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Girlfriend Would Like A Dog
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19-09-2010 8:05am#1
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1. Will the cat be able to live with the dog and vice versa
No guarantees. If you get a young kitten and a young pup and they grow up together, they can be great friends - but your first 18 months is all about training and socialising your two animals. As an adult cat, your cat may never adjust to the dog, small breed or otherwise. It all depends on the individual personalities of the two animals involved.
2. Will the dog accept that he might not be let out to use the toilet during the day if there is no one in the house.
No. As a puppy, the dog cannot physically hold his bladder or his bowel for a long period of time. You will simply have to accept that you need to clean up the messes. If the dog becomes used to toiletting in an enclosed, easy to clean space, he may not adjust to being toilet trained - he may not be able to tell the difference enough to yip to be allowed out to toilet when you're home, and simply letting his bladder and bowels go when he's home alone. Dogs do have a natural desire to be clean as they grow older, but that's a lot of poo and pee cleaning in the interim.
3. Will the dog wake you at 6am on a Saturday because he wants a walk
Dog. Fur, teeth, four legs, waggly tail.
Alarm clock; plugs in, has snooze button, LED display shows time in the dark.
Use the latter to wake you up to take the former for a walk. Be prepared, as a pup he could whinge and have you up nearly all night for at least the first two weeks.
4. We live in a ground floor apartment, but we have no garden, so there isn't somewhere the dog can go for the day and I certainly wouldn't have him roaming the streets - I'm confident we would be committed to walking him daily, at least once, and perhaps twice on weekends...but, and I'm just being honest, can some breeds of dog live like that?
Plenty of dogs live like that, but it's not the best thing for them. A puppy needs to be brought outdoors to urinate at least after playing, eating, drinking and on waking, plus once an hour every hour at least during toilet training phase. That's a lot of wee to go... where? The public pavement? It would be fair from a civic duty point of view for you to have a scrub brush and bucket to rinse all that away from the get go. Then there are the poos - you'll need to pick those up and bin them. You can't have them on the pavement outside your house.
The questions on temperment, age, situation, so on - they fall into second place here for once, behind one major concern: you don't have the facilities for a dog, even a small dog.
An adult dog may take some time to adjust to your adult cat - how will you segregate them in your flat while you're not home? What happens if the cat becomes very unsettled by the presence of the dog and begins to spray urine in an anxious attempt to mark territory? Then you'll have a flat that smells of both dog pee and cat pee.
Does your body corporate or flat management agency allow dogs?
One walk a day, plus some company if you're not busy being social, isn't ideal for a dog, even a small dog. What happens if you want to go away overnight or on holidays for a weekend? You can't leave the dog on its own - who will look after it? When you're used to a cat, which is a pet that can be left alone overnight with a supply of dry food until you come back the next day because it uses an indoor litter tray, a dog is a big change.
Plus, puppies - and bored dogs - are destructive. Don't underestimate it. In the last 48 hours, my five month old bull arab has eaten two plant pots, dug up the termite-proofing around the end of the house, chewed his way through the surround-sound speakers cord, and just in the last hour he unrolled a 50m roll of weed matting in the back yard and then sat proudly of the middle of it (after watching us weed matting earlier he apparently wanted in on the act). And my dog isn't a 'bold dog' by any means.
You can't take your frickin eyes off them for a second - seriously!
If you guys would like to spend some time with some dogs, volunteer as dog walkers at your local shelter. You can do a few hours, you don't have to commit to anything - and you'll get your fill of cleaning up poos and wees and walking dogs and you'll get cuddles and licks aplenty. On the face of it, this doesn't like the right time for you guys to adopt a dog yourselves because your circumstances don't fit.0 -
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1. Will the cat be able to live with the dog and vice versa
I'd say probably. If you get a quite calm dog. When I first got a dog, the adult cats took a little while to adjust but they did adjust. I just got a puppy and my old cranky cat accepts her, she scratches her if she annoys her, but they usually do get along, in my experience. Your cat might be scared if she's never known dogs, or might be annoyed by the dog, but will probably get used to it.
2. Will the dog accept that he might not be let out to use the toilet during the day if there is no one in the house.
If it's a puppy then it has to get out loads. But an adult dog would probably be fine if you take it out in the morning, then again after work, and maybe just before bed. It doesn't have to be a proper walk all those times, but just for a few minutes to use the toilet.
3. Will the dog wake you at 6am on a Saturday because he wants a walk
He'd probably have to go for his walk at the same time every day, cos he wouldn't know it's the weekend.
4. We live in a ground floor apartment, but we have no garden, so there isn't somewhere the dog can go for the day and I certainly wouldn't have him roaming the streets - I'm confident we would be committed to walking him daily, at least once, and perhaps twice on weekends...but, and I'm just being honest, can some breeds of dog live like that?
