Jazz vs cat...cat won

[KrisK]

Hello to everyone from cold and snowy N. Ontario.

 

My male BC, Jazz has never been able to get along with our two cats. While the other dogs have no problem with the cats...Jazz absolutely HATES them. We had hoped he would outgrow this...but he's 5 1/2 years old, so no such luck. While there have been a few altercations, none have ever drawn blood. The cats normally stay in the basement and none of the dogs are allowed down there. We are usually vigilant...so when the dogs come in from outside, we make sure the coast is clear of cats. Unfortunately, today, I saw one cat head for the basement and made the very STUPID assumption that the other cat was already there. WRONG!! Anyway, Jazz and Rex (the cat...her name is another story...) got into a fight. We managed to get Jazz outside so Rex could get to the basement. All appeared well and I didn't notice anything until I saw frozen drops of blood outside. Needless to say, I brought Jazz in and looked him over...Rex had managed to gash Jazz's ear. I cleaned it with hydrogen peroxide and left it....bad move...even though it appeared to have stopped bleeding for the time being, I guess it started again.. Dear boy, decided to give his head a good shake...and I was speckled in blood, along with my couch Anyway, I did put a bandage on it...looks funny, but seems to be working alright.

We are very thankful that it wasn't his eyes but his ear certainly bled alot. Is there anything in particular I should watch for regarding this type of wound? And is it possible he could have other wounds that may not have bled? What should I look for in that case?

Here's hoping we can keep the two apart....I sure don't want to have either of them hurt. BTW, since I'd be dreaming to think we won't have another episode sometime, if Jazz did manage to take hold of a cat...what's the best way to get it away from him? As I said, he HATES the cats...so 'leave it' or 'drop' likely wouldn't work.

Thanks!

[Carson Crazies]

Some of the others would be likely to give you some more thorough advice. I understand that you will want to watch for any red-puffiness, swelling, oozing, so on as that would indicate infection. IF it gets infected you will certainly need to head to the vet's. Personally, if my dog had a cut that was bleeding, stopped, then bled again I think I would be inclined to make a vet visit - just to be sure it did not need sutures. But then again I am new to small animal injuries.

 

You can also take a good look all over, just to check for any other wounds.

 

As for the leaving the cats, I really have no idea. My girls LOOOOOOOVE cats. *snorts* Bree probably was a cat in her former life.

[juliepoudrier]

Bandaging the ear is a good idea, no matter how funny it looks. My first dog was whacked by one of my mother's cats, and we didn't think anything of it as it wasn't a serious altercation, just a swipe by the cat. Later I turned around to find that the room looked like someone had stuck a pig. The cat had caught a vein in INdy's ear and like with Jazz, when he shook his head (because of the irritation of the cut) blood went everywhere. I did take him to the vet, and she just rebandaged it, but because of the head shaking,the bandage had to be replaced frequently--ears are not easy to keep bandaged.

 

Anyway, you might want to call your vet and see what s/he recommends. If you can't see any obvious injuries other than the ear, then there's not much you can do treatmentwise, but the vet may want to give a course of antibiotics to be on the safe side.

 

Go easy in the hydrogen peroxide--it's good for an initial cleaning, but repeated use can actually cause additional tissue damage. A triple antibiotic ointment would be better choice now that you have cleaned the wound.

 

As for what to do about the confrontations, perhaps you should place a gate on the room where the dogs enter the house (one of those walk-through baby gates would work and they are actually not ugly). Then if the cats do happen to be upstairs, the dogs would be blocked by the gate until you could usher the cats downstairs.

 

I hope Jazz never manages to really grab one of the cats. Frankly, I don't think I'd enjoy the sight of my dog killing my cat, and I hate to say it, but if my dog ever did such a thing, it most certainly wouldn't enjoy the consequences of the attack on one of my cats either.

 

J.

[kajarrel]

Frankly, I don't think I'd enjoy the sight of my dog killing my cat, and I hate to say it, but if my dog ever did such a thing, it wouldn't most certainly wouldn't enjoy the consequences of the attack on one of my cats either.

These were my thoughts exactly, Julie. I think this is something that you can't be laissez-faire about because cats can be (are) killed by dogs. A couple months ago I drove by a house that has some kind of hunting dog contained within an electric fence. The dog was outside the fence running around in the road, trying to get back to its house, with a dead cat flopping around in its mouth. The cat had a collar on, so it was obviously not a stray. I was upset for days after that. My dogs are not allowed to run after the cats, period. The cats are relatively tiny and although they seem to get along well with my dogs they could be seriously hurt, even during play.

 

Regarding your dog's ear, Kris. The bleeding was probably helpful in preventing infection. Cat scratch fever is a real ailment. Cat scratches tend to become infected, as anyone who's had a cat in a fight knows. I'd clean the wound well, apply topical antibiotic and watch carefully.

 

Kim

[KrisK]

Thanks Julie and Kim

 

Believe me when I say we do our utmost to keep our cats safe from Jazz. We would both be devastated if anything were to happen to them. At night, both the BC's are secured in their own room with a baby gate across the door so the cats have free rein in the house after the dogs go to bed. We also live in a very rural area (160 acres), with a fenced area for the dogs when they are out unsupervised (cats are strictly indoor cats btw) and when we do go off into the fields, there are no cats in the area that I've ever seen. Now, when we lived in the city (only 4 months ago!!), Jazz often was walked by cats outside...usually he just looked at them..maybe pulled on his leash a bit, but that was it. It seems he just HATES our cats so it could be a dominance issue with them.

I'll be sure to watch for any signs of infection with his ear but so far it's looking clean.

Thanks again