The Truth about Cat's and Dogs

Yesterday I was on facebook and saw in my news feed a post from the German Shorthair Rescue listing a link to story done by the Examiner called, "Great dogs in rescue, thanks to ignorant prioir owners". Here is a link to the actual story: http://www.examiner.com/dogs-in-national/great-dogs-rescue-thanks-to-ignorant-prior-owners. The article is mainly about a GSP named Lody who was turned over to the Great Plains GSP rescue a month ago. To make a long story short Lody attacked her family's cat and they ended up giving her away because of it.

I have two cats that I love dearly. The first one is Bailey a milk chocolate point Siamese who is about 8 years old and the second one is Little Man a chestnut oriental who is 4 years old.

 

When Jim and I decided to get a GSP my biggest concern was how it would be with my cats. I would never put them in danger and was very concerned because GSP's have such a high prey drive. The first thing I did was discuss my concerns with the breeder. Bob Corsaro who is the owner of Nobelle's was very informative and honest with me. He told me that it was possible to have them coincide in peace but it would take training and ground rules. Jim and I then contacted a couple who live about 40 minutes from our house who have two GSP's that hunt and also have 2 cats. Jim and I went and visited them to see the interaction first hand between the two and also to get some advice on how to train our dog to not want to eat my cats.

We have never had an issue with our cats and Cleo. She was trained from the first day to "Leave it" when it came to the cats. If she ever overly sniffed the cats and pushed them around with her nose she was immediately corrected. She will let the cats lay on her and walk across her. The most amazing thing I ever witnessed with her is when her sister Molly came to stay with us this past summer while her owners where at a wedding out of town and she protected the cats from Molly. See Molly wasn't raised with cats and through no fault of her own thought they were fair game. Molly cornered Little Man on the counter and it was Cleo who pushed Molly out of the way and barked at her frantically as if she was saying, "Leave it". I was astounded. Cleo clearly protected the cats from danger.

I do want to say that Cleo is smart...almost too smart. She understands that when cats are in the house they can not be touched. She displays no aggression to our cats or to the cats that roam her daycare/vets office. But make no mistake...if a cat is outside its fair game and she knows it. She wouldn't hesitate twice to run it down and do bad things. Which brings me to my point....Lody the rescued GSP did nothing wrong. She is a product of years of prey driven breeding and was just doing what she does best which is hunt prey. That whole situation was caused by her owners ignorance. They clearly didn't research the breed or take the steps to train Lody correctly and sadly Lody paid the price.

So in case anyone is wondering cats and dogs can live together in peace....and that's the truth.  Cleo is the living proof.