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My dog killed my cat


lancegranite

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I've heard some dogs (i.e. huskies) can be completely fine with cats for years, when all the while they have been secretely waiting for an opportunity to attack. Basic instinct I guess.

 

That could be, but when I was a pup we had a kennel full of Siberian Huskies and always one or two of them were house dogs. We also always had at least one cat in the house. Never did a dog hurt the cat. The cat swiped a dog on the nose once in a while, but that was about it.

 

However, one of our dogs once got loose and killed a neighbor's sheep. This dog was a top dogshow winner and produced an offspring who later won the biggest dogshow in the country, and by law it could have been killed. We shipped it out of the state immediately, to avoid any question of it's being put down. I don't know if the dog was ever allowed around sheep after that (I hope not), but I don't think there were any further problems.

 

As I understood it at the time, once they get the "bloodlust" a dog is indeed a hazard toward other animals. That is why the laws provide for killing aggresive dogs as they do. But I'm not sure killing cats is a pre-programmed certainty, and I'm not sure that a single incident is for sure a predictor of future behavior. Not in my experience, anyway.

 

Siberian Husky's are cool dogs. You gotta be able to let 'em run every day (though if they get loose they may run 30 miles and get lost), and they really like sledding, but they are cool dogs and I don't think they are cat killers. They'll eat your shoes and wreck your house if you leave them shut inside, though.

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I've been afraid of my dog killing my cat ever since my girlfriend brought the cat home. My dog lived on his wits for the first year of his life, killing chickens etc. In the time I've had him he's killed a rabbit and a couple squirrels. Not as bad as my friends dog who killed a cat in front of a bunch of kids, a marmot while hiking, and a rooster at a friends farm.

 

Anyway, sorry Lance to hear about this. Cute dog - looks much like mine.

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As I understood it at the time, once they get the "bloodlust" a dog is indeed a hazard toward other animals. That is why the laws provide for killing aggresive dogs as they do. But I'm not sure killing cats is a pre-programmed certainty, and I'm not sure that a single incident is for sure a predictor of future behavior.

I agree with this. Unfortunately, if the dog does kill again, you are in deep doo doo b/c you "knew" the dog had a "history" of killing. Unfortunately, I have been in this situation with two dogs at different times. It is sad and a little bit scary. They were pits though, and not huskies.

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My personal theory is that if you are acquiring new pets it's much better to introduce a puppy to mature cats, rather than a kitten to a mature dog, especially if the dog mid-sized or larger. Seems like once a curious or playful puppy gets a swipe across the nose, it will be cowed for life and not be tempted to get rough with the cats again.

 

At some point down the road when and if we buy a house, I'd like to get a dog to compliment the two step-cats that I acquired by marriage, and have sold my wife on the idea based on the "young-puppy + old-cat dynamic." Is this pretty consistent with other peoples experiences? I plan on getting a Saint Bernard, and socializing, training, and neutering the hell out of it, so the probability of any aggression problems should be quite low.

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I've already got the name "Reinhold," picked out, and plan on reading plenty of Austrian econ texts in a cozy armchair with the dog curled up at my feet. If read aloud, this should only reinforce his natural tendency to avoid approaching competitive situations with a zero-sum mentality, and to engage in mutually beneficial transactions with the cats.

 

The odds are quite good that the dog will answer nature's call on old copies of The Wall Street Journal though, unless someone wants to donate a stack of Mother Jones magazines from their hermetically sealed, temperature and humidity controlled archive for that explicit purpose.

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If you have mostly carpeting in the house house, try this trick to teach you dog not to chase kitty...

 

Buy booties for kitty and put a sole made out of di-electric material (rubber or plastic). Works like this: Dog chases cat over carpet. Electric charge builds up on kitty. When dog catches kitty he gets the electro-static discharge of his life straight up his nose. Cured!

 

This is similar to when you were a kid and dragged your shoes over the carpet, then touched your friend (or enemy) on the back of the neck. My elementary school library had a carpet that worked beautifully for this.

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When I was a kid our dog killed one of our cats. It was a bummer but we never considered getting rid of the dog. Unless your dog has a bad history (i.e. - jumping the neighbors fence to strangle the cat on the back porch) consider it more of an accident and just make sure you watch your dog around cats from now on.

 

My dog is pretty good with cats - but that's because when he was all of 6 week old I introduced him to the neighbors huge tom cat. My pup waltzed right up to the cat wiggling in joy and then cat took him down with one powerful swat to the nose. Ever since then he has had a mortal fear of cats.

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  • 3 months later...

I am sure you have seen the carpet covered kitty jungle gyms? Ok, so my roomie got a kitten, landlord said get rid of it, so the neighbor takes it and gets it one of the gyms. She was gone about a week later and came home to see the cat hanging from its neck from the dangley poofball toy. It hung itself out of angst at being taken away from us. I hate cats anyway. Just thought it was an entertaining and somewhat related story.

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