While it’s true that I shouldn’t physically carry him places to see if he likes being in those areas, the point is, if maybe he could see upstairs as a safe place, he would actually have somewhere to run to when he feels threatened by the dogs. I’ve heard that having “cat safe spaces” should help when trying to get cats and dogs used to each other. He definitely does mind a lot when they are in the same room, and I do find him to be afraid. I guess it’s your call though, since I am much newer to cats, so what do I know.

it takes a while for the hormones to leave his body.  be patient.

better question: what is YOUR daily routine?  more info about the animals in question?  are the cats free fed?  we can help tweak if you share. 🙂

oof, that’s tough.

how old are the animals in question? how long have they been in your house, with you? routines can be tough, ESPECIALLY when there’s so much NOISE.

oof, puppies. one puppy is tough enough, but your older dog is still pretty much a puppy. i don’t envy you there!

i would ignore the cats until the dogs are dealt with. i understand wanting to make them stay in their crates until they stop crying…but i wonder, do you do any training during the day? do they understand that crate is for settling down? i’d maybe work on that when it isn’t early in the morning.

i’d also ask your husband to help out, if that’s possible.

so, here’s my thought.

your husband should handle the cats’ breakfasts…especially if he wants nothing to do with the dogs.

you should handle the dogs’ needs, absolutely, and i would put a lot of work into making them Good Dogs…dogs your husband might want to spend time with! i won’t knock you for crating – i used it for my girl until she was 18 months old because i had a geriatric cat i didn’t want her stomping on in the middle of the night. i also do not sleep with any of my pets, so i won’t knock you there, either.

you didn’t mention breeds, so i’m going on generalizations here. with breed info i’d be able to tailor this a little better.

here’s what i would do: get up, take them out. back in, breakfast. back out for a bathroom run. back in, training time! work on basic obedience for now. my favorite thing is “puppy push-ups,” which are sit-stand-down, rinse and repeat for a good 15 minutes or so. randomize it so they don’t start anticipating. after a good 20 minutes or so, i’d start working on a Place command. it’s a way to send them to a bed, a towel, whatever…and stay there. this is HARD for young dogs, and helps them learn when it’s time to settle down. i’d do more training throughout the day – little stuff, here and there, but enough to help them understand what you expect of them.

what do you mean when you say your husband “doesn’t want to fight with” the dogs? that’s a little distressing, but something that should be fixable with work!

exercise really depends on the breed, here. so does housebreaking…if Coffee is still urinating in the house, he’s not housebroken and needs some attention in this area. i’d also make sure he is clear of any UTIs.

hmm, so the dogs are vastly different in their breed intentions, which means you MAY need to tailor training to work on their weaknesses.

i think i’d work on Bones’ obedience. and i mean work HARD on it. bulldogs are stubborn noodges but really seem to excel in rigid structure, based on what i’ve seen. so work on the basics, then increase skills. work on things like rigid heeling. something that might help you here: http://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/index.php/courses/obedience-courses (i’m a HUGE fan of Fenzi-style training, especially since you can do it at home)

for Coffee, keep working on the basics for now. focus on hardcore basic obedience, work on that housebreaking, etc. once she gets more of her brain in the mail, step up the obedience and maybe work on nosework? i’d even consider doing Barn Hunt stuff if you have any local events. it’s a lot of fun, doesn’t involve a LOT of training, and terriers LOVE THE HELL out of it. more info for that can be found here: http://barnhunt.com/

you didn’t explain the husband’s aversion to the dogs, though. how is he fighting with them?

you have a Siamese. oh god, the noise. i have a Balinese mix, which is essentially a long hair Siamese, and he’s a NOISY boy. you could always try to work on training the cats (yes, they CAN be trained if you use positive reinforcement!), but i really think you need to focus on the dogs for now. cats are fairly self sufficient as long as they’re fed and watered and their boxes are clean.

My husband isn’t /really/ fighting with them, that’s just what he says. : He thinks it is too hard to teach dogs how to learn. It quite frankly is, because I am still a novice, but he doesn’t even try. It’s been many months since he’s attempted anything close to training them with me. He works and I don’t, so there’s that, but I wish he’d at least try. He views methods that reward as allowing the dog to get away with things and doesn’t always work, and ultimately believes that dogs need a “firm hand.” :
Honestly, I still think I need to get a better understanding of heeling, because I’ve taught both my dogs to go behind me (as in to take a step back rather than actually right behind me) so I can avoid tripping over them. But then I realized that might not be actually heeling.
What does housebreaking actually mean..? You mean house manners? Walking and not running, ignoring the cats, not tearing up pillows..? Not really sure if barnhunt is anywhere near me.
Loki actually doesn’t really make a lot of noise. He’s probably less than half Siamese actually, and only meows when he wants attention or food. It’s the female cats that meow for literally no reason all the time.

oh, and to answer your questions:
“Honestly, I still think I need to get a better understanding of heeling, because I’ve taught both my dogs to go behind me (as in to take a step back rather than actually right behind me) so I can avoid tripping over them. But then I realized that might not be actually heeling.”
— as long as you’re happy with how they’re walking, that’s good enough.

