If you have both cats and dogs in your family and are having trouble getting the two comfortable living in the same house, this article, together with last week's article on Friends and Foes will hopefully help bring calm and contentment back into your home. To continue from last week:
6. Let them smell each other, from a distance. Bring a shirt or towel with your dog's smell on it to the cat and place in near the cat's bed or somewhere around its area. And do the same with the cat - use a towel or blanket with your cat's odor on it and bring it to the dog's area. Then also rub the item from the dog on the cat and the item from the cat on the dog, to get the other pet's smell on them. Once they have been around the other's scent for awhile, it won't seem like you are introducing each of them to a stranger.
7. Make sure your cat's litter box is in a private area, away from the dog.
8. Be sure to trim your cat's claws, which can seriously injure your dog if the cat feels threatened. DO NOT ever declaw your cat - it is a painful experience for the cat and your cat will feel completely defenseless around the dog.
9. Your dog and cat should also have their own eating areas. Your dog will most likely want to eat the cat's food so for this reason alone their food should be separate (your dog will eat more than its share and gain unwanted weight and your cat will be hungry all the time.)
10. Let the pair figure out for themselves if they want to be friends. You really can't force anything between them.
Hopefully having dogs and cats in your home will result in a harmonic atmosphere for all concerned. If the dog or cat is stressed around the other all the time, perhaps finding one of them another home is the only and best solution.
(This article was excerpted from an article at animalplanet.com)