My dog (a border collie) has more sense, having lived with 2 cats who keep him firmly in his place. Frodo the older cat likes to hide behind the chair next to where I keep the water bowl and when the dog goes to get a drink, he'll pounce out and chase him all around the house. Barney won't even walk into a room if either of the cats is standing near the door!

He does wind them up a lot though and tries to provoke them into chasing him, so it serves him right really.

had to laugh at all these storys about cats taking on dogs. obviouslly coming from cat lovers/owners.
a dog is a much more powerfull animal and if it has half a brain cell in its head will easily destroy a cat.
of course if the dog is scared of hissing and the cats paw being waved in front of its face then good for the cat.
but in my experiance they do not stand a chance.
and there is a reason why cartoons depict dogs and cats getting along because in 90% of circumstances it is true. had 8 dogs in my lifetime to date and only 1 of them actually liked cats.
and no it has nothing to do with me . dogs have a personality and some dogs just dont like cats.

I've always had dogs and cats together and can assure you that any puppy quickly learns to leave a cat alone. My two fully grown German Shepherds could quite easily have torn the cat to pieces, but they were always wary of him.

The cat we have at the moment has always hated dogs and has probably used up all nine lives attacking them. I'm fully aware of the fact that once a dog has hold of a cat it has no chance, but cats use their speed and the surprise element to get away,,

A lot of Dogs (normally ones trained by thugs) do chase cats, my cat however chases Dogs

bit hypocritical isnt it .
fine for a cat to chase a dog but not a dog to chase a cat.
with reasoning like that no wonder your cat is mental.

Dog chases cat = aggression.
Cat chases dog = self-defence (pre-emptive).

Some cats can pack a mean clout.

Came home one boxing day night when I was young to find our chinchilla persian ripped to shreds in the kitchen. The Boxer and the Border Collie got the blame. The labs we had wouldn't have touched her. Some BCs are lovely but some are pure psychos.

Dogs & cats can get along fine if brought up together. Its all down to individual personality & the surroundings they're brought up in, but you also have to take into consideration an animals born instinct too...

Two weeks ago, my best friends cat was ripped apart by a neighbours staffordshire bull terrier (typically, they didnt have it on a lead). The cat was 22 years old. The staffy always went berserk whenever it saw cats, around x3 years previously it had chased after the same cat with such force, it got its head trapped in the cats cat-flap, on that occasion, the cat turned on it and clawed its face before it could pull its head out, Im really glad it had a chance to do that- shame it wasnt the owners face instead.
Another neighbour who witnessed the attack was traumatised by the ferocity of the dog. The cat was still alive when the owner of the dog secured his pet & returned to the cat. The last (great) thing the cat did was gauge his hand deeply before it died.
Im really tired of people who have powerful dogs, yet fail to understand the complexity of the creature they own. This particular staffy is walked regularly, but I see plenty of others in my local area that arent, and which hang around young children without being on a lead. The excuse is "oh, he wouldnt hurt a fly".

They always seem to chase my cat on our drive way when their stupid owners don't put them on a lead

Thankfully my cat always puffs up his fur and tail and they back off a bit, and by that time I've heard the commotion and have come outside to scare the dog away, whilst their bloody owners are watching on the pavement doing f*ck all.

One time I couldn't get there in time though and my cat scratched this staff across his eyes and he ran off crying back to his owner, I don't think he did that much damage though because the owner didn't seem bothered at all. Made me feel a bit better though that my cat at least has some kind of chance if one of these dogs tries to attack him and no one is around.

My white cat saw off a labrador. She used to sit on the fence and wind her up too. The dog knew her place

A friend's Siamese cat got tossed in the air and mauled to death by a stray Alsation in Spain.

your reasoning = bull****.

As others have said I think it is dependant upon the animals.

We have a big cat, he can easily stretch up and put his paws on the kitchen work surface but I'm sure he thinks he's a dog more than a cat at times!

Our neighbour, who lives two doors down from us, used to have a elderly pug and she said she would often see our cat asleep with her pug under a tree in her garden when she came home from work.

One of our other neighbours have said the same, they have a boxer and they have seen the two of them asleep in their garden as well.

