Post Your Pets

My mischievous but normally charming jack russell can not help himself when he sees a cat to chase. Pretty normal behaviour for this breed and usually, well always until now, the cat outwits him with ease.

Tonight he caught a cat in the garden and really got a hold of it. I heard the comotion and pulled the dog off the cat. The cat was in a bad way, no blood but in shock big time and not moving. Called the RSPCA then got a call from the local vet and took the cat to the surgery.

The cat's back legs were paralysed and one of them was broken. It had no microchip so I had to sign the consent form for it to be euthanised. Dark times.

My wife is pregnant with our first child and now feels she could not trust him with a baby in the house so wants to try to rehome him. I think he'll be cool, he knows the difference between a human infant and a prey animal but it's a hell of a call to make if it's the wrong one. :(

In my expreience there's no correlation between a dog's aggression to other animals and how it will be with children. My dog, in the avatar, hated bigger dogs with a passion and needed careful handling around them. He would go for squirrels and foxes like a demented thing (ironically he was cool with cats, but he grew up with them). We had three babies, the first when the dog was 8, and he was fantastic with all of them, with not one moment of aggression.

But you need to do all the usual stuff. Introduce the dog carefully to the baby when you're ready to do that, never leave them alone together, be extra careful around food, etc...but you probably know all of this. If you do it right, it's great for kids to grow up with a dog.