I was on a different forum and someone told me my new little puppy will kill my cats. If not now, someday. It has weighed heavily on my thoughts. Anyone with cats who has introduced husky puppy? After almost 2 weeks he will still walk after cats sometimes when they walk or run by. Seems more like he is curious. I also play and pet the cats in front of him with no reaction anymore. Barking at cats stopped after 2 days. After 10 days, he no longer jumps up on counters where they eat. Just maybe 10-15% of time he follows tor chases them and he needs to be redirected which we can with food or toys. When he gets to them, he sits and smells them.

He is only 4 months but he has almost no reaction to things outside beyond bugs. He is obsessed kind of with bugs. However bunnies can run in front of him with no reaction on his walks. He seems less prey drive then my lab who lived with my cats but has also killed small animals outdoors when he was younger. Does fixation happen as he gets older? He also ignores smaller dogs. The only time he raised his hair was when a unleashed dog approached him and was being inappropriate with him. Though nothing bad happened.

Anyways to me things seem good and I do not know if I would ever leave him alone for hours with the cats. He is crate trained and even sleeps in bedside crate.

Anyone else with husky and cats? What is good behavior and what is something that may make me want yo reconsider him? If I am concerned, would anyone recommend that I just have a behavioralist come to my house to evaluate him?

If he grows up with them he should be fine with them. It sounds like he's getting used to them. Its up to you to decide what's too much for your cats. And the cats themselves will tell him when enough is enough. Now just because he knows and accepts your cats as part of his pack, doesn't mean that he wont chase other cats that he doesn't know.

That makes me feel better. Will just continue him on his manners in general and with the cats. He starts puppy school next week so hope that helps us move his training along better.

You just have to make sure to set up boundaries with him as soon as possible. Lycus happily lives with four cats and he even sleeps with one of them

We found a kitten 1 week before we were supposed to pick up Dragon and fell in love with him. I was so afraid of what Dragon would do and they took a few weeks to warm up to each other (the kitten was much more apprehensive about the pup than vice versa) but they love each other now. They play together and we have caught them snuggling multiple times! Just introduce the puppy as part of your "pack" with all the cats and if he is raised with the cats he wont know any difference.

Everyone else has offered some great advice, I just wanted to add some reassurance as we have 2 cats living in relative harmony with 2 huskies. Actually, Lulu is more of an asshole to the cats than either husky. Ghost doesn't chase them anymore except sometimes when they run, and Shadow mostly ignores them now that she's settled in. We just set boundaries early on and let them know very definitively what was appropriate and what wasn't. Just keep an eye and lay down the rules, and I'm sure you guys will be just fine  

I'd also make sure the cat has a safe place your dog can't reach. We did that for our cat. At the old house, we fed her on top of the dryer, and at the new, we set up a little "fort" in the basement where we put her food and litter box. Both got along fine for the most part, and the cat let our husky (Chelsea, our last one) know when enough was enough.

That same cat was best buds with the husky before that, since we got them as puppy and kitten around the same time. Good luck!

Right now the cats get whole upstairs except when he sleeps in his bedroom crate. In shared rooms there are towers and shelves. Once he is ok upstairs, planning on adding more cat doors to basement and porch. I think it will be ok. My current cats do not play with dogs. Too bad he missed my other cat who passed in dec. That was a dog loving cat who acted just like dogs. Sitting for treats, playing fetch and rubbing all over dogs.

Loki has been calmly watching me play with the cats.  Even trying to join in at times to get da bird.  Is this a good exercise?  Do most puppies love cat toys?

just to clarify he plays with toys while cats do. Only focusing on toy not cat. He is being taught he can not play with cats.

With a puppy it is no problem when you set boundaries like the others already said. They might not become friends but as long as they accept each other everything should be fine.

Dizzy is afraid of our cats. He got a little too close this am while chewing on a new bully stick and our big male cat growled at him. Dizzy dropped the bully stick and walked away. It was pretty funny. I had to get it for him since it was on the floor below where the cat was laying on the bed. I have two cats, and he was very curious about them and wanted to play and chase at first. After I let each cat swipe him on the nose once, he wants nothing to do with them. He is still curious about the nicer one, but just eyes her from afar. He rarely attempts to approach her any more and has sniffed her once, but backs off when she hisses at him. Its doable with puppies, and he has an extremely high prey drive. He tries to get every squirrel, bird, and rat with wings (pigeon) he sees. As everyone says, set boundaries and discipline any predatory behavior you see. Playing together is probably a good thing, as long as Loki isn't going after the cat in any way.

