When to introduce my goslings to my other pets?

[lilolilman]

Hi all,

my household consists of two dogs (a Yorkie mix and a Pomeranian), two cats (get along extremely well with the other animals, but don’t really get along with eachother lol), a turtle, and two lizards. I recently lost my hedgehog (my heart is still broken over that).

I’m trying to figure out when is the right time to introduce my dogs and cats to the goslings. Generally, the dogs and cats gets along with my smaller pets, and when I introduce new pets, they learn that they are not fair game to mess with. For example, once I showed the cats that the hedgehog was not a toy, they literally never even approached her and she lived in a play pen with no top her whole life and no one ever went in there.

That said, I’ve read way too many stories on here about dogs and cats hurting baby geese and ducks, so I’m not about to assume that this will be like all my other pet introductions.

any advice on how and when to introduce them? Obviously supervised and monitored closely.

I just watched a YouTube video of two “house” ducklings running around the house and there was a dog and a cat in the video who didn’t even react much to the ducklings (two weeks old). That’s what prompted me to ask the question here, because I was thinking I wasn’t even going to really introduce them until the goslings were much older and I would feel comfortable that they would not get hurt.

 

[quackingdom]

When you introduce them to the dogs probably won't have an effect on the dogs' opinions, but the goslings are more likely to learn to accept/like the dogs if they're introduced as soon as possible. If you want your geese to be wary of the dogs/cats, then introduce them later.

Introduce the goslings to one animal at a time.

The best way to do it would be with a muzzle on your dog so that everyone can be comfortable and safe. I think it's good for dogs to be muzzle trained even if they've never been aggressive or hurt anything. Or you could also introduce them through a fence at first.

It helps if your dogs know "easy" or "don't touch" or something.

I've never had cats, so I can't really give advice about them. A gosling looks more like food to a cat than a hedgehog would. I'm not sure whether it would be better to wait until they're bigger with them.

I introduce new chicks, ducklings, and goslings to my dogs on day 1, but they're with the birds all the time and have seen plenty of babies, so they're barely even interested.

Whether you introduce them now or later is up to you, but I think now is all right if you're careful.

 

[lilolilman]

When you introduce them to the dogs probably won't have an effect on the dogs' opinions, but the goslings are more likely to learn to accept/like the dogs if they're introduced as soon as possible. If you want your geese to be wary of the dogs/cats, then introduce them later.

Introduce the goslings to one animal at a time.

The best way to do it would be with a muzzle on your dog so that everyone can be comfortable and safe. I think it's good for dogs to be muzzle trained even if they've never been aggressive or hurt anything. Or you could also introduce them through a fence at first.

It helps if your dogs know "easy" or "don't touch" or something.

I've never had cats, so I can't really give advice about them. A gosling looks more like food to a cat than a hedgehog would. I'm not sure whether it would be better to wait until they're bigger with them.

I introduce new chicks, ducklings, and goslings to my dogs on day 1, but they're with the birds all the time and have seen plenty of babies, so they're barely even interested.

Whether you introduce them now or later is up to you, but I think now is all right if you're careful.

Based on your response, I’ll introduce the dogs today (individually, one at a time). The cats we’ll hold off on for a good while. I’m not really concerned about MY cats so much as I’m concerned about them being wary of cats in general. But I’d rather be safe than sorry. Also, when we do ultimately get them set up in the coop, I do NOT want them to think a cat is friendly in the event one gets into my yard.

thank you SO much for your extremely helpful response!

 

[quackingdom]

Sounds good! Hope it goes well!