I had three kids, have nine grands, and have always had cats. The kids and cats weren't left unsupervised (for the protection of both) until the kids were old enough to know they had to "be nice to kitty". If they got scratched after that it only gave them one more reason to treat the cat properly.
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Slight vent here - I really don't understand people!
- Thread starter KittenKrazy
- Start Date
This kitty is way better off with you, so that's how you have to look at it
Can't wait to see pics
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2009
- Messages
- 4
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I agree. I also think it's very unfair to expect a one year old to learn lessons like this immediately. If you have an infant and a cat, they need to be supervised at all times or separated. If that's not possible, then I too would choose the child's safety over the cat's.
I'm sorry about the cats... That makes me SO sad, too...
I have my first child on the way, and you know my worry? Isn't if Evie will hurt the kid... But if she'll HATE her and be miserable! I love my kitty and am terrified that she'll never be the same... She got over all three dogs she's been introduced to, and even almost forgave ONE of my fosters for existing in her house... So I have hopes she'll be ok. I would NEVER consider giving her up lightly... Only for the SINCERE safety of my child; or if Evie is completely miserable, she might go live with my parents (whom she knows and loves and would still get to see her daddy and I often!).
And NO, I am not considering doing that at all, but I am the type that likes to plan for ALL possibilities, even if I don't think it'll happen!
I have my first child on the way, and you know my worry? Isn't if Evie will hurt the kid... But if she'll HATE her and be miserable! I love my kitty and am terrified that she'll never be the same... She got over all three dogs she's been introduced to, and even almost forgave ONE of my fosters for existing in her house... So I have hopes she'll be ok. I would NEVER consider giving her up lightly... Only for the SINCERE safety of my child; or if Evie is completely miserable, she might go live with my parents (whom she knows and loves and would still get to see her daddy and I often!).
And NO, I am not considering doing that at all, but I am the type that likes to plan for ALL possibilities, even if I don't think it'll happen!
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #25
The bad thing is, mom, grandma or grandpa, none of them work.....someone is home all the time to supervise....they just don't want to, y'know?
Bobby(he's now 7) knows that if an animal bites or scratches him then it is his fault. If something happens and he tells me he got scratched the first thing I do is ask him what he did to the cat. Maude has taken almost 3 years to even let Bobby touch her without swiping and hissing at him(she hates everyone so I told him not to take it personally.) She did however once charge Bobby for simply being in the kitchen and she had absolutely ZERO reason to do it, he had done nothing to her and had ignored her all day(as usual.) I had just finished washing my hands and so I half tossed my wet hands in her general direction which distracted her so she retreated under the chair. Paul got pissed that I had done that. I will say my first thought was to kick her, which I would never do, she was simply being the hateful animal she is(even Paul calls her hateful and she's his cat, but we do it jokingly she will still hiss and swipe at us at times), so I did something that distracted her and did zero harm to her, she simply got wet.
