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Originally Posted by Ruphus I have seen a couple of times how dogs tear cats into pieces and the thought turnes me off quite some. Do you think Tasha would still be hunting if you had her grown up with other animals like rabbits or cats? |
Well, if tiger cubs and piglets can be raised together I bet a husky and a cat could too. Come to think of it, when Tasha was young (we adopted her at 1 and a half yrs old) we had a couple of hamsters and had no problem. She saw us treating the hamsters as family members and I think accepted them as that rather than as prey, though we never tested that by letting them run free around her. She'd watch them carefully inside their cages but she never tried to get in the cages as she no doubt would have otherwise. So yeah, I think she'd have been cat friendly if conditioned as a puppy. BTW, she's never attacked a cat since we've had her, though she's wanted to. But she's caught numerous mice, birds, snakes, moles, etc., and goes crazy around raccoons, horses and other farm animals. She's always friendly to other dogs regardless of size... even tiny lap dogs... even tiny lap dogs that are yipping and snapping. It's kind of funny to see.
Hey, I never get to brag about her so.... other things that are great about her are that there's no dog smell - breath or fur - and that she's always happy, kind of like a kid on Christmas morning. It seems the worse the weather, the more she's excited about taking me outside, so she's uplifting to be around on dark winter days. Her calmness indoors though is dependent on getting a lot of exercise, and we run her a few miles each day. I imagine she might have behavior problems without that. She's 10 yrs old now... she was 5 in this pic.
Tim