Yep, they can get along, my mum used to have a cocker spaniel, who was introduced into a house which had a cat. They (eventually) learnt to get along, & slept together in the porch at night. They'd start at opposite ends of the porch, but in the morning, you'd find them sleeping together, in the dogs basket

My dog is a Jack Russell, he hates cats and goes for them all the time, BUT if the cat stands its ground my dog just runs away My brothers son has a cat which when he sees my dog goes for him and beats him up. I have never seen a cat like him, he really did go for my dog, hit my dog across the head and chased him

My staffie grew up with pre-existent cats (3) so has no automatic aggression to them.

She is actually very friendly with one of them while her relationship with the other (1 has since died) is of tolerance.
I think she would be friends with the second cat but the cat is stand-off ish.

She is fine with other cats that she sees out and didn't, (until a couple of years ago) react to them either way. I was out walking her when we came across a cat that seemed to be curious as to why the dog was not showing any aggression. This curiosity turned into aggression onthe cat's part which quickly turned on my dog with all claws blazing, causing my (bewildered) dog to yelp.

Luckily she wasn't badly hurt but she now doesn't trust any cats other than the ones she lives with.

She is no wimp, as she will readily have a go at any dog that bothers her. (She doesn't bother them).


A friend of mine's staffy was attacked by a cat as a puppy.

The resultant adult dog was a "cat killer" that would attack any cat on sight, given the chance.

My friend had to re-home the dog. His children were very upset at the time, as he was a lovely pet, who just happened to hate cats.

I am interested in the body language aspect of this issue.

Both cats & dogs rely heavily on this for communication and in at least some instances the signals given off seem to have opposite / conflicting meanings.

It depends on the cat and dog. My mum has two cats and a dog who all sleep together on the sofa and the dog loves every cat he's sees and doesn't understand why they run away from him when he's out. On the other hand, my friend's dogs both strain on the lead to chase cats and make a hell of noise as they try to get to them (she thinks it's funny, it really isn't and I've told her).


No. My dog is completely dis-interested in cats, he just looks at them and carries on with what he's doing. But one of my cats actually stalks him and has attacked him on a couple of occasions, yet he's never chased her. So in my house - cat chases dog = aggression not self-defence and not pre-emptive.

It was a joke...

Ah, sense of humour failure that's what happens when I'm skiving on here when I should be working

My dog loves our cat, they play for ages, dog is a Staffie and cat is a Heinz 57 they sleep together, nick each others food and play its just lovely

There was a little black cat that used to come round our way, but then our neighbour's dog ripped it apart It was really horrible. My dad saw it happening and tried to stop it, got the cat's blood all over his trouser leg.

In the 1960s, we had a dog that would chase and catch feral cats that lived under the village Scout hut. Then she'd bring them home (across a field) and on to the patio. Then she'd lob them into the air and they'd break their backs on the flagstones.

It was vile. We had a real job stopping her as we had an acre of land bordered by a low Yorkshire drystone wall which she could jump easily.

I've always had dogs and cats together with no problem.

But a neighbour's dog got into my garden one day and chased one of my cats. She ran inside and the dog followed. Instead of turning rignt in the kitchen so she could get upstairs or somewhere else safe, she turned left and the dog cornered her by the fridge. It shook her like a rag and she died of a heart attack on the way to the vets afterwards.

Having had experience of feral cats, I'm surprised your dog had any eyes left. He must have been quick.

I got my cat a few years ago from a cat rescue. I was told at the time that she couldn't go to any home that had other cat's, dog's or children. She'd been there for nearly a year so I took pity on her. Not long after she came home, maybe a week, I got in from work and found her collapsed on the floor, breathing very shallowly and looking near death. Quickly put her in a carrier and took her to the vets. While I was waiting in the waiting area, a little old lady came in with her bedlington terrier. Even tho the cat was extremely ill she tried to scratch the dog, hissed and growled at it. Glad she was wrapped in a blanket and secured in the carrier! Fortunately she had a baddish chest infection but after a course of antibiotics was fine- and still is.

As she was a stray I have no idea if she had a bad experience with a dog, but I wouldn't like to see her fight one.