I do however wonder if my ex-husband's cat had a reason to scratch Bobby(he says he didn't do anything to him), my MIL says she doesn't like or trust the cat because it has hissed and struck at her and all cats love her. Even Maude let her pet her and love on her and Maude never lets anyone, especially someone she just met, do that. I would never get rid of an animal(or expect Patrick, my ex, to get rid of his simply because it scratched Bobby, getting scratched is part of owning a cat, I get scratch from the cats from playing with them(I finally learned to cut their nail RIGHT before a bath so they couldn't scratch me then) and accidental scratches and all of that. She should have been supervising the cat and the child, there was only 1 time I left Bobby alone with a cat(who was asleep) and that was MIL's cat Sinbad when Bobby was 7 weeks old which was to make him a bottle(in the next room.) Bobby started screaming(he had only been half crying before) and Sinbad walked into the kitchen and looked at me like "That little human is screaming, he needs you." I knew Bobby couldn't hurt the cat accidentally and Sinbad didn't have any interest in Bobby beyond sniffing him when he first arrived. Other than Sinbad(he visited MIL's and she prolly left Bobby unsupervised with Sinbad for short periods of time, Sinbad was known to be great around children and would walk off when he had enough, he also mainly slept and of he wanted to be alone he would sleep somewhere other than the living room) Bobby was never alone with an animal until he learned how to treat it properly, but Bobby never had a problem with treating an animal properly. Well he did once have a toy fishing pole and was tapping Abby(Old English Sheepdog) with it(he wasn't being mean, just exploring her), my dad was there and I have no idea why he didn't make him quit(Bobby was 15 months old.) He wasn't doing it hard, like I said just exploring her and I'm sure that's why my dad let him do it, but he got Abby's badly arthritic hip(I know it had to HURT) and she growled(well it was more of a "Hey that hurt please don't do that again" type grumble.) She didn't so anything, just kinda grumbled, she too was great with kids. I will say that Abby liked to grumble/growl when we helped her up and she never snapped or bit so she was a good dog. She sounded ferocious but wouldn't hurt anything that didn't come in a small animal form in her yard 'threatening' her flock(She could catch birds in mid air. I saw her do it a few times. We also found various parts of other animals and she met me at the backdoor with a dead rabbit in her mouth when she was 4 months old looking rather proud like 'look what I caught.' The squirrel that lived in the tree in the backyard loved me to forever mess with her. I think it eventually became a game between the 2.) It was the working dog in her 'protecting' her flock.
I also don't get rid of animals, never have, we let my MIL watch Spaz when we moved so she wouldn't get out(and for her safety with moving boxes and everything) and she was going to keep her until we had Bobby and got settled with him since she was highly stressed near the end of my pregnancy(I was 7 months along when we moved) and had stopped using her litter box(vet check was just fine and she was pooping outside the box, normal stool, not peeing) so we decided to let her de-stress with MIL and we didn't need her escaping while we were moving(that was the main reason.) Well, my MIL killed her, somehow Spaz escaped never to be seen again. My MIL killed my cat. Spaz was declawed and I know when she escaped prior when she still had her claws she had killed or injured another cat. Her back claws and feet were covered in blood that wasn't hers, I freaked thinking the blood was hers but I cleaned her up and she had no marks on her but a tiny scratch on her nose that was so superficial I doubt it even bled .
Why Spaz was declawed? The vet said it was the last resort and it really was. She was very destructive towards people with her claws. WE went through years of medicine, behaviorists, you name it we tried it and nothing worked(this was years before I was pregnant with Bobby.) It was finally put her to sleep or get her declawed. We were having to seek medical attention and had received stitches from her attacks. We couldn't afford to go through it anymore. We did not get rid of her for that when I'm sure some would have because she was our pet and pets are forever.
Had issues with my Old English Sheepdog Abby trying to get my place on the pack starting when she was around 6 months(so a teenager.) I read up on it and told her in dog language that I was above her in the pack and that was that. It took months of reading and research to find this(this was 1995/1996 so the internet wasn't much of anything, I had to do it the old fashioned way books) but I found it and that fixed it. WE had a trainer tell us we had to beat the fight and aggression out of her and I think that is part of what started it, we did it for about 2 weeks before realizing that it was only making her behavior worse plus spanking her(not hard, a single tap on the rear) seemed useless to solve the problem. Once again, could have got rid of her, but she was our pet and I wasn't getting rid of her. She lived a long happy life and was put to sleep in 2006 at the age of 11 1/2, went blind at 5 and had arthritis for years. My parents spent more on the dogs arthritis meds a month than they did on their medications for 6 months- a year, not to mention grooming(simply getting her shaved down was $60 a pop and she had to have it done 3 times every summer, not to mention her normal winter and spring grooming when she had fur), vets, heart worm prevention, etc. Her blindness was likely genetic. I doubt her breeder was that great we got her from a family when she was 4 months old who had 5 kids under 5, wife was pregnant again(which is why they got rid of her) and didn't have a fenced in yard. They didn't need any dog much less a high energy working dog, why any breeder would let them have that dog is beyond me.
I will keep Attitude, Nuts and Maude until they cross the bridge. This is what responsible owners do.