“What does housebreaking actually mean..? You mean house manners? Walking and not running, ignoring the cats, not tearing up pillows..?”
— housebreaking involves eliminating bowels and bladder in the house. the rest of that is manners, yes, and something that definitely needs daily work. for the record, my 2.5 year old dobe bitch can’t have pillows or blankets without destroying them, so i don’t allow her to have them. i’d work on a strong “leave it” with both of them, especially if they’re going after the cats. running…good luck stopping them from doing that.

“Not really sure if barnhunt is anywhere near me.”
— check the website, you never know. 🙂 it’s a fast-growing sport and trials are popping up everywhere.

mine is NOWHERE NEAR as chaotic as yours, as i have one dog and one cat. when i had two cats i had some excessive noise from the feline brigade, but felines in my house are free fed so the dog takes up 99% of my effort and time.

she gets a quicky around-the-block morning walk and about a half hour of mental work. if i have to leave for the day, she gets another run outside in the yard before i leave, then she’s back out the second i get home. back in, train for a half hour, back out for a longer period of time (this depends entirely on the weather. today she got 20 minutes outside and was DONE after that but we were staring down a blizzard at the time). back in. free time for however long i deem appropriate, more training. because it’s cold we’ll do nosework in the house or my favorite, a fairly free-form game of “find it!” (where i’ll hide things around the house and make her find them). until yesterday we were also in a weekly class. we’re doing some table and tunnel work in the yard right now – i want her to understand what those words mean when she’s faced with different types of the same thing.

this is enough to keep her happy, but the first year and a half were tough ones. she’s insanely intelligent and needed a LOT more work to keep myself sane. we were in obedience classes almost constantly the first year she was home with us, and i had her in a weekly drop-in class for show training. when she was the age of your younger pup she was in a minimum of 2 classes a week, sometimes 3.

i need to look for more drop-in classes so i can pop in and out at our leisure…looking for Rally classes as i’d like to start competing in that.

Also, we take the water bowl away a half hour before bedtime so they don’t chug water and then they don’t have really full bladders all night

We have all our cats on Revaluation for Parasites. Up to date on all shots too. Our normal vet is closed today and yesterday so when we took him in it was an “emergency” visit at a new vet. They said he wasn’t dehydrated, temperature wasn’t elevated and that he looked fine. But i know he isn’t. They gave him the anti-inflammatory to maybe help relieve gastric pain or discomfort. Then that ad food. I would really like to wait until he can go to our vet Monday because they know him and the emergency vet is super expensive and I’m on a tight budget. But I’m not sure if that is wrong…

He is drinking water no problem. Thats whats throwing me so off. Im just keep offering him that wet food when he starts licking himself and it kind of tricks him into licking some up. I think we are going to ride it out for now, but if he starts drinking less and what not I will definitely be taking him back. Thank you so much for your insight. Blood work tomorrow for sure. Oh, one more symptom is hes not pooping but is peeing. And hes know to chew on things like shirts and towels and boxes. Im just so baffled by it all and want my babie back to normal

Yes, you should.

Time, they will learn to coexist with each other.
They may not be best friend but they will be able to be in the same room ect and tolerant each other.

Keeping more litterboxes is a really great idea. I think of part of they kick a lot of litter out of the litterbox may be a territorial thing, since the young female cats don’t like the old male cat and vice versa. So since they’re essentially forced to use the same litterbox, maybe that causes problems? I’m not sure… But I don’t want to confuse my cats, since the I’ve been using the same spot ever since I moved in. (My husband set up that spot back when there was just 2 cats and 1 dog.)
Here’s the layout of my home for some context: The front door opens up into the living room, and to the right side of you when you walk in are the dogs’ crates. Bones has a wire crate and Coffee has a travel crate. There’s an armchair and 3 cushioned couch to the left, and on the wall parallel to the side where the dogs are is a window that the cats like to look through. Directly forward, a doorway leads into the dining room, and immediately there is a small dining table and chair set to the left of you. A little forward, and a doorway leads into a small kitchen. To the left hand side is the stove and cooking area, a window which allows sunlight onto the stove that the cats like, and the cat waterer, and to the right hand side is the garbage can, sink area, litterbox, and the bathroom. The bathroom does have a door, and it has a sink, a washer, dryer, and a medium sized shower, big enough to possibly bathe two of my small dog (she is 23 pounds) but not two of my big dog. Back to the dining room and past the dining table, there are some stairs that lead into a room that has the pets’ food closet, a sewing machine table and a dresser shaped record player that the cats like to be on, and a mattress. Directly past that is a room with a door that has a more expensive mattress, the computer area, and the clothes closet. The dogs aren’t allowed in this area because of pee accidents.
My point of mentioning all of this is that I don’t really have many other places to place 2 or more litterboxes. While I could possibly do so anyway, I would like to have my dogs roam around one day, and having a litterbox in almost every area of the room could possibly be way too enticing…
I’m in no way shutting you down or anything, a lot of people tend to think so.. Thanks again for your help!

Both of my dogs are short coated, but I agree that it would be a good tip for having a longer haired dog.

i’m not sure what those symptoms are, but i would be calling a vet about this as soon as they open, if not sooner.