Resident Cat and new Dog Becoming Friends

Hello:

I was recently fostering a dog for a rescue organization, but just foster failed and have decided to adopt him. He has been at my house for the past 4 weeks and was introduced to my resident cat about 2.5 weeks ago. My cat seems uncomfortable around the dog because he sometimes gets playful and runs around the house playing with his toys. The dog does not chase my cat, but he certainly has occasional playful bursts that scare the cat. Most of the time, my dog is a couch potato and not overly active around the house. My cat is a female about 1.5 years old, very friendly, outgoing, and playful at times. She has been at my house for about 3 months now. Here is my question: Any idea on how long it will take the cat and dog to become friends? Right now, they tolerate each other, and that's about it. I am hoping they will become friends at some point. Any ideas on how I can help them become better friends? Thanks!!

I don't think there is anything you can do to speed the process up.  It will take time, basically your cat has to realize that your dog isn't going to harm her.  Also the cat needs to learn how to become dog savvy.  Now, this is my own personal opinion based on my own experiences with dogs and cats, but to me it seems that the cat needs to be the one to learn how to cope around being with a dog and not so much the other way around AS LONG AS the dog isn't aggressive towards smaller animals.  I say this because I often dog sit for family, friends, friends of family, you get the idea.  Dogs range in size and breed from pugs, shepards, labs and vizsla.  Some of these dogs are trained hunting dogs, so I was a tad concerned about how things would work out when I'm dog sitting.  Since my cats are used to dogs, they know what they shouldn't do - which is bolt/run in front of a dog and also they know how to maneuver around so they don't get trampled.   So even though some of these hunting dogs had never been around a cat before in their life, there really wasn't much of an issue when it came to watching them.  Yes they were interested in my cats (more so from a - what the heck is this thing?) and my cats knew when to give a warning - a quick smack on the snout and the dogs acted if you just shot them or something - kinda funny to watch.

I have dogs and cats and they all get along great - nothing like seeing a 70 lb lab try to play with a cat and having the cat play right back then have them all try to fit on the couch for a nap leaving me to sit on the floor.