eli
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Feb 7, 2007, 4:42 AM
Post #12 of 18
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Re: [Gus-Gus] 'spraying' in the house
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hi gus-gus, this is going to be a long post so hang on! Vet thinks Cadbury’s a Finnish spitz mix. Dunno if that means he is prone to any particular talent, or in this case, misdemeanour :) Thankfully, we only have one male dog but seems like we have the cat to contend with too now! I suppose we could try the diapers but can’t bring myself to it as yet... perhaps one day.... To answer your question on the cats: the dogs came first. Patches and Cadbury found our first 2 kittens - the first, Tommy, was just days-old and abandoned by his mom in the backyard next door. (This was almost 5 years ago.) A few weeks later, they found (faeces-covered) Coco in the drain when we were out for our morning walk. Patches is very uptight about cats but knows the difference between our house cats and those outside. Can’t recall how we introduced them to Tommy but when I rescued Coco, I basically let her decide if she would stay or leave when i left for work that day. She stayed and is very at home with the dogs. Even goes for walks with us... The others somehow learnt to just sidestep the dogs. You are right abt the dogs. It’s the cats that react more. We brought Mickey back from the food court and can’t recall him having any problems fitting in, perhaps cos he was still young. Tommy died 2 years ago and we adopted Asher-Dasher from a vet’s clinic and he is ever so cool with the dogs. But Garfield, taken from my housemate’s office area, took quite a while to fit in but is now able to walk up to Cadbury and brush against him! Garfield has 2 siblings that joined us last April. Blackie was hostile to everyone but my housemate but has since become such a sweetheart I will not be able to let him go despite earlier intentions to get him adopted. Speckles, however, is a different story. She was quarantined for a few months - first cos it was new place, then we found she was pregnant and later, cos she was nursing. She’d hiss and spit at the dogs when they came too near the closed door. Till today (kittens are almost 7 months old), she’s not entirely relaxed with the dogs or us and the other cats (save for her brother Blackie). But she does tend to stay home a lot. The cat I suspect of spraying (yes, I’ve seen her!), Specklet is a happy-go-lucky cat that will just sprint away if the dogs come too close. Yup, the dogs and cats live peaceably together altho I must say each time we rescued a kitten/puppy, etc. we kept close watch but i’m happy to report that the dogs have been gentle on the felines. Actually, Cadbury pretty much leaves them alone (he's more into other dogs!) The girls will playfully nibble at the cats’ legs and more recently, the only kitten left - Persimmon - plays quite nicely with Patches and Pebbles. Real fun to watch. And oh, when Pebbles joined the household abt 4 years ago, Tommy and Coco bullied her by eating up her food while she cringed at one side of the cage. Today, Pebbles delights in chasing Coco around! And should the cats get noisy or rowdy, the dogs shut them up by chasing them away! :)
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