To calm the dog down? Or to boost the cats' confidence? That is the question.
When you've got an intense, chase-y dog and some scared cats, how do you prioritize your training projects? In this Dog and Cat Chat, I explain why (in Jenna's case), I suggested that she focus on addressing the cats' skittishness first before tackling her dog's intense reactions to seeing the cats move.
What you'll hear in this episode:
why two kittens might be better than one
how to make seeing the other animal less of an event (when they are absolutely apart)
how to help nervous cats explore their territory (and why it was priority #1 for Jenna)
To listen to the full episode, click here to open it in your podcast player or press play below:
Meet Thunder, Draco, and Severus
(not their actual photos 🤣)
Thunder
Severus and Draco
The Initial Plan
give the kittens as many opportunities as possible to explore the upstairs area (outside their safe zone) while Thunder was securely away
reinforce the kittens for attempting new behaviors like navigating stairs
reinforce the barrier at the bathroom door (planning for the kittens to want to get out of there)
Updates from Jenna
“We’ve made some amazing progress! Since the last time we spoke, I spent quite a bit of time letting the kittens explore the house with Thunder in another room and rewarding them for being on high surfaces. At this point, our pets are able to be in the same room while supervised. The kittens will just hang out on their high spots while we are continuing to work on rewarding Thunder for relaxing around the kittens as well as his ability to disengage from them. I’m super proud of how far these 3 have come!
I’ll try to get some videos of us working with Thunder while the kittens are around. I think you’ll be happy to see how well they’re all doing! Thanks again!”
✅ What worked:
prioritizing giving the kittens experience throughout the territory, focusing on elevated spots (out of Thunder’s reach and in a good place to observe him)
reinforcing Thunder for any appropriate behaviors around the kittens
Any future updates from Jenna will be put here - stay tuned!
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Naomi: Sample clip: Right. Scary. Geez. Ah Big dog, tiny kitten, running barking, lunging.
Hello you cat and dog people. This is It's Training Cats and Dogs - the show for people with both cats and dogs who want peace in their home and peace between their animals. I'm Naomi Rotenberg, your source of practical strategies for keeping everyone in your multi-species household safe and sane. And today's episode is a Dog and Cat Chat with Jenna, who currently has her chasey German Shepherd totally separated from the two kittens who are living in her upstairs bathroom.
We talked about ways that we could make the bathroom door opening less of an exciting event for Thunder, her dog, and the importance of giving the kittens more chances to move around the whole house. Let's hop into it.
Hi. Today we are doing a dog and cat chat with Jenna and I am so excited to talk to you, Jenna. I know we've been trying to find a time for a while though. Welcome to the podcast.
Jenna: Thank you. I'm happy to be talking to you. Finally.
Naomi: So, tell me a little bit about your pets and what we're gonna be discussing today.
Jenna: Okay, we have a dog Thunder. He's a two year old German Shepherd mix, and we got him as a puppy since he was about six months old. We've been working through some anxious and over excited tendencies with him, and recently about a month ago I took two feral kittens inside and I am hoping to be able to incorporate them into the household. Probably just one of them because two is a bit much. But Thunder has a tendency to chase cats in our yard. So, I'm just a little bit nervous about how the interactions are gonna go.
Naomi: Okay. So, there's a couple of things that we need to kind of dig a little bit deeper into. Number one is the fact that the kittens are feral, how your interactions with them are going and then their relationship with each other. And then the second thing is what your current management is so that we can try to figure out how to move forward. So, let's go back to the first question. How ish old are the kittens and how feral are they?
Jenna: So, the vet thinks that they're about four and a half months and at this point, you would have no idea that they were feral at all. They are the sweetest things in the world. They're super chill and cuddly, and they love each other to death. They're so sweet with each other, so they're not wild anymore. They're nice.
Naomi: Good. So, that is probably because they started out young knowing you, which is great. And I actually often recommend if you have two kittens and they're bonded, like they can play with each other. Cause if you have just one, then you're taking on even more responsibility to provide social engagement and enrichment that they, you know, and exercise and all that stuff that they would probably get from each other. So, this is not to say if you don't want two cats, don't adopt, don't keep two cats. But there are a lot of pros to having cats that already get along well, play well with each other, expend energy together. Especially because you have a project dog . Would alleviate some of the responsibility a little bit for you on the cat side but we can talk about that a little bit more another time.
Let's focus on Mr. Thunder and how your household is set up right now.
Jenna: So, right now the kittens their room is the upstairs bathroom and they have a baby gate inside the bathroom door. And then we have put a blanket over top of that baby gate. So that if Thunder happens to be upstairs when we go in and out of the bathroom, he can't see them.
But he's pretty good about not charging to the door. He doesn't really seem to care when the door opens. But when he's alone and at night, like if we can't supervise him, we have the door to the stairs that shuts. So, the kittens can be totally shut upstairs and Thunder can be downstairs.
Naomi: Great. So, when no supervision is possible, you have at least two layers of management, which is wonderful. That's usually what I recommend. So, props to you. And in terms of kind of actual interactions between each other, have you done anything or are they totally separate?
