Acceptance is built on a promise you keep from day one: the puppy's arrival costs her nothing she already owns. Her high perches, quiet rooms, litter trays and feeding spots remain hers alone, and every later step is judged against that promise. A cat who can always withdraw, eat in peace and use her tray undisturbed can afford to get curious about a puppy; a cat whose whole home suddenly contains an excitable young dog has no reason to do anything but hide or fight.
Stage One: Dog-Free Safe Spaces and Separate Living
Set the physical boundaries before the puppy arrives. Fit gates she can slip through, jump or use a cat flap in, but that block the puppy completely, and place them so her route from bed to tray to food never crosses the puppy's area. Keep her high resting places, the rooms she retreats to, her trays and the spot where she eats behind those gates permanently, not just during introductions, since these are the places she must never be chased in, cornered in or watched in. Let the two animals live separately at first, in different parts of the home, with the puppy's exuberance, noise and accidents entirely out of her day. Feed, play and groom her in her safe zones on her usual schedule, so the household's rhythms tell her that her life has not shrunk.
Stage Two: Scent Exchange Before Sightings
Once separate living feels ordinary, begin scent exchange. Swap bedding between the two, rub a soft cloth gently on each animal's cheeks and let the other sniff it later beside a meal or a favourite treat, and feed them on opposite sides of the closed door between their areas. Scent carries the information she needs at a dose she controls: she can investigate the puppy's smell, walk away, and return, with no bouncy body attached to it. Watch her responses honestly; eating calmly beside the door and sniffing the cloth without flattening her ears or leaving suggests readiness for sightings, while hissing at scent, hiding or eating less means this stage needs more days, not more pressure.
Keep a worn item of your own clothing in her safe area during this stage too, since the puppy's scent arriving alongside familiar household smells reads as information rather than invasion.
Stage Three: Leashed Sightings, Then Months of Supervision
First sightings happen with the puppy on a lead, held by a second person, at a distance where she notices him and chooses to stay. She must be able to walk away whenever she chooses, through her gate or up to a perch, and sessions end while both animals are still calm, with the puppy rewarded for looking away and settling rather than for approaching her. Shorten the distance gradually over many sessions, teach the puppy a reliable settle and recall away from the gate, and never carry her toward him, hold her in place, or let him practise chasing even in play. If she chooses to watch from a doorway for ten sessions in a row, that is progress, not failure; proximity she selects herself is the trust you are building. Supervision continues for months after sightings go well: no shared access when nobody is home, no assumption that a bigger puppy is a safer puppy, and her gates stay fitted until he is a mannerly adult, if they ever come down at all. Splitting gate checks, scent swaps and supervised sessions between people works when KinsLe holds the rota, with Care Teams recording who ran each session and how she responded.