New to the board - My new pitbull puppy and my 2 older cats.

We just brought our baby home last night and so far the cats are very angry. The puppy has growled at them a few times but seems to be learning not to do that each time she sees the cats. The cat's on the other hand are coming around less and less. We love them all. Any ideas or suggestions to get them to be friends? Has anyone else dealt with this before ? How did it turn out? Thanks for your time.

 

I'm not sure how to go about introducing older cats...We got our cat when Annie was about 3 months old and the cat was about the same age. Annie initially just wanted to make the kitten run so she could chase it. So, we always verbally corrected her, and would have them in the same room with at least one of them restrained..after a couple months of Annie chasing the cat and being corrected every time, verbally and being restrained by a leash, she finally figured out if she didn't touch it she could keep playing with it, and luckily the cat thought the games were pretty fun too...now they just lay around together and the cat torments Annie by pawing her face and tail usually while she's trying to eat. Or by taking off running, which gets Annie to chase her and diving into "her" room which Annie isn't allowed and comes to a screeching halt and whines until the cat comes back out. For this reason..they are never left unsupervised together...dogs will be dogs and every once in awhile Annie gets that glint in her eye and tries to take a flying leap on top of the cat...So that probably wasn't very helpful...but they can get along and I would never leave them unsupervised...other members on the board have introduced dogs to older cats...so i'm sure they will have more advice for you.

 

Thanks!
We considered getting a new kitten to try and help everyone get along but figured that this just might upset the cats even more and give us more to do since the puppy is a handful already.

They don't have to cuddle together like your kids in your sig but I don't want the cat's to feel left out and not come home anymore as they are also outside cats. The puppy will also be indoor/outdoors when she's old enough. I was hoping for them to share the same pet door but it looks like I might need to have more options for the kittys.

 

When I got Freedom as a puppy at 8 weeks old I already had a fairly old cat, she was around 9 or so when I got Freedom. She had been the only pet in the house her entire life, complete inside cat, and had no idea about other cats or dogs. When I brought Freedom home she would have NOTHING to do with him, Freedom was used to rough housing so he immediately wanted to treat my cat like another puppy pit bull. I tried to introduce them but she wouldn't have any of it and Freedom just wanted to jump on her, lol. As he got older he went from wanting to play with her to wanting to eat her, so we had to seperate them. Freedom stayed in the living room and kitchen, while she had the rest of the house. This worked out fine because she would never come past the baby gate and he would never knock it over. Whenever we would leave the house, we would lock her downstairs with her litter box, just in case something happend like the baby gate getting knocked over or something to prevent coming home to a blood bath. Sad to say, we had to put her down this past september due to a very vicious intestinal cancer, so now Freedom has the run of the house. As far as my experience introducing the two did NOT work. I would suggest trying your best, but definately don't push it, if they don't want anything to do with each other, then fine, just seperate.

 

My older cat is coming around but still not certian of the dog. The younger cat who I thought would do ok is just being an butt head about it. The dog isn't even chasing or growling at the cats, as far as she is concerned the cats are just more people. I'll keep you guys updated, thanks for the tips!