Jenna: So, we have been swapping their blankets and they don't really care anymore. They're not, they don't get excited about the scents anymore. But with Thunder, we have been working on touching the doorknob and opening the door and just tossing treats away from the door to kind of help him not get super excited about the door. Which is, it's definitely helping. But that's really all we've done because I'm so nervous about what might happen.
Naomi: Yeah. So, there's two ways you could go with this, right? Like he knows the kittens are there. The door is very exciting and the door opening is an event in and of itself, right? Because there's kittens there. Yeah. Right? And this really depends on who Thunder is, and we might have to do some experimenting. But often, especially when the kittens are young and still kind of pliable in terms of behavior, I will often recommend, and this might be sound counterintuitive a little bit, but that we have still a physical barrier, but visual access between them as much as possible. Because then they become less exciting because they're always there.
Jenna: Okay.
Naomi: But often it's not possible in the house the way it's set up. So I'm assuming that's what you were about to say.
Jenna: We have that baby gate inside the door, so if the door's open and we take the blanket off the gate, Thunder can see them. And we actually put the blanket on the gate because last week we opened the door...we were going in and out and we didn't know that the bathroom door was not shut all the way.
Naomi: Uhhuh.
Jenna: And it popped open a little bit. I turn around and Thunder was actually just sitting really calmly looking in there and I was like, "Okay, this is fine". But I went to go close the door anyways, and then one of the kittens, Serverus, darted across the bathroom and Thunder lost it. So, it seems like as long as they're going to not move, Thunder will be okay.
Naomi: Oh darn. Those kittens moving. No. Yeah. That's super duper common. I mean, that's when they're acting most like prey, which makes sense. It's gonna cause, you know, the chase instincts to pop in. So, there's a couple...this does not negate, by the way, the original suggestion because if he's never seen them move, then yes, that is gonna be exceedingly exciting.
Jenna: Yeah.
Naomi: Right? So, we would need to ideally have more management on Thunders part, right? So, if we're gonna have the door open and the gate up and we might talk about stacking gates just to keep everyone inside, inside the bathroom especially as they grow and learn to jump things. But, in terms of moving through that space, we might have Thunder on leash, for example.
Jenna: Okay.
Naomi: We might be having treats with us to be actively managing or reinforcing any behaviors that we like from him. So, that would be where like, I wouldn't give full access where he can just go up there and just stare at kitten TV and go get totally over aroused and Loony Tunes. But the door opening and closing needs to become less of an event. In order for the kittens appearing to be less of an event.
Jenna: Okay. That makes...
Naomi: Does that make sense?
Jenna: Yeah. I never really thought about when it happened, I didn't think that oh, this is the first time Thunder seeing a kitten run in his house. I was just like, ah, make it stop.
Naomi: Right? Scary. Geez. Ah Big dog. Tiny kitten. Running, barking, lunging. Yeah. So, given that you, that was an unanticipated interaction, what we could do now is kind of think okay, can we be strategic about how we do provide them visual access to each other, using meals appropriately to be able to reinforce calm behaviors.
And then we can actually teach the kittens to move around the space on cue, but in a non runny type of way at first. So, like he can see them move, but not like so excitedly. And then work up to kittens being kittens and wrestling and all of the kitteny things that they do. So, that's kind of the first mini goal is figure out how to have that door be open safely and more often with Thunder, a little bit more managed on his side so that you're preventing him being able to get up to that. And losing his mind. So, that's number one. And then the second goal within that is having setups prepared so that you know, you're actively trying to reinforce the right behaviors instead of just kind of being like, let's see what happens and then having to kind of take some steps back. And on a totally separate note, something you can do starting from now. Having the kittens come downstairs when Thunder is out.
Jenna: Okay.
Naomi: Because if they've only ever seen the bathroom, then that's gonna be a problem socialization wise, as they continue to get older. And we want them to know how to navigate the rest of the space so that eventually when they can occupy it, it's not like again, they've never seen it before. They don't know what to do. Because then they're gonna come out of the bathroom acting like Loony Tunes, and then he's gonna say, This is my worst fear that has come to fruition. Right? These tiny fur balls are just running all over the place, and he's not gonna know what to do with himself. So, let's give them the practice so that coming outside of the bathroom is again, not a big deal. It's a thing that happens, right? And they can explore and then you can watch them to be able to see okay, where in the house do they tend to hang out?
Are there spots where we need to put some kitten shelves? Are there locations where they like get stuck or they tend to zoom or things like that so that you can prepare ahead of time for okay, these are gonna be potentially some sticky spots that we need to work through when we bring them all together down there eventually. How does that land?
Jenna: That sounds good. We actually like, because we have that door to the stairs we will sometimes shut Thunder down and let them roam upstairs. We just recently started doing that though, so they're still nervous about exploring, but they're doing it.
