How to kurb excitement when the source is literally outside your front door?

I'm sure you are all sick of me by now so I'll keep this short and sweet!

Troy pulls in every direction, whines and doesn't listen if he see's a cat. Now my neighbour has 5 cat's so usually when we open the door there is one right there starring back at us.

So, he acts up when leaving the house for a walk and then acts up again on our return.

He doesn't seem aggressive, just very interested. I have sat out with him a few times and he will just sit and watch the cats albeit very alert. He has come very close to some of them and seems to just want to sniff but the cats run off or try and swipe at him before he can get too close.

What can I do to try and stop this behavior?

No idea here really. Suki doesn't like cats and will go crazy if one wanders near the house. Perhaps try to distract him with a treat?

I can try doing that. He gets excited just leaving the house and looks for them even if they are not there, as from past experience they ARE usually there somewhere.

I don't want to have to distract him every time we leave and return to the house though. I want him to have tolerance towards them and not act wild in the garden.

There are members on here that have both cats and dogs. It's been a bit since I had both but I used to put my dog on lead and introduce her to my cat. When she was calm I'd praise and give her a treat. Since the cats aren't yours I don't know if this is possible.

jstaff wrote:There are members on here that have both cats and dogs. It's been a bit since I had both but I used to put my dog on lead and introduce her to my cat. When she was calm I'd praise and give her a treat. Since the cats aren't yours I don't know if this is possible.

My neighbour is very understanding and lets my dog greet the cat's no problem. I guess I can try practicing rewarding calm behavior. We can't fully introduce them though as the cat may swipe at Troy due to him being so boisterous. He will pull on the end of the leash to get close to them.

Just being near each other is enough sometimes satisfy the curiousity. My cats was declawed though.

I have ten cats and three dogs but my dogs still get very interested in my neighbours cats, even Tasha my 15yr old lurcher still spots cats that aren't "hers" . If you have a dog crate you could try sitting outside with Troy in it and rewarding him for ignoring the cats? i think it will be difficult because hissing stroppy cats are so interesting .

The cat's don't hiss at him. Some of them just run off and some walk slowly towards him and wind him up because they know he is on a leash.

Sitting him outside locked in a crate would probably send him bonkers lol

I wouldn't worry so much about it. He's curious, I don't blame him. We have a cat that Romeo adores and he adored our ancient first cat before he passed away (even though the cat definately did not feel the same way!)
He still went crazy trying to get at and chase some neighbours cat that walked out infront of him the other day. When I say crazy he was literally up on his hind legs screaming and I was leaning back with all my weight and he was pulling so hard we were perfectly balanced.
Sounds like Troy just wants to play, he might always want to play with cats or he might meet them enough times to lose interest. He sounds a very bright and curious dog.

Yeah he is very curious.

I guess some things I will just have to accept and hope he grow's out of it.

Hiya Gee. Troy is a dog at the end of the day, so I'm not sure how much you can do to curb his excitement over cats. As frustrating as it is for you, at least it seems that he is only curious and not wanting to rip the cats apart like many do - that would be incredibly difficult to manage with your neighbour's cats being around all the time.

I would be inclined to let him have a sniff if he can get close enough, then say good boy, and reclaim his attention. That's what I do when out with Charlie. Because he is a rough player, whenever we see a dog smaller than him and he gets excited wanting to play, I let hom have a quick sniff (with the owner's permission) then praise him and carry on past.

It'll be worse if you try to keep him away from them completely, because he'll just get frustrated. And don't worry if one f them has a swipe at him, as long as it isn't in the eye, it won't do any damage and he may have a little more respect for them in the future!

Hey,

Yeah I don't avoid situations at all..no point, as they are usually outside the door haha.

I thought they could damage their noses pretty bad if they got clawed?

We have cats down our street n the dogs go mad if they run, but one cat will come out of its garden when we walk past and swipe the dogs then follows us up the street all puffed out and cross, we like chill out cat, leave us alone! But now the dogs kno its there they look for it everytime, its a pain walking down our street, I cross the road and try distracting but it don't really work, maisy scared of it but scoobys had a bit of a box with it before, I was dragging them up the street thinking god cat have you a death wish or summit just go away!

At the end of the day, dogs chase cats (except in my case) ul prob never stop troys excitement.

Gee wrote:Hey,

Yeah I don't avoid situations at all..no point, as they are usually outside the door haha.

I thought they could damage their noses pretty bad if they got clawed?

Cat's claws are sharp, and can do damage if they hit somewhere like nose or eyes, but I doubt they'd be able to claw that high, and it might do Troy a bit of good to realise that a cat won't be pushed around. I honestly wouldn't worry too much about it. Let him have a sniff, if he gets swiped, he gets swiped. He'll soon learn.

i treated scarlett when she was nice to my cat and they are best friends and it took no time at all i found thats the best way we got round it

my dogs go crazy if they see a cat out in the street! but we have a cat at home and they just "live" with each other, although when the dogs decide to try and get the cat to play one of them usually ends up with a swipe! I think its just normal for most dogs to want to chase anything fury that moves when they're out, my dogs chase rabbits and squirrels lol

He gets excited looking for them, but he was stood literally right next to one today and wasn't even bothered about it. He was actually trying to lead me down the passageway rather than bother with the cat!

Seems like he gets really excited other them but ain't fussed about them at the same time..weird.