Prey animals and fostering harmony

It sounds like you've got the right ideas. Surround him with smells etc. ala bunny in a way that's comforting. As well as management. Obviously, you never going to have just rabbits and dogs running loose all the time.

I liked your reasoning about dogs and cats being predators and that a dog might more likely see a cat as a competitor rather than brunch.

Interesting thing. We had a mouse in the house a few months ago. It was a family affair. Even in the midst of the hunt, Shadow did not strike on Jade by accident or confusion. Both were concentrated on flushing out the mouse, the true prey. How would I acclimate Shadow to a mouse? I don't know. He did kill it by playing too hard and chewing too hard. He wasn't trying to eat it even if he was just before in full hunting mode.

Well, I'm going to step in and offer a slightly different perspective.  Dogs, like coyotes and wolves, are opportunistic hunters.  So, to them, any small mammal that runs is often considered prey.  In coyote country, cats are definitely NOT safe.  Most dogs can learn to co-exist with other species when they are raised with them from puppyhood, but even then, they will often leave "their" cats alone, but still chase the neighbors' cats that they don't know on an intimate level;-) 

Adult dogs can be trained to "leave it", and of course, acclimating the dog to the presence of the critters is good, but as Ron suggested, you probably aren't going to have them loose together. 

With regard to prey I've had it very lucky.  Both my dogs are prey driven and WILL chase anything outdoors.  Kenya is allowed to chase when I give permission, because I can call her off.  Coke is not because he gets out of control and I can't call him off yet, I worry that him running and being snapped back on the end of his line is potentially dangerous.  Anyway, I have three cats indoors.  Both dogs will chase a cat outdoors (and sometimes I encourage Kenya since we have all these nasty feral cats), but indoors they leave cats alone.  At first, Coke chased my youngest cat because she would freak out and just run into walls and everything.  Now she has finally realized that if she doesn't run, he won't chase.  He's more interested in playing with them anyway.  Kenya used to try to play with Beckham but now that we have Coke she totally ignores all the cats and they ignore her.  Now all five animals will step over each other, sniff each other face to face, sit with each other, etc.  I'm lucky b/c I didn't really do anything besides trying to show Marijke that there's no reason to run around the house in a panic and verbally correcting Coke if he pokes his head through the cat door.  One of the reasons I let Kenya chase the prey outdoors is so there is a clear understanding that outdoors=prey and indoors=cat friends/not prey.  I could be way off, but I'm hoping the context thing will work in our favor!  Now my cats do and have always had "safe" places.  I do not separate them from dogs, even when I'm not home, but they have a cat door to the basement and there is a baby gate in our dining room that they can go over/under.  They also make themselves at home on top of furniture and ledges.  If a dog ever changed its mind about prey, the cats are all faster and more agile than both my dogs and they know where they are safe.  I never really did formal introductions b/c my cats won't stand for being crated or held down in front of a dog.  Initially I put them all in another room, but they scratched and howled at the door so I said "fine, come out and see this dog!" and amazingly, they all went up to Kenya and sniffed her all over.  That was that.

I will agree with Anne that I will never 100% trust my dogs to not chase a running cat indoors.  I like that my dogs have prey drive and I often use it to my advantage as far as getting them good exercise and motivating them for training.  I don't want to squash it out of them so I compromise by doing my best to foster good relationships indoors and making sure the cats always have an escape.

Well, all I can say is something tells me a dog chases a cat that isn't "their" cat because it looked like possible game and then it ran.

Cats aren't safe in dingo country over here, either, but wild canids don't count. They chase to kill and feed themselves. A dingo in a chicken yard would kill every one and without stopping to eat any, would move on to whatever moved next, and that may well be a cat. Or even a small, fluffy dog. But that's pretty different to a domestic, well-fed dog with only half its hunting instincts intact.

I would trust Penny nearly 100% with the rabbits. It's not just that she isn't interested in them, but she actively dislikes them. Domestic rabbits strongly disapprove of dogs and just stamp at her, and Kit gets in her personal space and steals her bed. She has snapped at him more times than I can count, but never made contact and never chased him. For a while I was teaching her to help me round him up and send him back to his cage, but she had a habit of sitting in the wrong place and ruining everything. Anyway, I'm not one for taking risks, though, so while they run loose together, not while I'm not there to supervise. Although admittedly I get nonchalant about them and wander off into another part of the house, leaving them alone in a small room for half an hour before it occurs to me to go check on them. I wouldn't be that nonchalant with a larger dog, though. Or one with a prey drive at all. 

I would like to have the dog comfotable enough with the rabbits to share a room with them while one or the other is safely contained in a crate or something, let's say one degree of separation, but I'll be happy just for the dog not trying to eat the rabbits at every opportunity. We're building a rabbit enclosure at the new house with cages inside a larger net enclosure so I can maintain my 2 degrees of separation rule (2 closed doors between dogs and rabbits) while no one is home. Additionally, once the pool fencing is up, there will be 2 fences, plus netting, plus wire between the dogs and the rabbits, which is the very least I'd be comfortable with should Pyry come to stay! I've seen him rip a wall open trying to get to a possum. The things we do for our furry family! I'll let you all know how the rabbit acclimation goes.

 I agree that wild canids don't count, because you'll not be giving them house room, but some dogs have a high prey drive.  Read about predatory drift.  I'm sure that it is quite possible to have many dogs live in close proximity to caged animals and not have a problem.  But, you need to assume that there will be some that cannot handle it.  Breeds that have high prey drive, such as Huskies, Shepherds, Pits, Aussies can be difficult, although some individuals of those breeds are fine.  Any dog that is intense, drivey, or instinctively wants to stop movement should be carefully introduced.  And, of course, the more degrees of separation that you provide for a dog that rips walls to get to prey......

