Okay, the dog's not really new...he's been here for well over six months. At first, all three of my cats hid in the basement; my female was not about to let a dog keep her from her favorite sleeping spots and table scraps, so she was upstairs after about a week. My fat male still mostly hangs out in the basement, but he's been venturing upstairs and will either sneak into my room or go up when he knows everyone's asleep and cuddle on the couch.
But my other male has not made any progress. I don't know why he's so scared of this dog; the dog's not vicious, but he barks a lot and seems to want to play with the cat. Our older dog is much larger than this new one and the cat's in no way afraid of said older dog. Thing is, the cat doesn't want to play and is scared. I have brought him upstairs, but he'll immediately run under my bed and hide beyond my reach for the entire day, not coming out for food, water or the catbox. I'm fairly certain he has relieved himself under there at least once since he was too scared to move. And then the dog terrorizes him and tries to tunnel under my bed to get at the cat, which scares him even more.
Basically, is there anything I can do to help get my cat back to normal and not be afraid of the dog? I really miss him being upstairs and being my lap cat, and I want him to not limit himself to the few sleeping spots in the basement when he could have the comfy furniture upstairs like before.
But my other male has not made any progress. I don't know why he's so scared of this dog; the dog's not vicious, but he barks a lot and seems to want to play with the cat. Our older dog is much larger than this new one and the cat's in no way afraid of said older dog. Thing is, the cat doesn't want to play and is scared. I have brought him upstairs, but he'll immediately run under my bed and hide beyond my reach for the entire day, not coming out for food, water or the catbox. I'm fairly certain he has relieved himself under there at least once since he was too scared to move. And then the dog terrorizes him and tries to tunnel under my bed to get at the cat, which scares him even more.
Basically, is there anything I can do to help get my cat back to normal and not be afraid of the dog? I really miss him being upstairs and being my lap cat, and I want him to not limit himself to the few sleeping spots in the basement when he could have the comfy furniture upstairs like before.
)
