Help! New dog chases my cat!

SkyBlue99 · May 16, 2011

Last week I adopted a mixed breed dog from our local animal shelter. She is a sweetheart but very energetic. Since we have acreage, the dog lives outside and she loves it. The dog was cat tested before leaving the shelter and she showed no interest in the cat there. I bring home, Delilah the dog, and introduce her to my indoor cat. The cat remained calm so Delilah showed no interest. Then, the outdoor cat comes in to eat and she is terrified of Delilah, starts to run and the Delilah goes wild chasing her. She appears to be getting more aggressive in her determination to catch the cat. I am resorting to tieing up the dog so the cat can eat in peace.
Any suggestions on how I can deal with this? Here we have a farm so the dog can be free and I don't want to have to tie her up all the time yet I feel so sorry for my cat. This is a cat that hates the indoors so that is not a solution. Can the hunting instinct be trained out of a dog?

Dekka · May 16, 2011

No the hunting intstinct can't be trained out of the dog.

You say you have a farm and the dog lives out. What job does the dog have? Living out by itself is likely going to make the dog more likely to chase cats unless you spend time out doors all day with it.

SkyBlue99 · May 16, 2011

Delilah is a pet and has no job.

milos_mommy · May 16, 2011

You can't train her not to chase the cat. You can train her to "stay" and things so that while you're watching her, she might not do it, but if you go away, she's going to chase the cat. Does she only chase the cat when the cat comes to eat? Why don't you just put the dog inside or tie her up while the cat is eating? Does that cat have a place to go where the dog can't see/reach her?

Dekka · May 16, 2011

An outdoor farm pet? You do realize dogs are social creatures and tend to get destructive and bored when left alone right? So chasing cats is a good way to stem off boredom. I am all for farm dogs, but why get a dog to live outside if its just a pet?

If the dog lived inside with you and you could see/work on the cat chasing thing it might be easier... but a dog living out with no supervision gets to practise chasing things frequently and its a very rewarding behaviour.

*blackrose · May 16, 2011

Kiba also chases the outdoor cats because they run from him. He's fine with the indoor cats that stand up to him. He's gotten better about listening to a leave it command when he sees the outdoor kitties, but I think he'll always have that instinct to chase a running animal. A calm cat and a running cat strike two different cords with dogs.

So, if your outdoor cat keeps running from the dog...the dog is going to want to keep chasing it. You can work on desensitizing Delilah to the cat as it is running, but unless she has the right temperament she'll likely always have that instinctual, "ZOMG, it runs, must chase!" reaction. And the desensitizing can only happen with constant supervision with no chance for a cat-chasing relapse.

Well, that's not quite true...Rose used to be a cat killer. She would chase outdoor cats with the intent to kill and I know of at least one feral cat she did indeed catch before my mom could do anything about it. Rose now lives happily and safely with two indoor cats and three outdoor cats. She doesn't like the cats (the cats adore her and rub up against her all the time and she gets this look of disgust on her face), but she knows to not chase them now even when we aren't supervising. Once she realized cat chasing = very, very unhappy humans she tolerates the cats. That is just the kind of dog she is.
Same goes with Chloe. She chases all unfamiliar cats and even on occasion our cats if they act spooky around her, but she's perfectly fine with them 99.9999999% of the time and she loves kittens. Chloe's cat chasing is more territorial based - there are "our" cats and "strange" cats and strange cats are to be driven off of property.

It also helped that our outdoor cats are dog friendly if the dogs are friendly - once they realized we wouldn't let Rose (or Chloe) chase them the stop running and become very lovey dovey with the dogs. When they stop running, the dogs loose the desire to chase them and all is well.

And, keeping outdoor dogs is possible...Blackie and Rose were outdoor dogs the first 10 years of their life. (After Blackie started having medical issues we moved them indoors.) Even today, Rose is more than happy to spend all day outside and come in only to sleep at night. We have ten acres and even thought we aren't surrounded by empty fields anymore, she's old enough now that she just sticks to the yard and all is well.
While I don't like the idea of a single dog being kept outside without any buddies, if you live in a really remote place without any close neighbors, I don't see why dogs can't be happy outside. We're more populated out here now so having that kind of freedom outdoors is a no-no, but when Blackie and Rose were younger it was just us, maybe two neighbors down the way, and fields upon fields with any non gravel main road being miles away. They were very satisfied pooches being able to run, swim, dig, and hunt to their hearts content all day long and we never had any problems with them at all.

I don't know if that is this person's situation, but I'm not going to knock them for keeping their dog outdoors when I don't know what their set up is like.

Dekka · May 16, 2011

*blackrose said:

This is VERY VERY unusual. So while you got lucky in a dog that really wasn't all that into being a cat killer that you being unhappy stopped it even when you aren't around. You shouldn't make it seem like its not a big deal. This could get other people's cats killed.

A dog that has shown interest in killing cats should never be left alone with one. (not if you care about your cat anyway)

*blackrose · May 16, 2011

Dekka said:

True. Which is why Kiba is never, ever, ever left loose with any of the cats. Ever. Apparently I didn't stress that enough when I said

Rose was never socialized to cats as a young dog so she didn't understand that cats were pets, not prey. Once she understood that the cats were supposed to be there and were accepted by us she mellowed down. It also helped that she is a senior and her drive has decreased dramatically. We had nine years of training behind our belt when we worked with her on the cats, so our relationship is a bit different than a newly acquired young dog.

milos_mommy · May 16, 2011

Also, Blackrose, you say Chloe will chase a cat if it gets spooky around her...Rose might tolerate your indoor and outdoor cats hanging around her calmly, but if a strange cat bolted across an open yard in front of her, what would she do??