Right on, spiritdogs, I quite agree. And that's why I was so careful when picking a breed. I was really trying to avoid intensity. There are certainly drivey Finnish Lapphunds out there, but I haven't actually met any, yet, and I've only heard of a small handful in Australia. One of the dogs from a previous litter out of the same bitch as this current litter I'm getting a puppy from was recently offered up for sale because he wasn't enjoying the agility and would have preferred to be lazing about on the couch.

I would never trust Pyry with the rabbits, and I would never trust any breed with a hunting or sheep herding background. Cattle herding, perhaps. I've opted to avoid any breed that gets worked up or focused on things. One of the most experienced lappie breeders in this country told me she hasn't had any lappies come through that ever got fixated or super focused on anything, although some of them enjoyed chasing the wild hares. 

Definitely intensity is the key. And yeah, there aren't many breeds or types of dogs out there that I'd even try to have loose with the rabbits. Even Jill, who is more about playing than anything and doesn't care about prey animals (she's afraid of the hare) I wouldn't trust because she's big and she likes to chase and she's a total clutz. 

Cattle herding, perhaps.

Maybe you want to reconsider that:-))  http://www.pinciecreek.com/ 

http://users.htcomp.net/slashv/home.htm 

the coyotes around here disagree that cats aren't prey animals. Anyway, I think herding dogs are probably one of the easiest types of dogs to train to leave prey animals alone. They've been careful bred to not-kill their livestock and to be easily trainable.

I would definitely have your breeder test the litter with the paper ball test...this can be somewhat indicative of the various drives, even in a young pup.

Some pups will ignore a paper ball when it's tossed, others seem afraid of it....others will pursue and then stop and sniff, lose interest and walk away....others will pursue, pounce shake and tear apart the ball with no inclination to bring it to the human...and still others will pursue, pick up and retrieve the ball.

It's not a set in stone thing but if you are getting strong pursue and shake drive in a 7-8 week old pup that may indicate something. I have known pups I have tested to follow this pretty well into adulthood. Ellie had a natural retrieve and still does...most of my Akitas either ignored or pursued and 'killed" the paper ball....etc. 

Like I said, mudpuppy, wild canids don't count. Dingoes think cats are prey, too. Although someone told me once their 7kg cat killed a fox, so I guess it goes both ways! My hare loves cats, but he's pretty sensible about what's a threat and what isn't. He loves Penny, too, and he was okay with my ex-housemate's BC cross watching him avidly through a glass door at our old house. The BC cross loved to watch him, but wouldn't come into the same room as him even if invited. But the JRT that discovered the hare one day sent him into a panic, and the couple of times Pyry has got to his cage he flew into a panic as well. Interestingly, he's also okay with Jill coming to look at him. He seems to know pretty instantly what the deal is and whether he should be worried.

I decided to avoid the usual herding suspects more because of that tendency towards intensity. It's not so much about whether I can train them to leave the rabbits alone, or whether they'll kill the rabbits or not, it's more about whether they'll direct that intense focus at the rabbits, which is what will freak Kit out. I decided it was safer to opt for a breed that never really had that focus in the first place.

Broken links, Anne! Of course, Pyry is supposedly a cattle dog, so perhaps is the key word. Penny's a pretty useless cattle dog so she doesn't count. I'd reckon an ACD might be all right, though. I'd be more inclined to try one of those than a BC or Kelpie or Aussie.

Thanks for that suggestion, Gina. I think I'm going to be a bit limited on puppy choice as I'd wanted a boy and there's only one in the litter. I'll definitely try that, though, to see what I might be up against.
 

I have cats and a rabbit living in our house.....we have had pups and adult dogs living in this house......you guys know my approach when it comes to getting dogs acclimated to any prey animals.........."Noise Aversion " has been the biggest success..........and really staying on top of it.....until the dog accepts the animals.......plenty of exercise and we offer inside and outdoor living via doggie door......and we try to keep it interesting.......our dogs don't even try to play with our cats......they walk by them like they don't exist.....

Snownose, does the noise affect the cat?  I tried a little of that with Coke when he was still chasing Marijke, and it worked for him, but it scared the living daylights out of Marijke, which just made the panicking and running around the house worse.  It was hard to use the noised without enforcing the cat's fear of the dog.  I suppose I just need to make up my mind, b/c in the past I used noise aversion to get the cats off the counters and had to de-sensitize Kenya to that (not Coke b/c I stopped needing it before we got him). 

Likewise, squirting worked well with Coke too, but the cats are terrified of that.  Somehow they can just *tell* I'm about to squirt, before I even reach for the bottle, so they run before I have the opportunity to squirt Coke. 

Thankfully, Marijke and Coke seem to have sorted things out and I've abandoned both techniques. 

I can't really speak for how the cats are feeling at that moment....I think they more or less concentrate on the dog approaching them......once the dog quits chasing they actually start hissing if the dog gets closer and then that usually goes away, too.....like I said the usual outcome is that the dogs just walk by the cats and appear to be ignoring them.....

How do the dogs go with your adorable little lionhead bun? Do you trust them together?

My mother used aversion with one of her kittens to stop the kitten jumping up to swing off the budgie cage. She tossed tiny pegs at her just when she started focusing her attention and getting into predator mode. The peg would land next to her with a clank, or bounce off her sometimes. It didn't freak her out, and she didn't ever work out where the pegs were coming from and why they fell out of the sky around her whenever she thought about eating budgies. They were very small and light pegs, though, not clothes pegs. That coupled with keeping her away from the bird when no one was home.

I guess it worked, because she ignores the bird, now. My mother doesn't trust her, though. She wants to get the bird a bigger cage but is worried that will put the cage lower and the cat's interest will be renewed.

Then again, maybe she's just satisfied with the poor little skinks that wander into her outdoor run.