Dance and I do a lot of house-sitting/dog-sitting and this next place we're going to in a couple of weeks has two cats as well. The problem is, Dance is absolutely terrified of cats after running into a couple of grumpy, very territorial cats at my Aunt's farm both last year and last month. Normally I couldn't care less that she's afraid of them. I don't have cats and will never have cats, but since we'll be taking care of a couple of them soon, I want her to at least be semi-comfortable with them. She's not over the top in her fears, but last night I visited with people I'll be sitting for and Dance spent a lot of time hiding and pacing a bit last night whenever Flea (one of the cats) so much as looked at her. Flea is very comfortable with dogs (he lives with two Shelties and a Rottweiler), and seemed to think it was rather fun to chase her around. He listens well and stopped when told, but like I said, it would be nice if Dance could just stay still instead of running from him. He'd leave her alone.
I was thinking maybe I should just keep her on a leash for the first day or two while I'm there to stop her when she starts to run away? Or is that a bad idea? Any other ideas would be great as well. The other dogs don't care that she runs from the cats, so it's not like she's causing issues, I just thought it would (obviously) be a nicer stay for her if she could learn to relax around the cats.
I was thinking maybe I should just keep her on a leash for the first day or two while I'm there to stop her when she starts to run away? Or is that a bad idea? Any other ideas would be great as well. The other dogs don't care that she runs from the cats, so it's not like she's causing issues, I just thought it would (obviously) be a nicer stay for her if she could learn to relax around the cats.
