Сats and dogs: 8 life hacks for friendly pet coexistence

Alice Smahina

How to make a cat and a dog friends? If you love animals very much and have decided that a cat and a dog should live in your house, be ready to become not only a good owner for them but also a nanny, educator, and even a psychologist. People know well about the antagonism of these animals, but this enmity doesn't necessarily have to be irreconcilable. It all depends on the owner how the animals will meet each other, whether they will be able to make friends and coexist peacefully in the same house.

Zoo-psychologist Anastasia Brenina told Rubrika about how to make a cat and a dog friends if the animals didn't grow up together and avoid the mistakes that almost everyone makes.

Someone decides to have different animals carefully and thoughtfully, weighing all the nuances in advance. But often such a symbiosis happens unplanned, simply because of the circumstances of life. Animals can be inherited, they are brought home by children, cats and dogs are thrown under the door and left near garbage cans. How can one get past? So people take animals home. Well, if there is already a pet, they'll make friends somehow!

This "somehow" that the owners hope for works infrequently. The most common cause of conflicts between dogs and cats in the wild is competition for territory and resources. In the world of pets, everything is the same. Only the territory is not the street, but all the rooms in the house, and the resource is not food, but the attention of the owner. This conflict can be complicated by the fact that cats are accustomed to existing "by themselves," and dogs live in packs and create a hierarchy through communication and active interaction.

According to experts, with the correct behavior of the owner, who uses special techniques, reconciling the representatives of different species will be still successful. The main thing is not to allow negative experiences to form and prevent conflicts until they become a habit.