I have 3 cats, 2 dogs and a small house with no mud room, basement, hallways, separating doors, or dog or cat proof room. Yes, I know it wasn’t very good planning on my part. I am married and my husband goes to work, while I stay home.
I am a novice dog owner and even more novice at keeping cats as well. My bull breed mix is 80-100 pounds and is almost 2, and my rat terrier chihuahua mix is 9 months. Two of the cats are almost 2, and the senior one is 12.
I need help because it is icy and snowing with snow on the ground, and my dogs can no longer stay outside and wait for me to get to them. They’re unhappy inside their crates, and my eventual goal is to have them roam around the house with no issues with peeing or pooping, no issues of running around everywhere, and no issues of them bothering the cats because my husband doesn’t like it.
I can successfully keep them reasonably calm in the living room while I’m there, and I can get a glass of water or something from the kitchen if I tell them to stay. But issues of them just loose without me looking at both of them is that they will get into things and chew or eat them (stuffed pillows or other stuffed things, garbage, etc), eat cat poop, pee, or jump on the mattresses, which my husband doesn’t like.
The winter is much worse than last year, and keeping track of 5 pets is just so much. If they dogs and cats would get along somehow, I think that would help a lot. I just don’t know what to do concerning the litterbox, because my bull breed mix is very adamant about eating stuff from there unless I change it constantly. So when I let him out of his crate, I do change it, but I can’t trust him to roam around while I’m busy with something, or away. The little dog has issues with escaping her crate and peeing, and bothering the cats.