Help, new dog thinks the cat is its tea :(

[Pinkpeeper]

New doggy is 4 years old fairly small cross breed. Came home from the dogs home with us on saturday and is totally perfect apart from her reaction to the cat!

The cat is now staying upstairs (where dog cant go) but is sitting on the top of the stairs at lot. The dog started off very timid and was a bag of nerves in the dogs home, but she is coming out of her shell now and is much happier. With this new found confidence she is more and more interested in the cat!!

Doggy is looking for the cat as soon as she comes in the house and will stare at her and is generally totaly fansinated by the cat. If the cat runs the dog goes a bit crazy although at the moment we are keeping the dog on the lead when the cat is around.

The dog has very little if any training which i am working on but do you think this is a problem that will settle? We are working on it every evening, and i keep getting hopeful that we can re train the dog, but then again i feel like i am risking the safety of the cat.

Anyone had much experience of this before? And how long did it take for the dog to accept the cat as part of the family instead of prey?

 

[JillA]

Yes, my JRT, and the problem is once the cat has learned that the dog will chase, it runs, and there is very little more tempting to a dog that a cat that runs. Teach the dog two things - to be happy in a crate is the most important one. Once he is relaxed with the door shut, he can learn to cope with watching the cat from the safety of the crate, and the cat learns not to run. It took mine a few days, then we extended it into the room, so long as the cat can also cope with being in the same room as the dog with panicking and running.
That is where the other training comes in, the "leave". I have done this many times with a treat in a closed fist. No matter what the dog does, he doesn't get the treat until he has glanced away, then the fist is opened. By the time he has learned that and actually looked away to gain the treat you can put the word "leave" to it.
Then if the cat is in the room, BEFORE there is a flat out chase (which you won't be able to interrupt except physically) as soon as the dog looks as the cat, give the "leave" cue, and reward with a treat if he does. Good luck, it takes time but it does work, my JRT ignores the cat the whole time - they aren't friends but they tolerate each other fine.