Leos and Other Pets

[Greyscale_Geckos]

Sorry, I tried doing a search on this and couldn't find a relevant topic.

I'll be bringing my leo home in January, and I have one problem... I have two indoor cats and a dog. The dog is not too much of a concern because he's short and fat. The cats on the other hand worry me.

I do have a shelf that is high enough so that they can't get to it, but I also don't want them constantly attempting to try to climb up to that shelf. The only time my cats have really given me problems are when I had fish (they didn't even want the fish, just the fish food). But I am still concerned because I would like to be able to house them /safely/.

My dog and one of my cats sleeps in my room.

Do any of you have cats and reptiles in the same room? Have you had any difficulties?

 

[Ccrashca069]

I have 2 adult cats and 2 kittens about 5 months old now. My cat ( Torey) learned her lessons the hard way about lizards because she caught an alligator lizard outside and it drew blood on her paw so she never tries to touch or catch lizards anymore. She will watch them. One of the kittens ( Tommy) gets so jealous when I go near the leopard gecko cages that when I sit down, he jumps right in my lap and watches them with me. I been working with all the cats about the geckos for awhile. If they try to jump on top of the cages, they get a 2 finger swat on the nose and a firm NO!!!!!!!!! . So none of them try to get the geckos anymore.

 

[moosassah]

Keep a squirt bottle near the cage. Cats aren't fond of being misted & will learn quickly to associate the cage with water.

 

[Ccrashca069]

I forgot to metion I have also used the spray bottle trick.

 

[yellermelon]

yes I use a spray bottle too. But before I did one of my cats figured out how to pull out a tb from a rack, and play hacky sack with my favorite gecko. So be careful! If you are using tanks with screen lids you wont have this problem, just as a side note, I had a friend with a flea infested cat that liked to sit on top of the gecko tank at his house, I always thought that was a bad idea.. Good luck

 

[Ccrashca069]

Thats one good thing about my wife working at a vetenaryhopital. We get free things like Advantage and sentenal. Besides the 50% discount.

 

[PacHerp]

so, to me, this is a touchy subject....

I actually own 9 leopard geckos, two 16 pound Maine Coon Cats, and two 6 month old Pugs! So... you can imagine what it is like at my house!

What I do is...

I have my gecko room closed at all times. If the cats get in, I yell "GET OUT!", and they flee as fast as they can... if the puppies get in, well, they can't do anything, so i pick them up and place them in they're play area.

That said... My geckos are all in a rack system, and this helps with my stress level about this kind of stuff tremendously!

The biggest thing is just to make sure the cats/dogs are NEVER alone in the same room as your geckos.

Thats just my experience, hope it helps!

 

[mmsi1002]

I'm not a cat person nor have i ever owned one, but i have heard alot of horror stories. Cats seem to be the biggest cause of leo accidents. Get rid of the cats & get more geckos!!!!!!!!

 

[yellermelon]

LOL my geckos are in a cat free room now.. and the biggest freakin water bottle automatic mister i could buy is right buy the door

 

[LadyGecko]

I have had cats long before I ever got into reptiles and I make damn sure that before I walk way from working with my reptiles that each and every cage/tub/tank has a 100 % secure lid on them-tightly in place

My tubs all have snap lids on them and I use homemade pegboard lids for my Dragons and Bluey's

My Leos/AFT's tanks have the heaviest gage screen lids that are made and they have "lid locks" on them

My Iguana used to free roam among my cats and dogs and he was the one that the dogs and the cats steered clear of

There is no way of being 100% sure that an accident won't happen with keeping many types of animals in the same household but I really strive to get close to that

For the most part-the Leos are the lizard that they the cats are the least interested in
They like to stare at the Beardies while they are basking or they ignore the reptiles all together

As for the cats stressing the reptiles out here-it doesn't seem to bother them-you've all seem pics of my Geckos etc.-LOL

just my 2 cents

Sandy

 

[MSMD]

We have 5 dogs, 6 cats, 2 birds, and 10 leos (and counting! lol). I don't really have much of a problem as all of my leos are in the 'gecko room' and the door is closed at all times when I'm not in the room. A couple of the cats and dogs are my 'official help' when I feed and clean cages. They like to watch and my Siamese kitty likes to jump into the tubs sometimes with the leos. :main_laugh: She'll just lay there and hang out and watch them. Freaky little cat! :main_rolleyes: That being said, I would NEVER trust ANY of the cats alone in the gecko room. Just in case! All of the Sterilite containers have locking lids on the racks and the 10 gallon tanks have screen tops, but I am paranoid. Good luck!

Oh, the spray bottle thing that was mentioned above works well with the kitties, too, when they're being naughty!

 

[rubym]

We have a cat and a dog. Our dog ( beagle) is scared to death of ALL lizards. I had a 4.5 foot female iguana that was a terror. Beua our dog apparently got to close to her one day and she tail whipped him and cut his mouth and nose pretty good. He doesn't go near any lizard now. Our cat is 16 years old and she has been around all sortf of critters all her life. She shows very little interest in any of them. We still make sure that she isn't in the reptile room ( aka - what used to be our bedroom before the reptiles took over, LOL) when we aren't home.

 

[KHGeckos]

I had a cat. Had to give it away because she was too wild. I knew she had to go when i walked in the room and saw her inside one of the rack shelves trying to push out a tub. I really gave her away though because she was way too wild and wasnt a house cat.