Pops2 · May 16, 2011

i am going to disagree strongly w/ everyone, you CAN train a dog not to hunt or chase something you don't want it to. it's called breaking and involves a great deal of time & effort and if necessary no small amount of aversion training (read painful consequences usually through the use of an e-collar). some dogs require a level of aversion training that some would consider abusive.
the real questions are: do you have the knowledge & equipment to do it correctly? are you willing to put in the time & effort? do you have the stomach for the level of harshness that MAY be required to be successful?

Dekka · May 16, 2011

Pops, I know some people who use ecollars properly who used it to train huskies not to chase/eat cats. The problem was eventually some of the dogs figured out they weren't wearing the collar anymore and killed 3 cats.

It only works for sure if you keep teh collar on and the remote in your hand for the life of your dog.

*blackrose · May 16, 2011

milos_mommy said:

Nope, Rose completely ignores cats now. I actually wanted her to chase a cat off (semi-feral barn cat of the neighbors) and she ignored it even when I sic'd Chloe on it to get it off our property. Now, if she was out in the woods and came across a cat and it bolted I'm sure she'd chase it - but she ignores all cats, strange or otherwise, on our property now.

(And before I seem like a mean person for sending my dog off to chase a cat, said cat would come down and pick fights with Junior, chase the cats off their food, and spray all over our front porch. We hoped having the dog chase him off would discourage him, but it didn't so we ended up snagging him and rehoming him to a friend of the family who needed some barn cats. To this day, the neighbors still don't know he is gone. They think another one of their cats is him.

)

mrose_s · May 16, 2011

Buster wanted to kill Elliot when we brought him home. Seeing as both animals were indoor/outdoor it wasn't relaly an option to just seperate them. Luckily Elliot was very cool and calm about the situation, he never ran from the dogs so never gave them a reason to chase him.
It took about 6 months with Buster before I would trust him unsupervised with the cat (and when I say unsupervised I mean in the same general vicinity as me without me watching them like a hawk) I spent everyday with Buster leashed next to me, Elliot would eveyday come a little closer slowly but surely Buster did get used to him.

Now I trust Buster most out of all the dogs, he's rock solid with Elliot. ANd terrified of him to boot, he wanted to go bark at something the other day but Elliot was cloking a doorway and he couldn't get out because ge won't mess with him.

God help any other cat that turns up in our yard though.

JL'sPack · May 16, 2011

From my own experience, if the cat runs away, the dog will chase, if the cat is layed back or stands up to the dog, the dog isn't as interested in chasing it. We have two cats here with our 3 dogs (all indoors). One of the cats couldn't care less if one of the dogs comes after him - he stands his ground and will bite the dog (not badly of course) if need be. Our other cat dosen't want a thing to do with the dogs and she runs away from them, goes the long way around to avoid them, so they tend to chase her.
The one thing I found that works is we taught our Akita "leave it" as a puppy. It was part of her puppy class and it wasn't necessarily for getting her to leave our cats alone, but she has a strong "prey drive" and she would lunge at our cats when she was a puppy (still does with the one who runs from her), but we'd firmly and loudly give her the "LEAVE IT!" command, and she stops and walks away or sits and just "watchs" the cat go by lol. Of course this only works if you're there to suppervize and give the command.

Kat09Tails · May 16, 2011

Dekka said:

Doesn't sound to me like they knew what they were doing, as evidenced by their dog being allowed to become collar wise. That said, trashbreaking doesn't work on every dog nor will it make a cat smart enough to realize that it's life may be in danger. Some cats are just too stupid to live sometimes with certain dogs.

Trashbreaking isn't fun. Good luck with it.

Dekka · May 16, 2011

Well they seem to be very good at it. They train with all the 'big names' and have high level obed titles and such. So they are better than your average person by far.

The thing is some dogs will learn. You can do everything right so they don't learn, but all it takes is that one lunge at the cat that they just can't help and don't get a shock for some dogs to put two and two together...

Greenmagick · May 16, 2011

I dont know that all dogs can be trained not to chase but I do know some can, and that it doesnt have to be with aversives.

Karen Pryor had a cat killer dog that she trained out of it with clicker training.

milos_mommy · May 16, 2011

Not only is trashbreaking not fun, if attempted the wrong way it can cause SERIOUS problems. No training is always better than training a dog badly. And it doesn't work on every dog, either....some temperaments are better suited to it than others.

Psyfalcon · May 16, 2011

Ruby put one cat up a fence and kept chasing the inside cat. We leashed her to the couch for three months. It took her that long to realize she could not chase the cat. Now she can walk up to the cat, sniff it and walk away. Dogs can learn that cats aren't prey... inside.

Outside, she'd treat a cat just the same as a squirrel, skunk, or rabbit.

A childhood dog killed my brother's rabbit when it escaped its outside hutch. The same dog was safe with the replacement rabbit inside. I bet you could break many dogs to cats or rabbits, without shock collars, but only if you were there to stop them every time (that means a leash) for months. Even then they wouldn't necessarily be reliable if you werent there.

noludoru · May 16, 2011

Dekka said:

Off topic, but I disagree.

My neighbors have trained two who have killed cats to live with them indoors. And I don't mean supervised, I mean loose in the house with them all day. They'd still kill an outside cat and it took months of hardcore training, but they actually got their dogs to be safe around them.

Not saying the average owner could do this or would be capable of it or SHOULD, but they've been owning and training dogs for 20+ years.

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