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HELLO pet owners and friends! I have an issue. His name is Javier.  Javier is the chihuahua mix (pound puppy, no clue what he is but he's big for a chihuahua - 14 lbs) and he's there with his brother, Mouse (St. Bernard / Border Collie mix we assume, adopted him through the Illinois St. Bernard Rescue). Javier is ~5, Mouse is 4. Anyhow, Javier and Mouse also have three cat roommates. These cats are all old as gently caress and ornery as poo poo. They're 14, 14 and 15. We have to give them a safe space away from the dogs because, while they are way down with their bro Javi, Mouse's border collie instincits are insatiable and he's obsessed with herding the cats, which they don't enjoy I'm pretty sure. Ever seen a 100 lb dog who thinks they're a 40 lb sheep dog? Its loving obnoxious. Jesus christ Mouse CALM THE gently caress DOWN OR I'M PUTTING ON YOUR THUNDERSHIRT. Errr, I digress. Back to the issue at hand. The way that we've given the cats a safe space away from the dogs is by putting a baby gate at the top of the stairs (pretty decent sized house) to only allow the cats up there. Now, this was a perfect solution to keep Mouse away from the cats' food, litter boxes, etc, but then we foster failed on a dog that's just as small as the cats. So the babygate isn't really working anymore because after a year Javier has realized that he can force himself through the slats of the baby gate, and unless we're keeping a loving hawk eye on him, Javier has started to slink up there and eat all of the cats' food and washing it down with a few hershey bars from the litter box. For the past week, no matter how much attention I'm trying to pay, he's getting up there and, subsequently, he's making GBS threads water and crying all night. I like to nap so I can't keep an eye on him all day. We crate him at night because I'm pretty sure he'd find some hilarious way to kill himself the first night we let him out. We can't block the cats off COMPLETELY because the cats are not only old, but one has two torn ACLs and the other has gimpy legs from being hit by a car. twice. (before our college friends dumped the cats on us, they were outdoor cats). I'm looking for ideas on how to keep a small dog away from the upstairs while still allowing the cats to roam freely throughout the house. TLDR Was using a baby gate to keep the dogs away from the cats food and litter boxes, but its not working anymore. Can't completely block the stairs off but need to find a way to let the cats through, but not a cat-sized dog. Help me PI!!!!
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Jun 28, 2016 16:30
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 21:12 |
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You have more parameters to your problem than my first solution would solve. I had an 18 yo cat and a sprightly 5 yo dog. I also put up a baby gate to the cats food and litterbox area. The dog was jumping over the gate..that little dickens. I ended up putting the food out of reach of the dog on the dryer. The cat could still get up there..but the dog could not. This didn't solve the tootsie roll dilemma, but it did give our old and incontinent cat the illusion of not being so old and incontinent so we lived with it. It sounds to me like you are ready for our solution B. This is what we would have done had our cat lived to be 19 and couldn't get up on the dryer anymore: http://www.petsafe.net/doors/electronic-doors the ole' cat ez pass on the collar. instead of a babygate just put up a wall with a door only the cats can get through. boom bada bing. 'spendy I'm sure...but what price sanity?
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Jun 28, 2016 16:49
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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang posted:It sounds to me like you are ready for our solution B. This is what we would have done had our cat lived to be 19 and couldn't get up on the dryer anymore: http://www.petsafe.net/doors/electronic-doors the ole' cat ez pass on the collar. instead of a babygate just put up a wall with a door only the cats can get through. boom bada bing. 'spendy I'm sure...but what price sanity? Holy poo poo this is amazing. We'll have to figure out a way to rig up some kind of 'door' to the stairs (~open concept~ floor plan) but this might work perfectly. Spendy, but good god, but compared to the amount of money we spend in vet bills (loool cat needs his spleen removed? sure! oh, male cats get their stupid urethras filled with crystals? no problem! credit card!) its not bad at all.
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Jun 28, 2016 17:03
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Can't you just find a new baby gate that he can't squeeze through? Edit: Missed the bit about the old cats. I'm used to cats just jumping the gently caress over anything in their way. EVG fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Jul 4, 2016 |
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Jul 4, 2016 15:55
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Call of Cholula posted:Holy poo poo this is amazing. We'll have to figure out a way to rig up some kind of 'door' to the stairs (~open concept~ floor plan) but this might work perfectly. Spendy, but good god, but compared to the amount of money we spend in vet bills (loool cat needs his spleen removed? sure! oh, male cats get their stupid urethras filled with crystals? no problem! credit card!) its not bad at all. A plywood(or some other preferred wood) gate would work pretty well and would be simple to make a cheap(posts for each side, plywood, hinges, latch) and then you don't have to worry about cutting a hole in a real door.
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Jul 25, 2016 18:21
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