How the Old Cat and New Puppy Finally Learn to Get Along

Their’s is an unbalanced and fraught relationship

Tony Tochtrop
6 min readApr 10, 2024
Shameless clickbait from the author

All my adult life, at least 1 or sometimes 2 cats allowed me the pleasure of meeting their needs for food, shelter, and litter box management. In return, the other humans and I got companionship and amusement from our cats. There has never been a time when a cat was not part of the household.

The same does not hold true for dogs. My parents love dogs and we always had dogs while I was growing up. During my adulthood, our family had dogs 2 different times and periods of time without a dog. I like dogs and know how to give them what they need, even beyond the food, water, shelter, and clean-up. I know that a dog needs someone to set boundaries. If you have the capacity to train a dog to follow your commands, you will enjoy this new family member even more than when you fell in love with that puppy you chose.

Enter the new wife.

We met in 2016, bought a house together and married in 2017. We have been a happy couple since.

When we met, I was a bachelor man with 2 bachelor cats. My new wife was coming off decades of having no pets and needed time to adjust to cats. I did the bulk of the care, though she did get them toys, occassional treats and a kitty bed for each.

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Tony Tochtrop

I'm a retired school librarian who spends a lot of time inside my head. Sometimes all that comes out here.