Puppy vs Cats

windyhill21

I just got a 11 week old male shepherd/lab puppy. We already have 2 cats and they're about 2 years old. When we first brought Riley home, we sectioned off one room and let them meet at their leisure for a while and then gradually introduced Riley to the whole downstairs. They were fine for a while, but now Riley is more interested in the cats and he's wants to smell them. If the interaction becomes negative (dog gets swatted by cats/scolded by us) he follows the cat to his retreat location (in front of the stairs or the kitchen table) and pees on the floor. Riley was neutered when he was 8 weeks and doesn't even lift his leg. This is pretty much the only time he pees in the house, but it's becoming more and more frequent the more he tries to interact with the cats. How do I stop this? My husband and I are exhausted from having to be on constant alarm for the cat-swat-pee interaction from occuring. Help!

Mikey

Stop scolding him. And stop allowing him to be swatted by the cats.

He can't help being interested in the cats...and then that ends up with him getting scolded or swatted? I'd pee too!!!!

Seperate the cats for now, and only allow limited interaction while everyone settles in. And don't scold your dog-you'll end up with bigger and bigger problems. It leads nowhere good.

windyhill21

I'd love to be able to separate them but the only way to do this is by shutting one or the other in a bedroom. Our house has a very open floor plan, and no doors between the kitchen, living room, dining room, upstairs, hallway, etc. We've ordered a baby gate but it doesn't come for another week. We can keep the puppy out of the room the cats are in, but if the cats decide they want to harass the puppy then it's very hard to keep them from doing it. We introduced them very slowly and they were pretty much fine the first week and now things are just escalating, especially in the morning. The cats are just having a super hard time adjusting a routine 2 years in the making to accommodate a puppy.