I never really thought about it, till I went back to visit my mother with a friend and he pointed it out.
My dog is around 12 and my cat is 10.
Every since the day I brought the cat home, the dog barked at it, and after about half a day of barking at the cat, the dog said “OK enough of that,” and quit.
But ever since that day the cat and dog have always totally ignored each other. When I was home my mother made a fire and the cat sat on one side of the fireplace and the dog on the other side. I thought it’d be cute to get a picture of them together in front of the fire. But they refused. I moved the dog center and brought the cat and put her down next to the dog. They looked at each other and moved back immediately to their sides.
My dog barks at other cats he sees out the window or if another cat from the neighborhood is in his backyard, (The dog has a big fenced back yard to play in). So he obviously knows our cat from others.
But when my friend pointed out how the dog and cat ignored each other it got me to thinking how in all those years over 10 now, I have almost never seen them interact. If one is walking the other one moves aside to let him pass.
They don’t hate each other they just pretend the other doesn’t exist. I even can put them nose to nose and as soon as I release them they each turn around and walk away.
The dog is a fixed Lab male and the cat is a fixed gray female that we got from the pound (like about 8 pounds)
I should point out that the cat and dog both live at my mothers, they are actually hers, but since I moved out to go to school, I still feel like they are mine too.
Your dog & cat each look at the other and think:[ul]
[li]It’s not my species, so I can’t breed with it.[/li][li]It’s not my species, so it doesn’t threaten my territory.[/li][li]It’s not one of the prey species that I can eat.[/li][li]It doesn’t provide food or treats like my well-trained human.[/li][li]It doesn’t provide head scratches or belly rubs like my well-trained human.[/li][/ul]so the only sensible conclusion is who the hell cares – ignore it!
My cat will fall asleep on top of any one of my dogs, and the dogs will also fall asleep on the cat (well, part of the cat, they’d smother him.
The cat regularly plays with the dogs. The dogs will give him baths, too. I think he may just assume he is one. He’s been with them since he was 7 weeks old, so he doesn’t know much else. He doesn’t try to mate with them, though, thank gawd.
I’m going to guess that they critters can’t get past the language barrier.
Imagine that you meet an alien from the planet Boing Boing. You hold out your hand and say “Pleased to meet you.” The alien’s response is to burp loudly at you. Do you understand each other’s greeting? Is it friendly? Insulting? Maybe the alien thought your hand was a threat to smack him.
Squiggy the cat really likes my fiancee’s dog, but they just don’t know what to do with each other. In the early days when I had my own place, my girlfriend would bring the dog over, and Squiggy would run up happily as if to say: “My friend!” and he’d rub up against the pooch.
The dog had no idea what this gesture meant and while Squiggy rubbed against him, he’d look at us a little alarmed: “What’s he doing?.. What’s he doing???” When Squiggy got no sign of a friendly response, he would just stand there. Dog would look at cat, cat would look at dog, then they’d both look at us, then back at each other. It was just a prolonged awkward moment.
They get along just fine and seem to be respectful of each other, but they don’t seem to be able to figure out how to communicate, so they’ve stopped trying because it weirds them out.
ETA: If Squiggy had been introduced to the pooch as a kitten, maybe he’d have learned a little houndspeak, but as two adult animals they just don’t seem to “get” each other.
Well my cat was a kitten when it was introduced to the dog. But other than that first day when the dog barked at her, (as I said he quit after half a day), I thought it normal that cats and dogs ignore each other but now that I think of it, I do see other cats and dogs at least interact with each other.
As I said the dog barks at the othe neighborhood cats that visit his yard and he chases them off the yard, so he does not like cats except his own cat.
It all depends on the individual animals. In my house, the dogs love the cats. Molly especially loves them and tries to win them over. She dances in front of them in a weird crouch, wagging her tail as fast as it can go, making a funny whiney gurgling noise. The cats, on the other hand, ignore the dogs unless the dogs force them to acknowledge them with a swat to the nose (which is how Molly is always rewarded for her dance, and yet she still loves the cats. ) I don’t get it, because she was born in a house with no cats, and then came straight to our home, where the cats have always treated her this way - with haughty scorn. Why she should like them so much makes less sense than if she ignored them like your dog.
My cats like the dog well enough, I guess. At least well enough to lie around in the grass near her for company, and to tolerate being slurped in the face and sniffed in the rear. The dog obviously loves the cats, since they can’t get within her reach without being greeted in an undignified manner.
