Can Cats and Dogs Mate? Vet-Verified Facts & Info

Multi-species households with cats and dogs may be concerned if their pets are mounting one another. Will they wind up having a litter of kuppies or pittens? As precious as a cat-dog hybrid would be, their anatomy and physiology make it impossible for a cat and dog to mate. However, mounting behavior should be addressed sooner rather than later. Read on to learn more.

Why Can't Cats & Dogs Mate?

To answer this question properly, we need to start with a little vocabulary lesson. Mate is the action while breed is the process of creating offspring. Some animals may be able to mate but not breed. When it comes to cats and dogs, both mating and breeding are nos. Here’s why.

Genes

Cats and dogs are genetically incompatible. As we'll explain later, some interspecies breeding is possible if animals share similar DNA. However, this is not the case for cats and dogs.

Chromosomes are twisted strands of DNA that pass genetic information from the parent to the offspring. Cats have 19 pairs of chromosomes, while dogs have 39.1 Having the same (or similar) number of these chromosome pairs is necessary for producing offspring, but since there's a difference of 20 between cats and dogs, it makes breeding impossible. Generally speaking, the more similar the DNA is between two species, the more likely it will be that a hybrid could be born from their breeding.

Differences in Mating Signals

Cats and dogs have very different mating behaviors, so they wouldn't be able to recognize the signals they're sending one another. Your cat will not interpret the reproductive cues your dog exhibits as such and vice versa.

Cats and dogs also have incompatible heat cycles. Female dogs ovulate during specific parts of their heat cycle, and female cats only ovulate after mating has occurred.

Incompatible Anatomy

The reproductive organs of dogs and cats are incompatible with one another. Male cats, for example, have barbs like those found on their tongues. These spikes only present themselves when mating and actually serve an essential biological purpose as they stimulate the female cat to ovulate. As brutal as it sounds, the barbs also prevent the female from running away before they've finished copulating. A female dog simply can’t accommodate this, and then there often comes a question of size.

What Do I Do if My Dog Mounts My Cat?

Some dogs will mount pretty much anything they can get their paws on – legs, furniture, appliances, stuffed animals, etc. As normal as it may be, this isn't a behavior you should encourage, especially when your cat is concerned.

Dogs hump for a variety of reasons, not all of which are sexual in nature. Sometimes dogs will mount in a way to exert their dominance, while other times, they start humping out of excitement.

If your dog is mounting your cat, it's not likely they're doing so out of sexual desire. Even still, your cat is probably not happy about this, so when you see your pup trying to mount them, separate the two immediately. Know that your kitty may easily incur injuries.

Intervention and training are essential to out-train your dog's mounting behaviors.

Does Interspecies Breeding Occur?

Though cat-dog hybrids aren't real, interspecies breeding does occur in other animals. Some of the most notable (and strangest) hybrid animals include:

• Pizzly bears – Polar bear x grizzly bear
• Liger – Lion x tiger
• Pumapard – Puma x leopard
• Narluga – Narwhal x Beluga
• Coywolf – Coyote x wolf
• Mule – Donkey x horse
• Zorze – Zebra x horse
• Jaglion – Jaguar x lion
• Wholphin – False killer whale x bottlenose dolphin
• Zonkey – Zebra x donkey

Final Thoughts

As cute as a puppy x kitten hybrid would be, it's just not biologically possible for your cat and dog to mate or breed. Not only is their DNA incompatible, but so are their reproductive organs and mating signals. However, if your pup is mounting your kitty, you'll need to implement an intervention and training regimen to protect your cat and teach your dog boundaries.

Featured Image Credit: Chendongshan, Shutterstock