I need some serious help! And no, its not that  I am a lunatic or insane!

I have just reently gotten a female RT puppy, as some of you might know. Prior to her arrival, I had a Turkish Van Cat and knowing that the cat dosn't like dogs, I have had a friend to keep Split( my cat) until the puppy is settled in with me and the rest of my gang. Now I know the puppy has been raised around cats, the breeder has like 3 but this cat somehow LOATHES dogs!

My other RTs have encountered the cat and it wasn't pretty( I got the cat after the bigger RTs went outside and somehow, the cat escaped out of the window) And that experience changed their outlook on cats.....as I have said, they have been raised with cats but Split changed that! Now that chase anycat within a miles radius! I eventually had to give away a Norweign Forest kitten away because of their antics.

My friend has to leave and don't won't to leave Split by herself and so in two days I will be getting Split back.I have my puppy indoors because she is too small for all the time outdoors and so now I have a dilema on my hands.

I don't want to confine the cat to just one room, or the puppy. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? How do I approach this?

again, I am afraid of cats, so you don't want my answer.  Good Luck, though.

I don't dislike cats, I'm just afraid of them.  Nothing happened to me, I just have bad memories from childhood.  A neighbor had a bunch of cats and they would always fight...there would be screaming and blood from the cats.  And if ya know me, I HATE fighting and I hate blood...so I feel the same way about boxing as I do cats.  Now if it's a house cat that has been de-clawed (I don't know if that's a word) and it doesn't look at me like a piece of tuna fish, then we're fine. 

I can't believe you overcame the pit bull situation.  You must be very strong emotionally to be able to deal with that!

Oh. My aunt is allergic to cats and I've a funny story to tell bout that. She was a big time animal lover when she was youngers, she says. One day when she was about 8 or 9, she and my mother, came upon a black and white "kitten" and suprisely this "kitten" didn't make her sneeze! So she took it home to show Papa and Mama her new "kitten". Only Papa and Mama were suprised and quickly grabed the "kitten" out of her hands. She started to cry and said " I want my KITTEN!" . Papa and Mama explained to her that it wasn't a kitten....it was a SKUNK! She had found a skunk kit! They took it up to a vet and had it descented( did you know that some people keep skunks as pets, only they descent them, and in most states its harder to keep a skunk as a pet, harder then keeping a ferret?).

My cat isn't declawed( yes, its a word) but I do keep her nails trimed( by the vet, not me). My cousin who don't like cats, actually like her! I think the only reason I overcame the pitbull situration is because for one I was so young, and two, I loved animals soo much before it .

Sadly, I do know of some people who were young that were attacked by a dog, it were my cousins, Katrina and Briana. Just recently I have posted a picture of Katrina because she got stung in the mouth by a bee. It happened on Halloween night and they with their parents were trick or treating and a large dog( don't know the breed, cuz I wasn't there) came crashing through a screen door of a house and attacked both girls. Katrina was 4 and Briana 2. Both haven't really recovered from the attack, though they are making progress.

Both girls LOVE my Rat terriers, especially the puppy! They are fine with my small dogs( 3 rts and one westie) but don't have anything to do with my Newfoundland,Sirius, not yet anyway. We are slowly working on that. They, as of now, admire him from afar, him in fence, them outside of fence.

That is funny about the skunk!  Did they keep it?

Yeah, if I'm in a house with cats and if you swear to me that the cat is nice, then I'm ok.  It's the cats that spring at you like fresh meat that I'm afraid of.  The claws, the teeth, akkk.  And the furballs, the furballs upset me as well. 

I hope your cousins overcome their dog trauma as well as you did. 

Get a training crate; they have pull out trays, making cleaning easier.

How big is your baby? I was just investigating crates on amazon. We got one a few years ago for $35, including shipping. I saw a place, just yesterday,  where you get pretty much the same thing from ferret.com.

The crate costs $18.99, plus shipping.  www.ferret.com/itemdy00.asp

Thanks, joyluvsratties

Yes, they did end up keeping the Skunk and guess what she named it? Kitty!  She had it well into her teens, I forget what age she was that it died. I know it live at least a good ten years. I feed Split Iams, as was recomended by the vet, I had her on Science Diet but the vet said that she would be best on Iams. I have some stuff that I give her for the furball and some kitty breath mints!

I hope that they get over the dog trauma as well. Katrina was the first to let one of my RTs close to her. Up until about a year ago, she didn't like any dogs near her. Then on Fourth of July( of 2006) I had my Bambi with me, and he was sitting next to me, watching the display and Katrina sat warily on the other side of him and began tenatively petting him. Bambi didn't do anything, didn't move closer to her or anything. And so she began petting him eagerly. All this time, he sat still as a rock, facing forward. Gradually, after that fist petting, she got closer to Bambi and eventually ran up to him on sight! She was ;probably more devesated then me when Bambi was stolen, she loved that dog dearly, I was on the verge of giving him to her for a christmas present because a kid would be good for a dog! Sadly, he was never recovered. Anyway, when I got my other RTs, they reminded her of Bambi and her favorite RT of now, is of course, my new puppy!

Briana really didn't get over her shyness of dogs until I got my puppy about a week ago. Now she approaches my other RTs and westie, they just love my RTs but Briana's favorite other then the puppy, is Jt(my westie). So hopefully with a little help from everyone(the family is doing their best) and my dogs, maybe they will get over their fear!