How to keep a small pet safe from an energetic dog
High-energy or large dogs can terrorize small pets like rabbits through constant barking and aggressive behavior, especially when owners refuse to rehome them. This forces you to constantly manage the danger and stress in a shared living space, often leaving you unable to fully trust the animals together.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Closing doors and using baby gates to separate the puppy from the rabbits
- 2Trying to apply training videos and routines
- 3Stacked baby gates with tension mount shower rods
- 4Adding stairs or a cat tree to help cats get over barriers
- 5Chasing the cat around
- 6Forbidding the cat from sharing food with the adopted cat
- 7Keeping the glass door locked
- 8Using a cooler behind a mesh door to cool birds
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I am home visiting for the month and the 15 week old puppy already has been barking at the rabbits.”source ↗
“We have two large dogs that I will never fully trust with them.”source ↗
“As someone who’s cat tore his ACL (CCL) recently, id encourage you to put a second set of stairs on the other side so they dont hit the ground so hard.”source ↗
“I want to so badly but the other is not my rabbit and I already mentioned taking both and they said no, they don't even want me to take my own rabbit.”source ↗