Strange Relationships

[ReginaldElton]

Our sassy ginger is in love with our Siberian Husky. The feeling is not mutual. Huskies have very high prey drives and it took us 4 months for us to get the husky to not want to eat the ginger. Then another 4 months for him to more then tolerate the little sassquatch. Now they seem to be friends. They do play with strict supervision. Right after I took this picture, the husky looked st me like, why are you letting him in my space? Lol

 

[betsygee]

Aww, what a wonderful photo. That's sweet.

 

[Furballsmom]

awww, baby ginger boy, you got exactly what you wanted, didn't you - (you have wonderful humans )

 

[fionasmom]

They are such sweet buddies! The spitz breeds are not always so happy to accept a cat, but as a lifelong dog owner, I believe that any dog can be trained successfully. You are right to supervise them when they are together, at least for the time being. I owned a Jack Russell with cats at one time (17 years to be exact) and everyone learned to be good friends.

 

[nurseangel]

I love it! So adorable! We didn't want a dog, but someone hit one with a car and nobody was stopping. That's how we ended up with him. All the other cats ignored him or slapped him, but Redman took up with him. They played together. Redman would jump off the riding mower seat and onto Bo's back. It was all fun and games for them.

 

[Mv00]

I always thought huskies hated cats? It could be a jealousy thing or maybe your ginger is telling off your husky and getting him all riled up so the husky gets in trouble .

 

[ReginaldElton]

It's not that huskies hate cats, they just have a very primitive prey drive that isn't much different from a cats. Anything smaller then they are that runs is prey and their first instinct is to kill it. Some can be trained out of it (very few), some can accept certain smaller animals as part of their pack and some can never be trusted.

Our husky has accepted our house pets as part of his pack. But my backyard is like Fort Knox. He can't be loose. His kill count thus far at the age of six is 12 chickens, a oppossum, 2 feral cats, 2 ground hogs, 3 squirrels and a raccoon. We live in the middle of town and all of that has happened within our yard. One of my kids left the chicken coop door open. We are permitted chickens in our town.

Because he has done these things, he is still watched very closely with the rest of our pets and is always supervised.

 

[iPappy]

It's not that huskies hate cats, they just have a very primitive prey drive that isn't much different from a cats. Anything smaller then they are that runs is prey and their first instinct is to kill it. Some can be trained out of it (very few), some can accept certain smaller animals as part of their pack and some can never be trusted.

Our husky has accepted our house pets as part of his pack. But my backyard is like Fort Knox. He can't be loose. His kill count thus far at the age of six is 12 chickens, a oppossum, 2 feral cats, 2 ground hogs, 3 squirrels and a raccoon. We live in the middle of town and all of that has happened within our yard. One of my kids left the chicken coop door open. We are permitted chickens in our town.

Because he has done these things, he is still watched very closely with the rest of our pets and is always supervised.

Good move on keeping everyone under close supervision. I've heard one too many stories of people relaxing the rules only to come home to a dead cat or small dog because something happened that "woke up" the prey drive in the dog. It sounds like you're handling this very well.
I had a GSD with several cats and small dogs. He was excellent with them (he was an excellent dog all around, if I may brag for a second!), but, due to their size differences and the prey drive in the GSD breed I did keep them separated if I wasn't home. It kept everyone safe and no one was worse for wear from it, and I didn't have to worry. A few times during play, the GSD would accidentally step on or accidentally run into the smaller dog. Even accidental play can go wrong when dealing with a large animal and a small one!

 

[neely]

Neely was such a rebel rouser that I didn't worry about her but rather our GSD. Fortunately he never turned on her in spite of her being a lot smaller than him. She was one tough cookie and they were best buds. However, when out on a walk all bets were off if our dog saw another cat so, yes, supervision is always wise.

 

[iPappy]

Neely was such a rebel rouser that I didn't worry about her but rather our GSD. Fortunately he never turned on her in spite of her being a lot smaller than him. She was one tough cookie and they were best buds. However, when out on a walk all bets were off if our dog saw another cat so, yes, supervision is always wise.

Tag was so in love with cats as a whole. I never worried about the cats when he was with them, but, on a few occasions there would be a strange cat hanging out near the yard and he'd go like a bullet. He'd run the entire fence while the cat ran, then turned and sat. Tag would alternate barking and freezing with a wiggly tail like "I made you run!!!!!........wanna play?"