Edit - I'm not sure about other puppies, but Dizzy goes wild over cat toys. He loves the bird thing and the laser pen. Neither cat is really into the laser, but Dizzy sure is.

Haha Kaia's afraid of cats too! She got caught by friends cat and got scratched under the eye, she met my cousins cat who hissed at her and she jumped on the couch, and then recently she met a cat down at the pound who was in an enclosure and she ran away from him too lol! I think if the cat was scared and ran she may try to chase but if they put up a fight she stands down. I'm not sure about others huskies but I mean if they have a really high prey drive maybe they wouldn't back down.

He seems curious by the cats, moreso the one who is nice to him. The other he leaves alone completely even when she walks quickly through the house. Both by cats will put up a fight and the nice one popped him in the nose a few times the other day.

I also watch him pretty closely right now too, just to make sure I stop him before he gets himself into trouble or gets too excited. I can see when the wheels start turning, and I give him a little warning. You know, the mean mom, "Dizzzzy?" Then he looks at me like, "How did you know?" Lol... I love that he's not as smart as my last one. She could really catch me off guard and be into something before I knew she had left the room. I can pretty much see Dizzy's thoughts.

Yeah, I watch him closely when cats come down as they have upstairs gated up. And I can see those wheels turning. If I snap, he is done. Sometimes when they run by, he doesn't chase, but then he tries to get up and follow them when they are out of sight. So I correct him. When he goes upstairs, I still put him on leash just cause I feel I owe the cats that much. Loki and the cats can sleep and eat in same room with no issues, just a few more little things to correct him on and then monitor going forward.

Loki loves the laser pointer, but read online it can make dogs crazy, so I stopped. Thinking of making him a flirt pole though as he will probably love it and he isn't into fetch. I know on my tired days where I can only do one walk/run, having fetch as a back up was nice for my shepherd mix to drain her some. Not sure if he will ever be that much into fetch. She can do it for hours. It is cute though as he follows her back and forth while she plays fetch for awhile now - holding the spare ball in his mouth like he is playing along.

What's a flirt pole?

It is a DIY toy that is basically a long pvc pipe with rope attached and then favorite dog toy attached at the end. Then, you can work with your dog outside (assuming you have fence). It helps though if they know things like sit, stay, and drop it. Then, you can spin in circles with it to get the dog going. They have videos on you tube, but since he only does fetch in the house and doesn't care about frisbees, thought I would try it as it is like a huge glorified cat toy for dogs. Once they get older you can make them jump for toys.

Ah gotcha! Sounds like fun!

Okami and the cat Chocobo get along pretty well. Okami chases him sometimes, but she has never shown any signs of aggressive behavior, she just wants to play with anything and everyone.




I think a thing that I got them to enjoy each others company was doing treat time together, pictured below.

That is so cute. I do their feeding together, but my 2 current cats aren't too much into treats. I'll need to find some high value treats and try it out. Neo will smell his nose though when I'm petting both of them.

techigirl78 wrote:

That is so cute.  I do their feeding together, but my 2 current cats aren't too much into treats.  I'll need to find some high value treats and try it out.  Neo will smell his nose though when I'm petting both of them.

Try olives if you have.... Every cat I've had loved Olives.... Not eating them per say, but smelling / rolling in them. It's akin to catnip.

~Chris~

Really? I had no idea! I have to try that with mine!

bwahaha I didn't know that either... will have to try, since the cat doesn't like anything but treats, and occasionally a piece of ham slice.

Ok. So now Loki will sniff my cats butts and lick their ears. My cats are walking up to him too. Funny they seem to like him more then my other dogs. I was working on getting him to ignore them, but that has become hard since they don't ignore him all the time. So kind of figuring out how to deal with it since my old crew basically ignored each other. Is butt sniffing and licking a good sign as long as he stops when I say easy? Sorry if this is a silly question, there just isn't much online on this question.