Becoming a Multi-Species Householdby Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger 16 Oct 2008 10:19 AM Hard to believe it's been eighteen months since I moved cross country with the dogs! A lot has happened in the last year and a half, which I guess is what makes the time fly by so quickly. I'm at lease renewal time, and have been talking with some friends about possibly sharing an apartment (and cutting down cost of living for all involved). Great plan, right? There's only one catch. My friends have cats. Lally has become quite the kitty hunter since we moved. She gets such a thrill out of flushing cats out of the bushes around the apartment complex and chasing them as far as the leash will allow. This would definitely be a problem if we had cats IN the house! The discussion lately has been centered on how we could keep my dogs and their cats separated, and how we might introduce them over time. My current apartment actually has a great setup for keeping animals segregated. There's a long hallway that separates the bedroom from the office -- it would be easy to gate that hallway so the dogs could go no farther than my bedroom. The cats could have a safe haven in the second bedroom. I'm really not sure how a multi-species living situation would work out. I worry about Lally figuring out that she can jump the gate, or the cats getting caught out exploring by one or both of my dogs. The ideal situation would be a "mother-in-law" style home, with two separate living areas and a shared yard. That way, the cats would have their side of the house and the dogs would have their side... and never the twain shall meet. I think that would be safest. I would hate to have one of the cats hurt because of my dogs. My second choice for a setup would be a two story place. We could block off the stairs with a baby gate, so the cats could be upstairs and the dogs could be downstairs. That would kind of require there to be a bedroom on the first floor for me, Moose, and Lally -- Moose can't handle stairs too well with his hip dysplasia anyway. We're looking around, keeping an eye out for something that would fit three people, two dogs, and two cats happily. I'm not willing to compromise the pets' safety for the sake of saving money. Learn more about Aimee Amodio  Aimee is a fiction writer... dog lover... music lover... Relevantpets tags User Comments No comments on this article yet. Be the first to comment! Community Tags cat behavior, dog behavior, moving, moving with pets, socialization Discuss this article
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