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Katie1, not sure I understand you concern about Taffy killing rats, but to address your comment, it is something she just started doing, not something I trained her to do. She is a sight hound terrier mix, so killing rodents isn't a completely unpredictable trait - nor a bad one IMO.
Most of the neighbors have infants or toddlers, so a mice and rat infestation is a health issue here as well as a child safety issue. Both requests to borrow my dog came from neighbors with infants, because their bait traps and glue traps are not effective enough, and the mice and rats are now not only in the yard, but into their houses as well.
This is the background context of what happened, not the point of the thread, but without context, most posters would be unable to provide any relevant or helpful insight.
I was surprised and upset she killed a kitten, because she has been killing rats and mice for a while now, but plays with the local cats, and seems to enjoy them. So the fact that she killed a kitten did catch me off guard, just like I would not expect her to kill a small dog.
The point of the post was to get some feedback about how careful I need to be with Taffy interacting with cats because of the incident, and several of the posts have been helpful to me in that regard.
But they never tried to stop her! And Now Bragging the neighbors want to use her to kill their rats also.
There are plenty of hunting dogs that kill selectively. Heck, my now-deceased border collie was a threat to EVERYTHING nonhuman (and many humans) that entered his yard before he came to live with me. Possums, squirrels, etc. were all disposed of. When I brought him into the house, he snuggled with my one cat and deliberately refrained from harming the other one when IT attacked HIM.
A feral kitten smells and acts "wild" - so it would fall more into the rat category rather than the cat category, especially if the dog was in "hunt" mode at the time it encountered the kitten.
Like I said before, this is likely all about context. I think the dog will be fine (though this should be confirmed) around domesticated cats that do not behave like prey, but she needs to be watched around anything that exhibits mainly "wild" behaviors.
I think it is difficult to establish with a dog what is okay to kill and what is not okay to kill. If they kill rats and squirrels, etc. can't be too surprised when they kill cats, or chickens, or other larger animals such as goats or calves. They get the taste of the blood and like the sporting aspect of it as they are instinctively hunting. We had a Heeler that killed a couple of chickens and got her stopped on it and she never killed anything after that, which was good. Had a neighbor who had some feral cats and a couple of dogs running killed all of them over 2 nights. I would not trust the dog around cats, or other animals. Would certainly not let it run loose.
Your dog goes into "garages"....Is this dog loose throughout the neighborhood? I think your dog would kill another kitten....it was not mistaken identity....
If your dog has a high prey drive, don't get a cat. Our English Bulldog is not great with cats but it's more a function of his dominant personality. He thinks he rules the house. If the cats run, he will chase them. We had one cat who didn't run and he would come right up to her and sniff her, while flinching (because she would smack him). I don't think he really wants to catch them but for the cats' sake and for his (he's gotten a few claws in his face), we keep them separated. We have a large house so it's not a big problem. If we didn't have our EB and were looking to get another dog, I would never get a terrier mix, being as we have four cats it would be just asking for trouble.
Hopes - we are the end of the neighborhood, and have undeveloped raw land behind us, so I think the mice and rats are seeking water, although, I agree, there must be a feral cat feeding location somewhere in the immediate area that serves the cat, mouse, rat, and mongoose populations.
Most of the houses have bait traps (Terminix serviced), but we do seem to have a spring rodent population problem every year. Even with the traps, two neighbors have asked to borrow Taffy for their back yards for a couple of days!
It seems obvious the cats are there feeding on the mice and rats. The mice and rats are likely there because of fruit trees, or some other food source to do with the land....you did say Hawaii? My niece lived in the mountains there....and had papaya trees galore....Hope things work out. But, clearly your dog has lost it's inhibition to bite....since you have allowed him/her to hunt like this. Hard to unring that bell.
I have a rescue mix who is a great dog. We have had a rat and mouse infestation in the neighborhood, but she hunts them in a certain portion of our backyard that includes a fern garden hiding a storm drain. So far she has killed more than a dozen rats and mice, and we are the only home in the neighborhood without mice and rats in the home. So far, so good.
Yesterday a feral kitten (we have a huge feral cat population/problem - and they don't seem to eat mice!) came out of the drain and Taffy caught, and killed the kitten in a lightening quick grab and shake from under the ferns. This was the first we knew about the kittens. It was an all grey kitten, slightly larger (but not by much) than the last couple of rats she has caught and killed. My wife believes there are two more kittens living in the drain - and we have had a mid sized cat in the yard in the evenings (I know all the pet cats, this one is feral) that I supect may be the mother.
Taffy does chase cats in play, but she also play bows and interacts with the neighbor hood cats, goes into garages and sniffs them and leaves, and in general behaves like a dog raised around cats. I have never before seen her interact in a way indicating she thinks cats are prey, and I supect she was attacking a "rat" from her perspective.
We had hoped to add a cat to our managerie in the next year, but are obviously rethinking that plan.
How careful do I need to be going forward, or was this a case of mistaken identity (cat for rat)? Several of the neighbor cats play with and interact with her when she is walking on leash, do I need to discourge the cats from coming over to her?
Appriciate your thoughts and suggestions for how to deal with this going forward.
My boy has a very high prey drive and he has, in the past, chased the cats. He apparently terrified one, one day. I had no idea because I got the hoodlum dogs when they were three months old and the cats were either the same size, or bigger than them. But I came home one day to a cat hiding under the kitchen table, obviously frightened, and she still had a nice slobber line around her where the dog mouthed her. (He does not bite down, he mouths live animals...he caught a duck one time, and carried it a good 300 yards. He never harmed the duck. When I told him to drop it, he did, and the duck got up and waddled off...)
Anyway, it is possible to train them to leave the cats alone, but like someone mentioned, if the dog normally has a high prey drive, then yes, you want to make sure cat and dog are separated when you are not home, OR, that cat has an easy access to escape that the dog cannot get to, when you are not there.
The cats will still go around the boy, they still rub on his face, and sometimes, he still gets swatted. He's not out to attack; to him it's play. He just doesn't seem to realize how much bigger and stronger he is, and that while he thinks it's great fun, the cats don't always want to play chase.
Now, if there's a cat that is NOT part of this home...that's when things change.
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