Cat is now afraid of "her" dogs

[kittispeaks]

It's a long story and I won't go into it - suffice to say my poor kitty was attacked by another/new/different dog (not ours). She got veterinary attention and luckily has no major injuries (though she did lose all of her claws in the fight and was bandaged and coned for two days). We have two large dogs and have been keeping them separate to give the cat some space to heal. However, she's now, understandably, scared of our dogs.

And I was just wondering if anyone had any advice or similar experience. I mainly want to know if she might recover and become more comfortable around the dogs again (she used to cuddle and play with them regularly) or if keeping them separated may have to become a permanent thing as sad as it would be.

Thanks!

[marko]

Hi Kittispeaks and welcome to the forum,

If other dogs freaked your cat out, I'd suggest that the cat will (re)come around to the home's resident doogers eventually. But I think a short healing separation is a good idea.

Be curious to hear what other members suggest in this case.

Good luck!

[Barkingdog]

Is your cat still able to jump up onto anything to get away from her dogs when she want a break ? If yes I would try to set up something so she can escape when she feel the need to. If you can I would let the cat and dogs work it only if this a safe thing to do.

[kittispeaks]

Sounds good - I was hoping for some confirmation that maybe she'd come around eventually.

She's able to jump, but she lost most of her claws and did some damage to her feets, so she's a bit wobbly. She doesn't quite have her full range of kitty powers at the moment and on top of it she's blind (unrelated - her whole litter had feline herpes so we got her that way from the rescue) so we tend to be a bit more cautious when it comes to her feeling insecure or not safe.

Right now she's pretty much hiding in the couch any time the dogs are in the house... we've got the gate for now and I think at least for the next few days we'll let her choose her moment to investigate the dogs. I also called the vet and left a message - will report on any advice we're given.

I considered crating the big dog (lab mixed with who knows, GSP, Weim, whatever) and enticing her out with some fish or wet food but don't want to push her or over-stress her as that will only set us back.

Thanks for all the advice - I'm interested to hear what others might have to say as well. Just want to transition her as smoothly and stresslessly (not a word I know) as possible.

[Barkingdog]

I took in a female cat and had her spayed and when my male cat tried to bug her she ran over to the vacuum cleaner and sat right on top it b/c she knew the male cat was afraid of the vacuum cleaner . So I left the vacuum cleaner out until my cat was all healed . I thought that was very smart of her to realize my male hated the vacuum cleaner . Animals are good at looking out for their self.

[Haymen]

What If you bring a new puppy to your house?

[kittispeaks]

Originally Posted by Haymen

What If you bring a new puppy to your house?

Not sure I understand what you mean there? We've had new dogs in the house before and she's fine, this is all due to the attack (and she's currently defenseless since she lost all of her claws). I'm sure half our problem right now is that we're feeling uber-guilty at not preventing the incident in the first place, but we especially don't want to make her feel insecure or unsafe in any way right now.

[Barkingdog]

Will she be able to grow her claws backs or are they permanently damages ?

[kittispeaks]

Originally Posted by Barkingdog

Will she be able to grow her claws backs or are they permanently damages ?

She should grow most of them back. For the most part she just shredded them down to the quick but she tore several off completely at the quick. Those may or may not grow back (as far as I know) but I'm pretty confident she'll have all her pointy bits once more. (The emergency vet didn't say anything about permanent damage - the theme of the night was more of how damned lucky she was since she had no damage to the neck other than minor abrasion and puncture wounds where the dog had her. Which I can't think about too much.)