Lots of dogs live like that and are perfectly happy. Or lots of dogs live in houses and spend most of the day inside. I think it depends on the dog you get too. If you get a calm little dog, that isn't too active, that'd probably suit it well.
Any advice people can give me - as I was going to get a dog from a shelter as opposed to a puppy - would be great. Maybe breeds I should look for, temperament, age, situation etc
A small dog anyway, something like a cavalier, or a bichon, well it might be hard to find them in shelters actually. I think just any small dog, a mixed breed or something, but one that's quite calm and placid so that it'll get on with the cat and will be ok with being indoors most of the time. Doesn't really matter what age, but the older it is, the quieter it might be. Though you might find a young one that's very laid back. I think if you just go look for dogs, and explain what you want to the shelter, then you'll find one to suit you. You might even be able to find one that is already used to cats.
If ye really want a dog then go for it, just be aware that it will need lots of attention, and it's a commitment, like you can't just away for night or anything, without thinking of what to do with the dog.0 -
1. Will the cat be able to live with the dog and vice versa
Depends on the cat and the dog either way they should never be left alone together unsupervised
2. Will the dog accept that he might not be let out to use the toilet during the day if there is no one in the house.
It's unreasonable to expect a puppy to be able to do this, it would also take an older dog a period of time to settle in and adjust to this, also you have nowhere to let it out to go to in any case, if there is someone home or not.
3. Will the dog wake you at 6am on a Saturday because he wants a walk
This is one of your main concerns?
4. We live in a ground floor apartment, but we have no garden, so there isn't somewhere the dog can go for the day and I certainly wouldn't have him roaming the streets - I'm confident we would be committed to walking him daily, at least once, and perhaps twice on weekends...but, and I'm just being honest, can some breeds of dog live like that?
Yes they can no problem if there is someone home with them or at least another dog for company, at the very least though you need to have somewhere where the dog can go to the toilet that isn't on the public street and it seems in this case you can't.
Any advice people can give me - as I was going to get a dog from a shelter as opposed to a puppy - would be great. Maybe breeds I should look for, temperament, age, situation etc
The vast majority of small and toy breeds (which in all honesty is all you have space for) were bred as companion dogs, meaning as well as being bred to provide companionship they completely demand and need it themselves, a breed like this should never go to a home where it will be left alone. I don't think any shelter would let a dog go to someone in your circumstances tbh.
+ everything Sweeper has said0 -
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As someone who has a dog in an apartment (well somewhere with no garden anyway), I can tell you that taking on a puppy in that environment would be a special kind of commitment because of the issue of peeing and crapping everywhere.The Sweeper wrote: »Plenty of dogs live like that, but it's not the best thing for them. A puppy needs to be brought outdoors to urinate at least after playing, eating, drinking and on waking, plus once an hour every hour at least during toilet training phase. That's a lot of wee to go... where? The public pavement? It would be fair from a civic duty point of view for you to have a scrub brush and bucket to rinse all that away from the get go. Then there are the poos - you'll need to pick those up and bin them. You can't have them on the pavement outside your house.
We took on a dog who wasn't a pup, more an older teenager, but had lived her entire life outdoors. So for her, the world was her toilet. She was generally toilet trained in that she preferred to pee outside, but if she felt the urge she would often just hunker down and pee on the carpet, and a couple of times she peed in her bed, which is of course very odd. That went on for about 6 weeks - there'd be a new patch somewhere every second day. Even that was pretty draining. I can't imagine having a pup who pees and craps six times a day in the house.
Toilet training takes that bit longer because you need to be prepared. In a normal house, when the dog pees inside, you can throw it into the back garden while you clean up and it cops on pretty quickly. In an apartment when the dog pees, you have to clean it up and then go out for a walk, boots and jacket, whether it's raining or not.
No, it's not impossible and any dog will be fine living inside but as Sweeper says, you have to be prepared. The dog has injected a good deal of routine into our lives. General rule is that when we come home after being out for any significant period of time (> 2 hours), the dog has to be brought out for a walk. She pees in the shubbery in the estate and her crap goes into the bins. She will often just sleep instead of asking to go out, so we can never say, "Ah she's not asking, she's fine". If it's been 3 or 4 hours since she was out last, then you've to stick your jacket and boots on, lead on the dog and out you go. Neighbours have even commented that she's the "most walked dog in the world", they must think me and the wife are fighting all the time
However, she does alert us in the morning. If she's woken up and needs to pee, she'll start yelping because she's gotten used to being brought out as soon as she wakes up. So that gets us up too - but only because she's used to it. If that wasn't her routine (or we missed it) she would just pee on the floor (or in her bed).
It sounds like a pain in the ass, but it's not really (and she's worth it). Except for her main walk, it's a 5/10 minute stroll around the local area, 4 or 5 times per day.0 -
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