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Background

We recently purchased a 3 month old female Persian kitten which was born last August.
We already have a one year old male border collie.

Both animals grew with their counterparts in their initial families (the place were they were born). That is : the puppy liked to play with a short aired cat and the kitten liked to sleep with a Bichon.

The problem

My dog is twice as big as the Bichon my cat knew. When my dog sees the kitten, it run after it (but it doesn’t growl or bristles its hair). It also ends up crying if it can’t approach my kitten (either because it watches it through the window of the garden or because my kitten is in a cupboard).
The real problem is the kitten : it is completely terrified of the border collie. It arches its back and constantly tries to escape my dog when it is in the house.

This ends up in one of the following situation :

  • The kitten manages to climb a cupboard in order to escape. This makes the border collie cry so much that I need to put it in the garden.
  • The dog manages to corner the cat in the house and sit in front of it without touching it (in that case it doesn’t cry), but the kitten is so afraid that it doesn’t try to bit or scratch at the border collie. As result, the dog doesn’t learn it should leave the cat alone.

Both of them can last several hours (the dog doesn’t move an inch). In both cases, my female Persian kitten still has its heart pulsing very very fast after that time.

Result

1 month of confrontation with Feliway® and FeliFriend® seems to have made my cat's fear stronger (at the same time it has no problem with other humans even those it doesn’t know). I don’t try to force their relationship. I leave them alone when they are together.
This is problematic since I expect the cat to hunt the wild birds which eat the fruits of my garden every day next summer.

I have no ideas of what I should do at that point. At least, if my cat ends up having less fear, it could teach the dog to not play with it, so they could avoid each other.

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    See past questions about re-introducing pets so they can learn to get along with each other. Or just provide lots of high surfaces do the cat can get out of the dog's reach and give them time to work it out, though that will take longer and is not as reliable as spending the time to arrange controlled meeting. They may never be friends, but you should be able to engineer a truce, at least.
    – keshlam
    Dec 2, 2016 at 16:12
  • @keshlam yes, but as I described in my question, none of the previous answers worked. Also please notice my question is a lot of more specific.
    – user2284570
    Dec 2, 2016 at 16:14

1 Answer 1

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First, you need to make sure the cat has some place she can go to get away from the dog. That can be a cat tree, some other cat furniture, or even a small place in the garden that's fenced off. Solving this problem is going to be less about teaching your cat to be comfortable with the dog and more about teaching the dog how to behave around the cat.

You're right in that it's unlikely your dog is trying to hurt the cat. Border Collie's are herding dogs. It's likely that he is trying to herd your cat, which is why he is able to remain keeping the cat cornered for long periods of time without becoming bored. The way the alleviate this behavior is through obedience training. Basic commands, such as 'sit', 'stay', 'come', and 'leave it' will be of great help.

Further, ensuring that your dog has ample outlets for his energy will help reduce his drive to chase and herd your cat. It's not enough to merely have a yard for your dog to run around in, given the breed. You may want to consider taking up a canine sport, such as agility or rally. These can provide a job for your dog, which Border Collie's definitely need.

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  • First, you need to make sure the cat has some place she can go to get away from the dog. That can be a cat tree, some other cat furniture, or even a small place in the garden that's fenced off. But the dog cries in that case. It’s currently too cold outside for my kitten, so I need to keep it in the house. Concerning orders, the dog is uncontrollable in presence of a cat (it obeys to nothing whereas it has no problem if it’s an other dog).
    – user2284570
    Dec 2, 2016 at 20:43
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    Then the cat needs a place inside the house she can escape from the dog. The dog crying is annoying to you, but doesn't harm the dog. The way to stop him from crying is to teach him that crying doesn't get him what he wants (the cat, or your attention), so you must ignore him when he does this. Obedience training will help with the dog not listening as well.
    – LMGagne
    Dec 2, 2016 at 21:35
  • Yes, but there are various reasons I need to keep the house quiet (If I don’t put it in the garden someone else will do it even if I keep arguing it’s necessary). However, I recognize the kitten starts sleeping once it climbed on a table (in that case the border collie is ignored by the kitten).
    – user2284570
    Dec 2, 2016 at 22:11
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    If your goal is a quiet house then you should do everything you can to extinguish this behavior as soon as possible. Giving in to the dog to prevent crying in the immediacy only means he will learn to cry longer and louder next time he wants something.
    – LMGagne
    Dec 5, 2016 at 14:48
  • No, it only cries with the kitten, and within a minute. But the reason I put it in the house is for meeting the cat. He stay in the garden otherwise (except when I walk it of course).
    – user2284570
    Dec 5, 2016 at 17:32

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