinated for anti-rabies and has gotten her 5-in-1 shot. Also dewormed once.

Puppy:
Species: Canine
Breed: Mixed/Mutt
Age: 2 months
Sex: Male
Neuter status: not neutered
History: no vaccinations or deworming done.

First, they seem to get a long but I think they roughhouse too much. I’ve never seen our kitten attempt to play with another animal before, even when we lived in a house that had another cat in it so I’m not familiar with what is too rough.

Here’s a description of what it’s like when they play:

They bite each other a lot. The kitten bites the puppy in the cheeks, belly, and ears. The puppy bites the kitten in the same areas too. Sometimes she hisses when he bites her and she slaps him. The sometimes yelps a little when they roughhouse but he whines more when she doesn’t want to play with him.

They’re like this everyday. They only stop when one of them is too tired to play. They seem to want to do it all the time because they play like this every chance they get. We pull them apart when we get scared that it’s too rough.

My girlfriend and I are concerned because the other day we found that one of our kitten’s toes was bleeding. It had a small cut on it though we’re unsure if it’s from the puppy or from her running around the apartment (sometimes when she has zoomies, she tries to jump onto things that are too high and she falls off).

My questions are:

1. Should we keep them apart at all times for the remainder of the puppy’s stay?
2. How can we tell if their roughhousing is too rough?
3. What tips do you have for when we decide to get a puppy at the end of the year? We plan to get a female jack russell terrier.

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