How can I make our Doberman puppy play gentler with our kitten??

Question

Our Doberman Puppy who is 12 weeks and 25lbs is playing WAY too ROUGH with my poor Kitten! Puffins (my kitten) is my baby and I love him!! I would die if the dog hurt him! He bites him too hard and gets him by the neck and stomach. I thought it would be good for them to grow up together but I am now worried about my poor kitty! How can I make them play better??

Answer 1

You can award the dog with a treat when he sees that cat so he see's the cat as a wonderful thing.  

Answer 2

That's funny, I'm having the exact same problem! My Doberman puppy won't leave the cat alone either. We've been trying to keep her away from the cat, but the cat comes running over whenever he sees the dog. As terrible as it looks, the dog isn't actually biting hard enough to hurt the cat. Try to keep your puppy calm when the cat is nearby. Make him sit or lay down and praise him for being good. If he goes after the cat, tell him "NO" and make him sit. It's important to be consistent, so don't confuse him by letting him play sometimes. Also, never leave them together unsupervised. Eventually the dog will learn to ignore the cat, or at least play more gently.

Answer 3

Puppies only learn to bite softly when they are taught this by other dogs and humans. A young kitten does not have the ability to reprimand your puppy, and can easily be hurt or killed by accident. Your puppy should only be allowed to play with your kitten while on a leash and supervised, and after exercising the pup to make sure he's good and tired. You cannot allow your puppy to roughhouse with the kitten like this. You will need to begin obedience training your pup right away to gain the control you will need in another six months to keep your kitten safe.

Answer 4

just a word of advice if you love the kitty either re home the dobie or re home the kitty.  i had two cats (about a year old) then got a doberman.  i thought there would be no problem since the cats were a bit older.  the doberman played too rough with the cats.  i ended up being able to re home one of the cats but the other one i wasn't able to give away.  one night i went to work and put the cat in her half of the house and left the dobie in the other half of the house.  when i came home the door that i thought i closed to separate the animals was open.  the doberman "played" with the cat and had played too rough.  my cat was dead.

i'm really sorry and i know that it sucks to have to get rid of one of your animals but it would be much better to get rid of one now that to have an incident like i did.  it was a horrible thing to walk in and see.

this incident happened when the doberman was around 2 years old.

Answer 5

I agree that you should socialize them, but you might want to wait until the kittens a little bigger. Or hold the kitten and let the puppy sniff it, just so they get to know each other. Puppies often do play rough with each other, but they're built for it. He probably just doesn't understand that his new playmate has to be treated differently.