Naomi: Okay. So, if they're nervous about it, then all the more that we need to slowly acclimate them to larger. Like this needs to be a priority even more than the door right now , because we're running out of time in terms of their kitteness. Right. They're nigh on adolescence, and so we wanna get them to feel comfortable in the space as much as possible. So, I would focus on having a few different opportunities for them per day, let's say this next week. Have them do explorations of the top floor and really start trying to play with them outside of the bathroom, seeing how, you know, if they're kind of skulking around nervously, just letting them realize that the house is not gonna eat them. You don't have to like, try to push them into anything, but giving them enough time to truly explore, even if it seems very slow.
And then hopefully within a week when you open the door to the bathroom, they'll trust that environment enough to say, "Okay, it's, we're out of the bathroom. Yay, let's go explore". Then you know that they're ready to do the downstairs. That's probably gonna take longer because number one, stairs, they've never done stairs.
Jenna: Right.
Naomi: Right. So, these are skills that like you could practice with them actively train, but hopefully being curious kittens that naturally kind of override some of the nervousness that they might have, but we shall see. So, it might be a two person operation where one person has Thunder totally out of the house for a while, which may or may not be hard because he is also a nervous guy,
So, we can talk a little bit about that kind of offline. But the goal being that the kittens have enough time to have exploration without the big scary monster being there first, and then we can bring the big scary monster in strategically.
Jenna: Okay.
Naomi: The other option would be like having Thunder in your bedroom, for example, with a door closed with a human, and then the kittens have the rest of the house. And that might be a good option in terms of like him being comfortable and them having enough time to do the exploration that they need to do.
Jenna: Okay.
Naomi: Okay. So, this is exciting because Yay. Kittens. Kittens are fun. They're also really annoying sometimes.
Jenna: Yes.
Naomi: So, once we do get them together and hopefully developmentally appropriate behaviors come out in terms of the kittens towards this big, fluffy thing, then we will have to moderate that. But let's take the first steps. Okay. Do you have any, What questions do you have for me at this point?
Jenna: I am not totally sure.
Naomi: They always come out later, so good thing we'll be in contact. , there's no reason to come up with something on the spot.
Jenna: I'm just trying to soak it all in. Yeah.
Naomi: Yeah, it's a lot. I mean, we do wanna have this kind of two-pronged approach. So again, more urgent is the kitten socialization inside of the general territory, and you can start that without any pre-planning or not much pre-planning. No need to adjust any barriers or anything like that. So, while you're doing that, then we can come up with a more strategic plan for making sure that barrier in the bathroom is really strong and coming up with some good setups there for setting Thunder up for success when he's starting to see kittens. But yeah, the first one is the most urgent. So, let's tackle that first.
Jenna: I do have a question now.
Naomi: Yes. Great.
Jenna: Once the kittens are at the point where they're trying to come out of the bathroom when once I noticed them doing that, should I start putting Thunder on leash or shutting him out somewhere? If we need to open the door to the bathroom, like Thunder shouldn't be out if the kittens might come out. Right?
Naomi: Right. Not until we have done some setups where we can learn a little bit more about his behavior, how their behavior might trigger him. We need more information before we can trust that. Gonna behave appropriately.
Jenna: Right. I just don't want them to squeeze through the gate .
Naomi: Yeah. So, if they're thinking of squeezing through the gate, then that's a management discussion that we, you know, I have a million different ways of kitten proofing baby gates and things like that, that we can discuss. But right now they're not trying to get out.
Jenna: Right.
Naomi: Because they're a little bit freaked out.
Jenna: Right.
Naomi: So, let's we want them to get to the point where they're like, "This bathroom sucks".
Jenna: Right.
Naomi: Like we want them to graduate to that, even though it makes it harder for us, that shows that they're in a goodspace behaviorally and confidence wise. To be able to handle having some normal behaviors around Thunder. Cause we don't want them to be so terrified that they immediately run and then make everything worse.
Jenna: Right.
Naomi: Right.
Jenna: Okay.
Naomi: Okay. So, what I like to end with is what is the thing you're going to do today. That you're gonna, is the first step towards some of the stuff that we talked about.
Jenna: I am definitely going to be putting Thunder downstairs with a human and letting the kittens do their thing upstairs for however long they want to do it.
Naomi: Great. And I would definitely watch them even take some footage so that we can discuss it together. So, we're looking at body language. Like I wanna see them confidently exploring and right now if they're having stressed kitten body language, then we'll be able to see progress over time if you do take some footage of that. So, that's gonna be really helpful as well.
Jenna: Okay.
Naomi: Awesome. I hope this was helpful.
Jenna: Yeah.
Naomi: Excellent. Great. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Jenna: Thank you so much for having me.
Naomi: No problem.
Thanks so much for listening. If you brought kittens into your home with an adult dog, I'd love to hear about your experience. Send me a DM on Instagram @praiseworthypets. I love connecting with listeners of the show. A link to my Instagram bio is in the show notes. And if you want to be awesome like Jenna and do a Dog and Cat Chat with me on the podcast, go to praiseworthypets.com/chat to get on my schedule. I can't wait to talk with you.
And that's all for this episode, you wonderful cat and dog people. See you next week for more It's Training Cats and Dogs.
Want to do your own Dog and Cat Chat??
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