raydon26

We have told Wilson that cats are 'friends not food' but i don't think he's quite on our wave length yet. We will perservere but if it comes to the crunch we will take you up in your offer. With your cat & our ginger 'Rex', we may be able to sort him out, but we don't want to change his name to Scar, he's just geting use to Wilson.

We have just added to our home a male mastiff (approx 2 yr old) who has a wonderful temperament towards us & our other mastiff but is not too fussed on our cats. We have 3, 2 which are 5 & 6yrs old and 1 which is approx 16yrs old. My dilemma is that he seems to be ok when they are sitting still but once they move he's off after them. The 2 younger cats can get out of his way, until such a time that he gets used to them but the older one has a difficult time getting out of her own way, let alone his. I cannot keep the cats away from him as the fences are not designed this way. I have kept the cats inside whilst he is roaming around but they have to have supervised visitation when they are all together. He does respond to 'no' and a gruff disaproval from me when the situation of him chasing the cats has just started but if he's already chasing no amount of no's will make him respond. If they are just laying around he doesn't blink an eye & will walk right past them. My female will play with the younger cats & they play back (this was before he came, 5 days ago) but i do fear for the pack mentality of 2 dogs together & 1 cat. Both dogs are booked in for obedience training starting at the end of July. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Oh & we do not know of any of his history before coming to us.

We too have this problem. We have a female (desexed, approx 3 - 4 yr old) mastiff that when she gets out of the yard, whether it be out the gate (accidentally left open) or over the back fence (property is under development in the next few years), she takes the bolt - but only when we realise she is out. Once she wandered around the front yard (not fenced) from when our daughter left at 7.30 until i noticed her through the fence at 9 o'clock. As soon as we call her she's off down the street, never the same one, just in the direction she is facing at the time of discovery. She will run for a little while and waits, smelling or going to the toilet, until we are about 2 metres away then off she goes again, once i chased her for over an hour and it took all of my patience to not go balisitic at her when i caught her. I do realise she thinks this is just a game but i am absolutely petrified that she may be hit by a car or go for another dog that is roaming (she is quite social, but still a fear of mine), so i won't risk it and just turn away to bluff her. She is quite well behaved in the yard and does come when she's called & will sit but i have not really instilled in her these 'rules'. She is booked in for dog obedience but this does not start until the end of July. I will try some of your suggestion but any more would be greatly appreciated.