(Part rant but mainly looking for advice.) OK, here’s the problem. My idiot next door neighbor had a cat who had kittens. The dumb ^&*% gave away the mother and kept the kittens.
We got suckered/guilted/wanted two of the four kittens. So, now we have two kittens that are getting warm butt wipes and bottle fed.
The biggest problem is Cola, our muttley; sweet, dumb, and friendly (but shy.) Cola looks in the kittens current home/a laundry basket then growls and licks his lips like they’re Kitty McNuggets.
We would like to keep the two kitties but Cola is the Number one pet.
Any suggestions to acclimatize our poor confused dog with the invader cats?
Thanks in advance - DESK
IANAV, and this advice is worth what you paid for it. That said, it’s *way *too soon to worry about socializing them with your dog. They don’t even have immune systems yet, so keep any other animals as far away from them as you can. They shouldn’t even have been weaned from mom until 8-10 weeks old, so it’s going to be a while before they’re independent.
I found this page on kitten stages to be quite handy, which doesn’t recommend beginning kitten-to-human socialization until 5 weeks. I would recommend keeping them separate from your dog until 12 weeks, at which point they should be fully immunized and best able to interact meaningfully with you and other animals. I hope you’ve budgeted for their shots!
Every other resource I’ve seen recommends handling kittens from the day of birth, if the mom allows it. At least 15 minutes a day to start with, and then more time as the kitten gets older. Kittens need to be socialized with humans at a young age, or else they’ll never be good pets.
What on earth is your dumb-ass neighbor doing, parting the mother from her kittens?
I don’t have any advice for what to do about the dog, but we found two kittens in our garage one spring with mom nowhere in sight. We did keep them in our bathtub with the bathroom door closed to keep them separated from our other cats until we could get the foundlings tested for feline leukemia. Can you keep the kittens away from the dog for at least a few weeks? If you are bottle feeding and bottom wiping then it sounds like you’ve got that part under control. Lots of websites out there on hand raising kittens. I think this is the one that I referred to feralcat.com. (It’s been a few years.)
I have no experience in introducing kittens to dogs. Here’s the humane society’s site on the topic.http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/cats/tips/introducing_new_cat.html. Hopefully someone with experience in this area will happen by and post something.
Good luck.
I would just focus on the kiddehs for now. Feed them, teach them to use the litter box and handle them. When the time comes, your doggie is just going to have to get used to said kiddehs. They will come to an understanding, trust me; I have 5 kiddehs and three dogs. It can be done!
I think you answered your own question when you said dumb-ass. Not happy, but everybody except the muttley and I are ok with the arraignment.
The important thing is that the kittens are taken care of. The cat/dog love (or at least cease-fire)might happen eventually. If it doesn’t, then we can keep them separated.
The kittehs are doing fine. They’re eating/playing with/walking through solid food and figured out the bottles.
thanks for the help - DESK
We have, ahem, some rules …