Three month old terrier male and three month old female kitten

Animals
1


Hi Dog People, I need your input please.


I am a cat and kitten foster family for the SPA.


A gentleman adopted a three month old girl kitten from me last Sunday. An SPA volunteer visited his apartment prior to check him out, etc. He has the kitten for a month trial period, sterilisation is obligatory.


He has a three month old terrier boy puppy who likes cats. Today he told me that the puppy wants to have sex with her all the time. The girl thinks he's playing, but it's getting stressful for the household. When the man separates them, they both claw and whine for the door to open.


His vet told him to give it time and possibly Polly will give the dog a good scratch or two and it will settle down. The man doesn't intend to castrate the dog. (This makes me very mad).


Anyone have similar experiences?


Thanks!


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Update: the owner has started disciplining the dog and there is progress. The kitten and puppy sleep in the same basket. We are checking in regularly and will take the kitten back if needed. Thanks to Alan!

3

Thank you Alan for your comments and excellent question. I do not know how familiar the gentleman is with animal behavior. I will pass on your dog trainer tip. Happily it is not me who approves adoptions. The process is: people call me to come and visit the cats. I ask them questions over the phone and make an appointment (or not). They come and visit the cats, I ask them more questions and report to my SPA manager. If they are interested (and I think it looks ok initially) the SPA manager goes and visits them in their homes. If that checks out, the cat goes for a month trail, and then there's another visit and either the adoption is validated or we take the cat back. I'm passing on all the SFN and Chats du Quercy information to my manager and the gentleman. If we decide to take the cat back, I don't anticipate a problem. In any case, she belongs to the SPA.

4

Hi

The vet's advice seems sound to me, this from a person who has twelve dogs and three cats. The dogs are kenneled on a rota basis, but there are always around six dogs and three cats in the house.

Question: How does he know the puppy is trying to have sex with the kitten? Is he familiar with animal behaviour? The puppy is only three months. More likely the puppy thinks the kitten is a younger puppy and is seeking to dominate it. A standard domination practice for a dog trainer is to stand over the dog's rear end at regular intervals. Watch puppies and other young dog's at play, and do not accept the owner's jumping to conclusions.

As for castration, the french seem to shy away from the this, and what right have we to judge? However, the SPA has the option to remove the kitten if it is not happy at the end of the month? Who makes the decision, you or a higher official of the SPA?