Hi I am getting my first husky on friday! She is an 8 month old collie husky mix. I have 2 cats right now, and one is 9 and one is 2. Can you tell me how to introduce them? Thank you

Make sure the cats have a place they can get to that the dog can't. Gate a part of the house that they can get to or set it up so they can get up high. They need to able to escape if the dog tries to chase them. Keep the dog on a leash and observe her reactions to seeing the cats on the other side of a glass door or gate and correct any intense staring or lunging. She's young and hopefully the collie in her will help her to pick up on what you want her to do to override the prey drive the husky is going to bring to the mix. It takes time, sometimes a lot of time, and you will need to watch like a hawk and not trust them alone. I have two huskies and a cat and in the three years I've had the cat the one husky has never come around (granted she was much older when I got the cat) so the cat lives happily in a spare room away from the dogs completely. Try to keep excitement down. Don't allow any barking at the cats. Cats that will defend themselves and give the dog a good whack tend to have a better shot at teaching the dog also.

I find it somewhat odd that we have dogs who have a strong known prey drive and it seems as if a lot of us also have cats.

I have one Alaskan Husky, two Siberians and two cats of unknown variety. I brought the kittens - and they were just kittens - home to dogs who were 5+ years old; kept the cats beyond a gate where they and the dogs could see and sniff each other and as the kittens became cats they gradually migrated beyond the gate (the gate was to keep the dogs out, not to keep the kittens in.)

My black cat will sometimes raise a paw when he's getting picked on - but I've never heard any of the dogs yelp from getting "tagged." Both cats will occasionally jump over a dog who's laying on the floor, sometimes even use the dog as a trampoline to get past - and other than the occasional 'chase' they all get along fine. (( Well, excuse the two cats who, about once a week, decide to have a real cat fight )) I've always been amused that 'chase' often turns into the dog and cat reaching the water bowl and stopping - both of them - to get a drink or to stop at the glass doors to look outside, side by side.

I think the way I introduced them had a lot to do with the fact that they all accept each other as members of the same pack.

Others here have not had the success with their cat / dog packs that I have - in fact there have been a couple of mauled / killed cats. They tried, it didn't mesh ...

To me, the best way is, as I did, to give the cats a safe area where only they can reach. Whether that's beyond a gate or a shelf that the dogs can't reach or ... with luck (and maybe a lot of luck) you'll have a homogeneous pack - you may also have a literal disaster.

Thank you! I don't have a glass door or a gate so I will use a short leash. I have lots of towers of boxes in my house (we don't have a basement so we put them in the living room) that the cats could climb. They're mostly outside cats so they probably won't see the dog very much:?

We also have a husky and 2 cats. The cats were older (6 and when we got Gabby at 8wks so she was raised with them in the house. We have always given the cats a safe place to go (cat trees and gates) but we never purposely separated and kept them away from each other all the time. Our older cat does not take s**t from the Gabby and gabby knows that if she tries to chase that cat, she will take a paw/claw to the face. Gabby leaves that cat alone. The other cat just runs from Gabby and I think Gabby thinks it a game so that doesnt really work well. That cat just jumps on something high to get away and that works.

I will keep that in mind, thank you

I might actually get a labrador though, but it's not for sure.