Our first chow was named So Long Achoo but we called
him Chu & he was a cat hater. We use to tie him out on a run in the backyard
& the neighbor's cat would come by & torment him on a daily basis
since she had learned where his lead stopped. But one day she misjudged the
distance & Chu grabbed her & shook her. I yelled at him & he let
her go but the damage had already been done. Thankfully after extensive surgery
& a big vet bill she was ok. But, I decided I was going to teach him to
get along with cats.
I got a small kitten and made sure she was well protected from Chu---kept
her in a large crate in another room. Little by little I would allow Chu to
sniff the crate & look at the kitten. He would try to paw at the crate
& I would give him a firm 'NO! Be Nice Boy!' I started to bring the crate
into the kitchen when I was doing things there as Chu was my shadow. He would
be right there sniffing, crying & laying in front of the crate staring
at the kitten. The kitten would play cuff at him. On and on this went for
some time.
Then, I started to bring the kitten out of the crate in another room so he
could see me handling her through the child gates. After a few days of this
he stopped whining with envy. Next, I started to sit with the kitten in my
arms high enough up so Chu could not reach her & I could easily stand
up should he get crazy. I held the kitten over his head & let him sniff
her, always telling him 'Good boy', 'Everybody be nice' and 'Everybody be
friends' in the softest tones I could use. Then, I moved the kitten to my
lap & worked her down to the floor gradually--always ready to grab her
up if Chu should turn on her. They started to play & soon became best
of friends! Chu would look for Tigger (the kitten) when he was going out to
play. They ate, slept & played together endlessly.
Sometime later I had purchased a new safety collar for Chu. It broke open
and Chu ran out into the road & was hit by a car and killed. We searched
for him & finally found him in the neighbor's yard where he had died.
We brought him home wrapped in a blanket & that darn cat climbed right
into the car to see her friend. She meowed, rubbed up against him & batted
at him. Finally she settled into laying on the blanket with her friend. We
allowed her to do this while we dug Chu's grave in our yard. After we buried
Chu, Tigger climbed up the cherry tree over his grave & sat there for
2 weeks. She would not eat or drink or climb down. We tried everything to
get her down but she would not leave her friend. She eventually did come down---
but then exactly one year to the day Chu died Tigger was hit by a car and
died in the same spot as Chu. You can never tell me that animals do not love
each other or grieve the loss of another animal.
Joyce