John Osteen wrote this introduction to his video: My wife found three four-week old kittens, and I thought it would be a good exercise to see if I could tell a story around their introduction to our dogs. Needless to say, I had to throw my original ideas out the window, and let the animals dictate the story to me. If you’re having a bad day, hopefully this will put a smile on your face, like filming it did mine.
New Friends from John Osteen on Vimeo.
Cute – but this is absolutely NOT a safe way to introduce kittens to dogs…so hopefully no one will try and replicate this. One quick shake of a kitten will break its neck – you should never risk that, introduce only with dogs on leash at first and the kitten protected by your hands or a crate and see how the dog reacts, only allow the dog(s) to interact off leash once you are confident they do not see the kitten as prey – often this can take days or even a couple weeks. Supervised play ONLY even then. And having a bully stick the dog is chewing on is especially dangerous – many dogs are resource guarders and would protect the toy and resent the kittens coming near it. Overall it was good luck that nothing went wrong, but risking the safety of the animals to get a potentially cute video – and setting a terrible example of how to introduce new pets – is not something we should celebrate and smile about.
Heather, before you make a comment like this please understand you should know all the facts. We are not stupid in thinking you should just introduce a dog to kittens without knowing his demeanor. This dog has lived with cats all his life and in fact I sometimes think he believes he is one. This is just something my husband thought would be cute since Pedro fell in love with the kittens immediately when we brought them in. He became the perfect surrogate mamma kitty and treated them like they were in fact his own. So yes, we should celebrate and smile about something so sweet that these animals can find such a friendship in different species.
There’s always someone around to say you did it wrong. Meh.
You did something very right with those dogs, Pedro was so gentle and almost licked them bald 🙂 Loved the video.
Hi Robin,
I fell in love with this video and the safe, loving and friendly vibe it gives off. I’m sorry we got a comment that is critical of your actions, and that you saw. I watched a few times before posting and felt confident that you would not have just brought in a box of kittens and set them down to an uncertain result. Please know that hundreds of people loved the video and got the same good feeling from it that I did,
Sincerely,
Karen
Hi Heather,
Your concern for the safety and well being of small, helpless creatures around dogs who have never met them, and who are brought into the dogs’ territory is, of course, very well places.
I would not have run the video if I had gotten the impression that the family was not careful and responsible, and had just brought the box into the house and set it down before the dogs.
I swear my kitty watched this video! She and I both loved it! Thank you so much for posting this. The vibe is total sweetness.
Robin,
All you had to say to Heather was ‘thanks’ or ‘ok’ or ‘good points’.
She may not know your facts, but you (presumably) don’t know hers either.
Ooops another Heather….I loved the video and thought it was the sweetest possible…..kudos to the ones who made it…..and yes it did put a smile on my face.
May I just say that although thousands have also enjoyed the video the other Heather did make a valid point and particularly as some of those thousands would not be cat and dog savvi and may accidently put their cat or kitten at risk by just putting the two together – so the point is worth making. A little caution is always necessary in animal introductions.
I don’t think anyone doubts the beauty of the resulting video that was made in an environment with animals known to the film maker.
You could say the same about Heather’s comment. All she had to say was “Cute cats and dogs!”.
The comment section is for people to discuss things, not ignore criticism and prevent people from clarifying themselves.