Puppy school and cats!!

Louie liked puppy school but I was exhausted. I couldn't believe how much walking I had to do and how many dogs were there. There was at least 40 dogs of varying ages and sizes at the school. Louie was one of the youngest and one of the smallest but he did really, really well. I'll do a bit of training every day with him as well to reinforce it all.

My next question (are you sick of all my questions yet? LOL) is this.....we have a 12 year cat thats had the run of the house for the past 8 years. Sydney and Louie don't get along. Louie can pretty much ignore Sydney most of the time but Sydney will ALWAYS growl and hiss and swipe and Louie even when he walks away from her. He's also constantly trying to steal Sydney's food and when Sydney does come into the lounge room Louie wants to play with her so he jumps on her and barks and Sydney just growls and swipes and hisses.

Sorry, no experience with dogs and cats together but I'm sure someone will be along shortly to advise.

Well done at puppy school - howcome there was so much walking involved?

Sorry no advice here either There are members on here who have cats as well as there dogs so I'm sure someone will be able to help you soon

Thanks Kylie and Lisa.

Lisa we had to walk in circles a lot. The puppy school is broken up into different grades, 1- 5. Grade 1 is dogs with no training. We had to walk in circles to practice getting the dogs to sit and stand and change direction etc. Then we had to weave amongst the other dogs in the circle so that the learn not to jump at other dogs. Its going to be good but it was exhausting for me.

Hi, it generally takes cats (especially older cats) longer to except a dog than vice versa. As Louie is very young he will have no problems living with a cat, however, puppy behaviour is normally very OTT and a lot of cats won't like it.

Make sure there are areas in the house that the cat can get to for a bit of alone time when play gets too much. Baby gates are brilliant for separating off areas

No help with the cat situation, but shame about the class being exhausting. We did similar with one of the puppy classes we went to, walking in circles, definitely gets very tiring, especially with a puppy pulling. Hope it gets easier

Thanks Matt. We have an area blocked off that Louie is not allowed to go in but he can now jump that gate but we are quite vigilant and can stop him jumping it most of the time.

Tara I'm hoping that puppy school gets easier. I have rheumatoid arthritis and lots of hip and foot problems so all that walking took it out of me. I may only be able to do half a class for a while.

Hope they become friends soon I'm sure it'll just take a little time, I feel your pain re Rheumatoid it's hard going I've got it in my SI joints