Boot is way more interested in Rita than Rita is in Boots. He spends a lot of time sitting at the edge of the “fence” looking at her. Every now and then, she’ll come over to the the fence and they sniff each other but he doesn’t hiss and she doesn’t growl.
They might would be friends but he doesn’t get to go into the kitchen/breakfast area and she doesn’t get to go onto the carpet so . . the great fence separates them.
Boots could go over it easily. One day he did and he almost knocked it over. That, and me screaming I think made him afraid to try it again. Once Rita was at my uncle’s and I wasn’t expecting Rita to be mean to his dogs because she and Speck always got along but the minute one of his dogs walked into the room, Rita was on full attack mode and there was a brief dog fight.
As Vince said . . Rita has few teeth and Boots has no front claws so . . let ’em do it! But there’s the issue keeping Rita off the carpet and keeping Boots and his cat hair out of the kitchen so . . they can just visit through the fence.
Rita is fairly trustworthy on the carpet but all it takes is once and with new carpet, I am not willing to risk it. There’s also the stairs and having to keep them blocked off is a pain. There isn’t really a good way to attach a gate at the top of the stairs and what we have is just a folding gate and, with Boots’ litter box downstairs, I don’t want to make it hard for him to go down there.
Martha says
For a barrier at the top of the stairs there is baby fence that has a cloth wrap around for the wooden post that my daughter used. I don’t know the brand as it has been awhile. You are such a good fur parent that you are attentive as to where they are but I know they can escape your eye. We always had dogs but in recent years acquired cats that we adore too.