For those that say dogs have a secret feud with cats, they haven’t met Monty.
In an image posted by his owner Max Figge of Germany, the 1-year-old shepherd-retriever mix is seen chilling on his two cat siblings’ tree. “He grew up with two cats” accompanies the image, which to date has received 66,000 “upvotes” on Reddit.
“He has shown interest in the cat tree since day one, but we prohibited him the go any further rather than sniffing”, Figge tells This Dog’s Life about Monty venturing onto the furniture of the house cats Balu and Balis. “One day we let him do its thing just out of curiosity what would happen and well, you see what happened.”
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Rescued from a local German shelter last June by Figge and his girlfriend Lara Stoettwig, he was brought into the country from Romania, where Figge believes he spent much of his young life living on the streets — something that hindered him a bit.
“He’s lacking some social skills towards dogs and humans. He’s very shy and easily startled, he doesn’t know how to handle certain situations, but we’re working on it, and he’s made huge progress, but slowly,” says Figge. “I think that’s also the reason why he’s so cat-like.”
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Other cat-like behavior Monty exhibits include playing with cat toys, like tiny balls, feathers or small play mice. “He picks them up, throws them in the air and tries to catch them while they’re falling,” he says.
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While Figge, finds it “adorable,” the cats have a slightly different view. It’s complicated.
“The dog absolutely loves the cats. He wants to play with them, he wants to chase them around the flat and every time one of them walks by, he jumps up and greets them with a paw on their head,” says Figge. “The cats on the other hand, are not that interested in the dog.”
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It hasn’t stopped Monty from trying.
“I think he just wants to be close to the cats,” says Figge. “He’s always sad when they won’t play with him like a dog. He goes into his corner and sulks.”
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