HELP! My Wife OK'd a Kitty

[tarcone]

I need help. My wife broke down and accepted a stray kitty into our home. Her and a friend found it on the streets. And my daughters talked my wife into keeping it, with help from her friend who paid for the food, litter and litter box.

Im ok with this. I guess. BUT we have a 7 year old Lab. Who is the baby of the family. I was out when all this went down. When I got home, my lab was all up in me. She knows. And she was jealous. The kitty is in a crate.
My lab has already eaten all the cat food.

I need help in assimilating this kitty into our family. How do I get the lab to not chase the kitty? How do I keep the lab from being jealous of the cat and me (She is my dog, but I am good with animals and I have a feeling the cat will be mine as well)?

HELP!!!!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Slow & steady is the key to most contentious cat assimilations.

I've never dealt with a dog/cat situation so my experience is gonna be limited on those specifics (and until you've got them very comfortable with each other, PLEASE monitor every interaction closely)

They might surprise you & be hunky-dory with it all very quickly but if not, plan to integrate the cat into the same room with everyone only a few minutes at a time. (cat stays in a room closed off the rest of the time as the integration process goes forward -- they'll cope with it better than you might think).

Sounds like your wife might be key to this whole operation. My thinking is that the cat needs to be in her lap when it goes to the same room. The dog is gonna have enough to deal with, let's make job #1 learning to deal with a feline, not learning to deal with someone getting doggy daddy's attention.

[JonInMiddleGA]

FWIW, the last one we did was the toughest ... that was tiny tiny kitten into a household with two adult cats already present. The sloooow integration there took about two weeks to complete. It's a good bit of work tbh, you've got to isolate (in order to protect) but you also have to spend a good bit of time socializing the cat yourself so that it doesn't get overly freaked out/develop a complex of sorts/etc.

[CU Tiger]

I'd suggest skinned, slow marinated in sesame and ginger and grilled over indirect heat for 30-35 minutes...

Then for gosh sakes share with your best friend, he deserves it.

[Shepp]

First and foremost, you want to get kitty fixed. From my experience, if you spay/ newter them before they start spraying they tend not to ever start. Even if they have started fixing them tends to help tone down any agressive behaviour quite a bit.

Next, you want to designate a room to be kitty's room for the next few weeks. That way kitty will have a place where he/she feels safe while getting accustomed to the new home. Kitty and your dog will also be able to get used to eachother's smell through the door. After a week or two you can start to introduce them in person for short times. If these face to face meetings go well you can gradually make them longer and less supervised until kitty is fully integrated.

[kcchief19]

Echo Shepp completely. If you have a basement or large room to keep the cat separate from the dog for about a month it will be a big help.

[Julio Riddols]

Contentious Cat Assimilations is now on my short list of band names I wish existed. The way I always dealt with cat/cat assimilations was to simply lock both cats in the same room together til the hissing stopped. Then I would go in there and pet them both at the same time. May not have been the smartest way to do it, but I was like 16 and it seemed to work well. The cats usually came out of it as friends and never acted weird or anything.

I would tend to think a dog would come around faster than a cat would, just try to show the dog you're not replacing it, just giving it a playmate.

[Bobble]

After having some cat issues, one of the best resources to understand and improve cat behavior is this book:
Cat Whisperer Products - Secure Online Shop

She seems to understand cat motivations more than random crap you'll find on the intarwebs, this post included.

I know you're more focused on the lab but the kitten's experiences now could cause you some headaches later on.

[Bad-example]

Go shopping for a pet door. Install it in the door to the kitty's new room. Teach kitty how to use it.

Now your kitty can get to the food and litter box and main safety zone but the dog has to wait for someone to open the big people door.

[tarcone]

Ok, its been a couple days.
My Lab is kind of nervous. She doesnt bother the kitty, but licks it constantly.
The kitty is very young and all skin and bones. He is happy to be in a house I think. He is learning to use the litter box.
When the lab is on her pillow and the kitty gets on the pillow, our lab pushes the kitty off.

Its intereting watching and good entertainment.

[Thomkal]

I don't know how much help the particular episode will be to you, but My Cat from Hell on Animal Planet just had one in the past couple weeks where a big dog would not stop attacking the newly (I think) introduced cat.

I like that show in general because after not owning any pets personally and never having a cat period growing up, I adopted my first a couple years ago-posted here somewhere when I got her. I was pretty clueless about cats and cat behavior in general, and I've really learned a lot from that show.