New kitten

Question
We have a 3 yr old female  Standard poodle she lives with a Samoyed, best friend, another 7 yr old cat. We recently rescued a very sweet 7 mo old kitten.  Both dogs are very interested, our poodle will not leave her alone,( the kitten is safely behind gates). It has been 4 weeks and our poodle seems to be In "prey" mode all the time. Any suggestions?  
Thank you.

Answer
Hello Patti,
You will need to dominate this dog when she confronts the kitten.  Lay her on the floor with her head down and keep her there until she will relax a bit and submit to you.  This is telling her in her language that you don't like her stalking YOUR kitten (and yes, be possesive over this kitten, show her its yours not hers).  After she submits don't say anything to her, just walk away.  If she goes back to standing and stalking the kitten, repete the process.  Once she better understands you dominating her, get the kitten out and hold it, or have someone else hold it and see how she reacts.  If she is up in your face and trying to get to the kitten, put her on a leash and get her under control.  Make her lay down without reacting.  You will want to be gentle but firm when you correct her.  Talk in a deep voice or even growl at her.
You didn't say how the kitten reacts to the dogs.  If she isn't bothered by them then let the kitten come up to your dog when she is laying down and investigate her.  Correct her if she reacts to the kitten.  If the kitten is scared of the dogs then this will be harder to deal with because the kitten will want to run when it sees the Poodle and that will trigger her prey drive.  She will want to give chase and once in prey drive, sometimes a dog will go too far, not stopping at just chasing.  

I just dealt with this about a year ago when a friend dropped a 4 week old kitten off to me.  I put him in a room where he could smell the dogs and they could smell him, but I only let him interact with my Miniature Poodle since he was so small.  He learned to trust the dogs and to not be afraid of them.  When he got some size on him, I then introduced him to the grown-up dogs.  My Riot wanted to "play" with him, but since I have Dominated my dogs since they were little, he respected me and when I pointed at him he would lay down.  He finally learned that Mom didn't want him being rough with the kitten and that he wasn't as interested in the kitten anyway because it wouldn't run from him and whats the fun with a prey animal if it won't run from you.  Now I sometimes catch Riot and Ghost laying together or playing gently in the house.  Outside is a different story because Ghost will run and that causes Riot to give chase.  He never does more than chase Ghost and Ghost knows to either get under the porch or to just stop running.

Give this a try and let me know how things are going.  If you have other questions about this, or other Poodle questions in general, please feel free to ask.

Thanks for using AllExperts.com,
Kim