ANNE SWANSON

Hi Everyone, I have a 12 week old (new to the household ) puppy, and two sixteen year old inside cats, and two 1 year old yard feral cats that adopted us. I'm trying for everyone to get along. One of my inside cats has been curious about the puppy and while the cat swiped at the puppy a couple times (without injury), they can be in the same room (supervised). Sometimes the puppy runs up to the cat excited wanting to play and when this happens and I see my cat is stressed I simply put the puppy behind a child gate in the next room. The puppy still cannot be alone! My other 16 year old cat doesn't want to make the effort, so I'm letting him take it at his own pace. In the case of the ferals outside, I (sadly) thought they would clear out as soon as the puppy showed up. They didn't. IN fact anytime I take the puppy out they get really close to her. I was keeping the puppy on leash for fear these cats would hurt her. I also didn't want the puppy chasing them and learning how to jump the fence and get out of the yard. Really I didn't want these cats chased. I like them. Sometimes the puppy doesn't bother with the ferals and can walk right by them without issue. Sometimes she chases them right out of the yard. Since I don't want her to do that I don't know what the appropriate reaction is when she does it. I've been talking her inside and just showing her playtime is over when she does that but is that the right thing to do? Thanks!

We tried the crate in the bedroom and it was a disaster. She was so scared and her crying got significantly worse.

Also when talking about CBD for dogs or cats can someone specify a brand/strength or how to use it? We have the attached for our cats but I don't think it's CBD and I don't really know what it's doing?

Hi Everyone, So again to clarify the pictures posted were of River's mom and dad. Not River. River is def 12 weeks old. We have had the puppy a month and she doesn't hate the crate. She gets all her meals in there and even goes in there when you ask her to ' go to her room ' . But she does hate being locked in there when no one is in the room next to it, and even sometimes when there IS someone there. We have had the diffuser and a heartbeat puppy for weeks now and do throw a stinky human shirt in there with her. We have also played the dog music from you tube. When I say we have tried it all, we really have. But still look forward to suggestions. She isn't doing too bad with one of our old cats. Sometimes she just gets a bit overexcited and wants to play with him. When that happens we just separate them and put the dog behind a baby gate somewhere and give her no attention. If there is something else I should be doing please let me know. To further explain, we have two crates. One is much smaller that we have used in the past to catch the outdoor feral cats. The other is for a grown dog. Last night we waited for her to fall asleep and then put her in the crate and closed the door. My wife slept on the couch a foot or two away. We did make it through the night. That's were they have both been sleeping for a month. Not sure the next steps. We don't have very much room at all in our bedroom for a playpen etc. Might be able to squeeze the small crate in but as she gets bigger it won't work.

Hi Everyone, Before I move on to read all of these I wanted to point out that in the message that I posted the pictures of the dogs, I said I was posting the pictures of the mom and dad because I was asked their breed. This is NOT the puppy!!!

Hi, We have a 12 week old puppy who we just got from a neighbor who lives about 175 feet away, a few houses down from us. When my puppy is in the yard she sometimes stops if she hears dogs barking and smells around and gets very distressed. She starts to cry and runs to the fence to see if she can see out. I swear it's because she can hear her mom and 3 siblings a short distance away. Is there anything to be done about this? It seems sad. Also, because she's so young and can't be left alone in the house yet we have taken her to her back to her mom and siblings for a few hours or a day if we have to work. It's only happened twice in a month but is likely to happen again soon. The siblings really gang up on her barking, jumping her, and nipping on her quite hard. At first we weren't going to leave her in the situation. She is the runt of the litter and they are twice her size. She would run and hide under things and seemed very scared. But then she started fighting back and it seems that within some time she was doing a bit better. But it was very scary at first. We initially thought it would be nice for her to be able to see her mom and play with her brother and sister. But now I'm wondering if we are causing her too much stress and it's something we should try to curtail, even if we don't have too many babysitting choices. Thanks,

My problem is that she won't sleep unless we are in the room. And we sleep with two very old cats that she can't be around full time yet. She can't be left alone.

Hi, and thanks for responding. I'm super happy to answer questions to try to get to the bottom of this. Before we took her home she slept in a garage that had A/C (this is florida) and had a doggie door where her mom and any of the 8 puppies could go in and out of at their discretion into a yard. Her Dad is a husky and her mom is, well I'm not sure. I will attach a photo and I'm happy to hear people's ideas on what she might be. She is not spayed yet because she just turned 12 weeks. Our routine is so-so. Mostly because of her. She does settle at night when my wife sleeps on the couch, and doesn't even sleep on the couch with her. She mostly sleeps through the night unless my wife gets up. We tried the crate in the room when we first got her, but she wouldn't settle down. We had to have it closed because of our old timer cats that sleep with us. Thanks!

Hi all, This was addressed slightly in my other post but I'd like to be more specific on this topic. I've read a bunch of stuff about crate training, but it does seem to take time and has to be done slightly. I have personally never seen anyone address where a puppy sleeps when you bring it home. I understand some things speak to putting the puppy in a crate by the bed, but crate training also suggests not putting a puppy in a crate until they have been trained to be in there. Our puppy doesn't like to be alone and will only sleep through the night if it's sleeping in the room with someone (not in a crate, etc). We have two old cats that sleep with us and can't let the puppy sleep uncrated in our bedroom. When we tried putting her in the crate by the bed she lost it and did not quiet down...(ever). thanks..

Hi, We have a 12-week-old puppy that came from her mom and a litter of 8. We didn't know quite what to do with her at night as we wanted her to sleep alone in the living room or a gated off section of our kitchen at the beginning because we have two very old cats who sleep with us that we are trying to get her acquainted with. So we tried that and she cries and cries, not for 15 minutes but for hours and hours. She goes nuts and eventually breaks down the gate that is holding her back. (We also tried the crate). We have tried giving her potty breaks to see if that's the case but she just keeps crying. We've had her for 4 weeks and my wife just sleeps outside with her in the living room. She gets super whiney if she's even left in a room alone or on the other side of a gate. We've left her in her crate with a kong and treats and left the house and watched her on the camera. Her anxiety just seems to get worse as time goes by. She starts to throw herself at the crate door, etc. What worried me the most about this is that she started not wanting to go in the crate anymore, where before I would tell her to 'go to her room' and she would run in by herself. We tried little bits at a time to start and increasing time and that didn't work. I don't know what the right protocol is because she is so young. I just want to do the right thing. We are desperate for help. Please don't think us naive. We really have tried letting her cry it out.