Odd couple: Cats and dogs can live together peacefully
By Ann Tatko-Peterson
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 09/06/2011 03:43:33 PM PDT
Updated: 09/06/2011 03:45:00 PM PDT
Bianca had lived peacefully with her English setter sister for years. So, Toni Mayer of El Cerrito assumed her cat would do fine with another dog, 11-month-old Genie.
Wrong. Within two weeks, Bianca defected to the neighbor's house and never returned home. Genie was forlorn without the cat, and mice quickly overran the Mayer home. Back to the shelter Mayer went. This time she returned with a kitten she named Harry.
Mayer rubbed Genie with a towel and then held it out to Harry to introduce him to the dog's scent, but the first actual meeting was an anxious one. Genie approached with curiosity; Harry charged. And yet, a few days later, "they were playfully chasing each other through the house," Mayer recalls, "and Harry was attacking and ambushing Genie's plumy tail. They've been close for almost 12 years. They nuzzle each other in greeting, and when I take them to the groomer, they keep each other company in the same cage."
