How do I Introduce My new Kitten to My Dog? Your Cats and Dogs CAN Get Along

How to Introduce Your new Kitten to Your Dog

I have successfully used this method to introduce two 8-week old kittens to my four cat-chasing dogs. I adopted kittens instead of grown cats because I thought they would have a better chance of adapting to the dogs. I got the spunkiest kittens I could find. I know nothing stimulates my dogs to chase more than a cat that runs from them, so I was looking for cats that would stand their ground.

If your dogs are anything like mine, they will be very excited and interested in the new kitten. When you first bring the kitten home keep it in a safe, quiet place for a few hours. I used a spare bedroom, I left them in the carrier for about an hour, then after they had a chance to relax, I gave them the run of the room.

When the kittens seemed to be feeling at home, I brought in the first dog. I went with the most mellow dog first. If you have two people, you can each hold one of the animals. Pet them and get them calm, and let them get used to seeing each other. If the cat doesn't seem afraid, let them sniff each other. If the animals seem comfortable, let them on the floor together. For this first meeting I kept it short, maybe 5 minutes. Give the kittens a break, then introduce the next dog.

I continued in this manner for a couple of days, keeping the kittens isolated in their room between meetings, and increasing the length of time the animals spent together. If the kittens seemed afraid, I comforted them, but I didn't have much to worry about there, it was a pretty amusing sight to see this tiny kitten hissing and swatting at my 125 lb Rottweiler, but these cat's didn't back down a bit. If the dog made any, even slightly aggressive, movement I would give him a stern "No," and pet the kitty to show him, it's my kitty, then pet the dog to reassure him, he's still my dog.

When I felt like everyone was pretty comfortable one-on-one, I put up a baby gate over the door to the kitten room and left the door open for short periods of time. Only when I was there to closely supervise, I allowed the kittens to come out of their room through the gate to visit. This way if they needed to retreat they had a safe place to go.

Within a week of bringing my kittens home, the cats and dogs were able to co-exist in the house without a problem. Once the kitties got a little bigger, they found the doggy door. I had always intended them to be indoor-outdoor cats. When the cats started going out in the yard I had to do a little more training with the dogs until they got used to seeing the cats outside. Be sure to observe the interactions between your cats and dogs carefully until you are sure that the kitties are safe.

Now my cats and dogs are friendly, even affectionate toward one another.