Hello,
Can anyone advise on how to get dogs and cats to live happily together?!

We have a young dog, Milo, who is very well behaved for his age (9 months) but we also have 2 young cats. Milo is not agressive to the cats and our female cat, Evie, is reasonably friendly to him. There are even occassions when we can all sit quietly and watch tele - but more often than not Milo pesters the cats and tries to chase them when they move around.

The cats are surprisingly tolerant, but they do get fed up and tend to spend more time away from the house. A side effect of that is that a neighbour says our cats go in her garden and scare the birds.

Milo is a collie/terrier so obviously that's a factor! We have had him for about 4 months and we have been told it will take time to get them used to each other, but I'd be glad of any advice so that we can get some peace!

Are the cats able to get away from Milo in the house, are there safe places that they can go to that he can't?

We have a pretty unfriendly cat and we're getting our puppy in about 6 weeks. I'm planning on having a stair gate at the bottom of the stairs so Lily can have the whole of upstairs to herself for when she needs to have some space

As for your cats chasing birds...... that's a bit tough really, they're cats, that's what they do not sure how your neighbour expects you to deal with that! Bells on their collars might help give the birds a chance....

i'd like advice on this too. My overly affectionate kitty has became an angry clawing machine She hates the dog and her personality is changing by the day into an unfriendly, unhappy loner

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Hi - thanks for the quick reply.

Yes - we have a stair gate which means the cats have upstarirs to themselves and can chill out on our bed. Also, the area of the kitchen where the cats eat and sleep has a gate.

As for the bird issue - as you rightly say, it's what cats do and I don't think they are actually a big problem to the birds. It's more a case of our neighbour not liking cats I think.

Another thought - I have been speaking to a trainer who suggeted 'scent swapping', which means giving the dog some of the cat's bedding or something, and vice versa so they get used to each other without making immediate contact.