So I was petting the cat (Shadow) last night and she cried out and tried to bite me when I reached her tail. I looked and I didnt see anything wrong. I went and changed her water and food this morning and she is oozing blood and puss from by her tail. I looked as well as I could, she was in pain, and I can see one visible puncture wound and possibly another. I tried to clean the area as much as I can. I called the vet and they said it sounds like a bite wound and it it good that it is oozing, to clean itself out. I am taking her in as soon as work is over.
She is in her own area ofthe house when I am not home, but a few days ago Lucy got the door open and was in there. I didnt see anything wrong with her that day. The dogs were not by her yesterday or last night, so I am stumped.
I have tried to hold Shadow and teach Lucy that the cat is not a toy, but she always punces at her and that freaks Shadow out, she hisses and runs away.
HELP, I dont know what I can do to teach Lucy that the cat is not a toy or food. Shadow is so afraid of her now that she just doesnt want to come out.
Any advice for me?

keep them separated at all times? i'm no expert, but i read all about huskies seeing cats as easy-to-get prey.... my 2 only leave my cats alone because they dont run away, they hold their ground and put the dogs in their place.

This is unfortunately a danger when owning huskies that did not grow up with cats from puppyhood and some huskies, even if they did, never get it. Cats are prey to many dogs and sometimes instinct is too strong to train it out of them.

I would simply never allow them to be alone unattended. Reinforce the door so that another incident doesn't happen.

The only other advice I can give you is to train the "Leave it" command and use it when you are there and Lucy is interested in the cats. Hopefully over time it might sink in, but the short answer is never allow them to be alone unsupervised.

Tika is GREAT with our cats. I trust her uncrated all day with 3 of them roaming the house, and one who couldn't get away if she needed to save her life.

On walks if we pass another cat she looks at it but doesn't have the prey drive she does as if she sees a squirrel. 99% of the time she just walks by them.

She even plays with my largest cat Loki. They chase each other up and down the hall all the time and Tika will just push him with her nose and then run off. It's really quite funny to see.


It was a lot of training but I'll try and explain what worked for us.


Don't force the issue:
I think this is probably the best advice I can give... If they aren't comfortable around each other don't force them to be so they "get used to each other faster". All it does is create stress in both of them for nothing. Let them come together on their own terms, that might mean they will never cuddle with each other, but there should at some point be a level of equal respect. "I'll stay on this side of the room you stay over there ok? ok".
This might take a LONG time..... my black cat only recently starting coming back upstairs. I've had Tika for almost a year. I made time in my day to go see her and pet / play with her.

ZERO tolerance:
Anytime Tika got too rough, and chased the cats in a prey type of way that was it! NO! BAD! placed in time out right away. There was never a time we even let her get away with it a little bit. For them to live together in the same place you have to be sure they understand they are in the same pack.

Hierarchy:
I don't subscribe to the "I have to be ALPHA dog" theory... I believe in mutual respect. I respect Tika's energy, love, and playfulness. Tika respects my rules. When we both respect each other happiness and playtime for everyone.
That being said I do agree that dogs can think in a pack mentality and thus I always made it clear that the cats are higher up on the hierarchy then she is.
If one of my cats were trying to reprimand Tika for anything I would help enforce it. The only time I would take Tika's side is they were invading her space (The doggy bed was apparently up for contention when we brought it home). This seemed to also bring us closer together and she really enjoyed I would stick up for her too when Loki was the one being bad.

Escape:
I like having an area of the house Tika doesn't go to often or at all the cats can escape to when I'm not home or there to protect them. Our basement is that location. We didn't even need a gate, we just stopped Tika from going downstairs and she respected that rule. Once we started leaving her out of her crate we found out she would sneak downstairs to explore / eat their food. But by that time she was already gentle with them and the food we just moved up a bit.

I think that's all I can think of right now. Just be firm and consistent and do your best to be pro active and limit mistakes. The only injuries I've had in my house thus far due to cat vs dog have been scratches on Tika's nose. She gets those by getting to close to one of them and I let them correct her for it.

Hope it helps and good luck,
~Chris~


ETA - Like Tori said though, some of them just never get it sadly. Cats are prey for many who have grown up thinking as such.

To be honest, dog bites on cats rarely get infected. The most common wounds that cats get infections from are from other cat bites (cats have a lot of nasty bacteria in their mouths). The most common areas are the back legs and tail areas (running away from fight) or neck and check (standing ground). Does she have access to outside or other cats?

If it is an open wound I would make sure it is cleaned up very well and you can use a triple antibiotic ointment on the area. You may want to put a cone on the cat so it doesnt lick the wound, that will cause infection.
The vet can check to make sure nothing is broken. I hope all is well and it is nothing serious!

We adopted Finnick because the lady that bought him had two cats....and he literally ate one of them. She had him for less than 24hours and she was tossing him out because she let him roam her apartment free that first night and he thought the cats were food.

Thank you everyone for your input, i came home early from work to check her and get into the vet and she is oozing much less. i shaved the area the best I could and there is one hole. i cleaned it with peroxide and let her be. I decided to clean the blanket she sleeps on and inside of it was a big dead bee, so now Im wondering if she could have been stung and she kept licking it to get the stinger out. I will see what the vet says. and she has not been around any other cats or outside. So that was ruled out. My mind has been racing over this all day and Lucy and her have not been in contact for a few days, so I would have seen some visible blood or something if she was bit hard enough to make a hole. I will let you all know what the vet says. Thanks again.

Giving everyone an update. I took shadow to the vet and she was definately bitten by Lucy. She had 4 puncture holes that go almost all the way theough to each other. The tissue was already dying and the vet said it will fall off. Gross!! If she would have bitten even a half inch over would have gotten her spine. I just cant believe there was not mark, or blood for me to have noticed this sooner. I didnt even see anything last night when I tried to look. She is on antibiotics and the vet said to just keep an eye on it and keep her away from Lucy. Its just nice that my vet understands huskies. she gets that they have prey drive. Hope Shadow heals fast and thank you all again for the information.

Poor Shadow. I hope she heals quickly!

aww I hope shadow has a speedy recovery!

O goodness! Poor baby! Glad she's gonna be okay!

Christine,

Everything that Chris said is a perfect representation of how we are in our house. We have two cats and two huskies. People always tell us that we are crazy - we are just diligent. Luckily, the cats scratched Delilah the first night we had her and that was that - with Cato he took a few beatings..but only because he's a big dumb puppy and thought he could play with them like Delilah. They obviously weren't having that. Now they share beds, snuggle and the dogs will even let the cats have some of the kibble.

It's not impossible, but you will have to be very diligent and perhaps purchase a pet gate with a cat door. It has helped immensely because no matter what, the kitties have a close escape.

I hope she has a fast recovery.

I always say I have fake huskies, because they don't do most of the things I read about here.

However, EVERYONE in our house bows down to our cat. Literally, both huskies will groom him while he lays there like a king.

I'm sorry Lucy got Shadow, but I agree with the others, it's probably easiest, and best, to make sure they are never together, unsupervised.