# Cat testing a GSD?



## Lauri & The Gang (Jun 28, 2001)

I'm spinning this topic off from the SOP topic - what is involved in testing a GSD (or any dog) with a cat?

I've heard that some shelters will walk a dog through the cat room and if it doesn't react - it's cat friendly.

Yeah, right.

Personally, I put a VERY dog-savy cat in a metal crate in the middle of a room and bring the dog in on leash. I watch for ANY reaction on the dogs part.

We walk around the crate and if the dog looks at the cat I try to call their attention back to me. If they are ZONED on the cat and I cannot break that focus - it's a NO cat dog.

If all is well at that point I have someone take the cat out of the crate and put it on leash. I don't want the cat to run up to the dog. We walk around some more and watch the reactions.

If all is still well I let the dog approach the cat. The last step is allowing the cat off leash and trying to get it to run around a bit to watch for prey reactions from the dog.

The biggest problem is finding a cat that will do all that without reacting. I'm lucky in my cat ownership - I had one previous cat (Mozart) and one now (Banzai) that would be fine.


So - how do other rescues test their fosters on cats?


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## sitstay (Jan 20, 2003)

My own cats are very dog savy, so I am able to take a very close look at how foster reacts to my own cats. I have three levels that I assign a foster dog: 1. No cats under any circumstance 2. May be workable with cats if adopter is experienced and consistent and, 3. Cat friendly.

It is very hard to get an accurate cat test done in a shelter. 
Sheilah


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

I test at my local shelter with the cat in a crate and just watch the dog for zoning in on the cat, continuing to go back to the cat, etc. So far it's worked for me but I don't think you can ever be sure while testing in a shelter. I think that if you have small animals in the same house with big animals there is always a chance of the small animals getting hurt either through prey drive or by accident.


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## Castlemaid (Jun 29, 2006)

When I was going to adopt Keeta (direct from the shelter), I wanted to test her with cats (I had four - all used to dogs). 

They had a resident shelter cat, one that I had seen patroling the many areas of the shelter, a very confident and relaxed looking cat. The shelter director was looking for him, to see how Keeta will react. She said that they always use their cat as the official dog tester as it is a very dog-savvy cat, and knows if the dog will be cat-friendly, and offer overtures of friendship, or if the dog is all prey, and will then ignore the dog, and try to leave. Unfortunately, they coudn't find the cat right then, so we walked down to the cat room, which had sliding glass doors. Just stood outside the door and Keeta was only showing interest. One little kitten marched right up to Keeta and from behind the door started hissing and spitting and poofing out her fur and tail in a display of impressive kitten ferociousness. Keeta was wagging her tail, and play-bowing to the kitten! 

I asked if we could walk through the cat room, but they said no, and that in their experience, if Keeta was so un-fazed by all the cats and the attack kitty, then in all probability she will be fine with my cats, and she was. 

Not a very throrough way to test - I sure wished that the "test" cat had been available, or that we could have interacted with cats in person, not through a glass door, but in this case, it turned out fine.


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## mindi (Mar 25, 2004)

I keep the dog on a leash with my husband holding the leash, while I bring out the cat (in my arms). I don't go near the dog or acknowledge them at all, don't even pet the cat to bring attention to it, just walk by like nothing's going on. Of course, out of the corner of my eye I'm watching the dog's reaction and his eyes. If that is fine, I will let the cat down to walk around, with the dog still on leash. 

For me personally, I just automatically "cat train" all my fosters - If they lunge for the cat, I snap the leash pulling them back, say "Leave it" firmly, and put them into the crate for five minutes. Where they can still see the cat walking around. Then we bring him back out on leash, and repeat as many times as needed. The "Leave it" command is given as soon as the dog focuses in on the cat, before the lunge is even considered if possible. The longest it ever took was one week, most have it down by the end of the night (if I don't want to be put away, I leave the cat alone). Bearing in mind of course, the dog is not left out off-leash if the cat is roaming for quite some time, until I know for sure we will have no issues. The cat goes into my bedroom while the dog has "free time" as needed. After that first week however, mine have always done fine roaming together (again, if I were to leave, the cat would go in my room - Better safe than sorry).


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