Advice Needed: cats/dog relationship
My cats are still terrified of my dog after 8 months and I’m honestly starting to feel really sad about it. Would love advice from anyone who’s dealt with this before.
My boyfriend (27M) and I (26F) moved in together in October 2025. He has a 7-year-old lab/Akita mix who’s huge (85 lbs) and very excitable, but also genuinely super gentle. I have two cats (2 and 3 years old), and before this they had literally never been around dogs before. They were apartment cats and lived a very calm, quiet life.
We thought they’d eventually warm up to him or at least learn to coexist, but it’s been almost 8 months and they still seem petrified of him. At this point, they spend basically all of their time downstairs. We installed wall shelves, cat trees, and a bunch of elevated spaces so they could be around him without having to actually be near him, but it doesn’t seem to have helped much.
We’ve tried slow introductions, treats, supervised time together, positive reinforcement, all of that. My older cat still hisses/swats if he gets close, and my younger cat mostly just hides. Neither of them really comes upstairs anymore, and it honestly breaks my heart because they used to love roaming around and hanging out with me in my apartment. Now they mostly stay tucked away downstairs in their cat trees.
The frustrating part is that the dog isn’t aggressive at all. He mostly just wants to sniff them or be involved, but I think his size and energy are too much for them.
We’ve even wondered if getting a puppy or kitten would somehow help bridge the gap, but that also sounds like it could either help or make things 100x worse lol.
Has anyone had cats eventually adjust this far into the process? Is there anything else we should be trying? I’m starting to worry this is just going to be their life forever and I really don’t want that for them.