PLEASE HELP
I RESCUED a 1 year old cat about a month ago, she has made SUCH amazing progress. She comes out to eat infront of me and I’ve seen her play and such.
But she always resorts to going back into her safe spot which is under the bed. She was becoming more and more active so I decided to introduce her and my dog.
I brought the dog into the safe room and everything seemed ok. I decided to leave the door to her safe room open so she could venture out if she wanted. The first night she ventured into the hallway but now it’s like she has just become less active because the door is open.
Should I just leave the door open and let her venture when she feels like it? I think she might be afraid of my dog because he did chase her in the safe room once.. but she also came from a home with a bunch of animals and I was told she likes other animals (which I have seen) I have no idea what to do in this situation
RESCUED CAT ADVICE!!!
-
Mollycat
- VIP Cat Chatter!
- Posts: 2705
- Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2019 10:58 am
- No. of cats in household: 1
- Location: UK
Re: RESCUED CAT ADVICE!!!
You need to remove the dog from access to the cat's safe room, the cat may have come from a place with lots of animals but she doesn't know your dog. She does not yet feel safe enough to take your whole home as her home so it's too soon to give the dog unsupervised time with her yet.
From her point of view this is still a strange place and now there is a potentially dangerous dog but at the very least big, noisy, smelly and clumsy (she doesn't know the dog is friendly) so the best thing for her to keep safe is to keep away where the dog can't reach her. If that means under the bed, that's where she will stay. If you keep the dog out of her safe room, she has a whole safe room and she can come out from under the bed sometimes when she feels like it. When she is comfortable and confident in her safe room then you can start taking small steps to introduce them but not by letting the dog into the cat's safe room.
From her point of view this is still a strange place and now there is a potentially dangerous dog but at the very least big, noisy, smelly and clumsy (she doesn't know the dog is friendly) so the best thing for her to keep safe is to keep away where the dog can't reach her. If that means under the bed, that's where she will stay. If you keep the dog out of her safe room, she has a whole safe room and she can come out from under the bed sometimes when she feels like it. When she is comfortable and confident in her safe room then you can start taking small steps to introduce them but not by letting the dog into the cat's safe room.