My cat is afraid of guys.

My Luna is almost 6 months old. I adopted her from a lady who rescued her pregnant mother. When I went to adopt her (she was 4 1/2 months) the lady told me the litter was skittish of strangers because the kittens were only ever around her and her daughter. The litter was skittish, but the reason I picked Luna was because she was the only member who was friendly.

Luna is still very friendly, except when guys come to my house, It's not just strangers, when any of my female friends come over she's super friendly. In the beginning I thought it was just my dad, but since 3 other guys friends of mine have come over and she's freaked out around all of them. She runs and hides and stays hidden until about 30 minutes after they've left.

I'm looking for advice about how to cure this, I'm going to need her to be comfortable around my dad who will be taking care of her when I am out of town in May.

While I'm sure there are others here who have more concise and experienced advice then I do I would like to offer my own which you can possibly extrapolate to your situation. I adopted Lily about two months ago and she's a fairly skittish cat that I've been learning to adapt to myself.

Men have deep voices usually and cats seem to respond better to a female voice, I noticed this with my own girl so sometimes I adopt a higher lilt in my voice when talking to her nothing constant but something for her to hear.

I used to go and try to play with her but she would not respond well so now I wait for her to decide when she wants to interact and how long it is going to be for.

I sit a lot and she comes around me when I'm sitting or laying down. I don't seem so big to her now so it's less threatening. I also on occasion will lay on the carpeted floor and let her come around if she'd like.

This is going to take time and unfortunately can't be rushed. While we worry about our cats I think the best thing to do is let them decide how interactions happen. Most likely when she has to interact alone with your dad while you're away and he doesn't force it she will slowly be more comfortable around him.

I hope this will help even a little.

My Caesar is the same way. He hates men. My boyfriend has been around Caesar for almost four years now and Caesar still hates him. I've tried having my boyfriend give him treats, feed him, ignore him, talk in a high-pitched voice (difficult), etc. and nothing seems to work. Caesar stares at my bf's hands, which is the interesting thing. He won't look in his face, but he follows his hands with his eyes, and if my bf tries to pet him, Caesar swats. My bf thinks Caesar was abused by a man at some point, but we would never really know. I adopted him as a senior. When my dad came over to help me with something, Caesar was circling him like a wild animal. It's kind of funny, actually.

On the contrary, Caesar likes my mom and my best friend (a girl).

The only advice I can give is to not force anything upon Luna. She'll probably have a more positive experience with your dad if he leaves her alone and doesn't do anything that would appear (to Luna) to be threatening. He should talk to her as he's wandering the house scooping the litter box and what not in a positive tone at a low-mid volume. I've read that we should not smile when interacting with skittish pets, which is so human nature for us, but could be threatening to a cat or dog. I've also read that facial hair can really throw them off, especially when their primary owner is female.

You could install a Feliway diffuser when you're out of town. This may help ease her a bit. And although it didn't work for my bf, you could try to have your dad offer her her favorite treat. Ideally, your dad should come over a couple times prior to the trip while you're around.

My wife had a himmie before we were married. He was 4 yrs old when we met, died at age 17 and grugingly accepted me at around 15 (personally I think he was getting senile..ha).