Taryn
I do however wonder if my ex-husband's cat had a reason to scratch Bobby(he says he didn't do anything to him), my MIL says she doesn't like or trust the cat because it has hissed and struck at her and all cats love her. Even Maude let her pet her and love on her and Maude never lets anyone, especially someone she just met, do that. I would never get rid of an animal(or expect Patrick, my ex, to get rid of his simply because it scratched Bobby, getting scratched is part of owning a cat, I get scratch from the cats from playing with them(I finally learned to cut their nail RIGHT before a bath so they couldn't scratch me then) and accidental scratches and all of that. She should have been supervising the cat and the child, there was only 1 time I left Bobby alone with a cat(who was asleep) and that was MIL's cat Sinbad when Bobby was 7 weeks old which was to make him a bottle(in the next room.) Bobby started screaming(he had only been half crying before) and Sinbad walked into the kitchen and looked at me like "That little human is screaming, he needs you." I knew Bobby couldn't hurt the cat accidentally and Sinbad didn't have any interest in Bobby beyond sniffing him when he first arrived. Other than Sinbad(he visited MIL's and she prolly left Bobby unsupervised with Sinbad for short periods of time, Sinbad was known to be great around children and would walk off when he had enough, he also mainly slept and of he wanted to be alone he would sleep somewhere other than the living room) Bobby was never alone with an animal until he learned how to treat it properly, but Bobby never had a problem with treating an animal properly. Well he did once have a toy fishing pole and was tapping Abby(Old English Sheepdog) with it(he wasn't being mean, just exploring her), my dad was there and I have no idea why he didn't make him quit(Bobby was 15 months old.) He wasn't doing it hard, like I said just exploring her and I'm sure that's why my dad let him do it, but he got Abby's badly arthritic hip(I know it had to HURT) and she growled(well it was more of a "Hey that hurt please don't do that again" type grumble.) She didn't so anything, just kinda grumbled, she too was great with kids. I will say that Abby liked to grumble/growl when we helped her up and she never snapped or bit so she was a good dog. She sounded ferocious but wouldn't hurt anything that didn't come in a small animal form in her yard 'threatening' her flock(She could catch birds in mid air. I saw her do it a few times. We also found various parts of other animals and she met me at the backdoor with a dead rabbit in her mouth when she was 4 months old looking rather proud like 'look what I caught.' The squirrel that lived in the tree in the backyard loved me to forever mess with her. I think it eventually became a game between the 2.) It was the working dog in her 'protecting' her flock.
I also don't get rid of animals, never have, we let my MIL watch Spaz when we moved so she wouldn't get out(and for her safety with moving boxes and everything) and she was going to keep her until we had Bobby and got settled with him since she was highly stressed near the end of my pregnancy(I was 7 months along when we moved) and had stopped using her litter box(vet check was just fine and she was pooping outside the box, normal stool, not peeing) so we decided to let her de-stress with MIL and we didn't need her escaping while we were moving(that was the main reason.) Well, my MIL killed her, somehow Spaz escaped never to be seen again. My MIL killed my cat. Spaz was declawed and I know when she escaped prior when she still had her claws she had killed or injured another cat. Her back claws and feet were covered in blood that wasn't hers, I freaked thinking the blood was hers but I cleaned her up and she had no marks on her but a tiny scratch on her nose that was so superficial I doubt it even bled .
Why Spaz was declawed? The vet said it was the last resort and it really was. She was very destructive towards people with her claws. WE went through years of medicine, behaviorists, you name it we tried it and nothing worked(this was years before I was pregnant with Bobby.) It was finally put her to sleep or get her declawed. We were having to seek medical attention and had received stitches from her attacks. We couldn't afford to go through it anymore. We did not get rid of her for that when I'm sure some would have because she was our pet and pets are forever.
Had issues with my Old English Sheepdog Abby trying to get my place on the pack starting when she was around 6 months(so a teenager.) I read up on it and told her in dog language that I was above her in the pack and that was that. It took months of reading and research to find this(this was 1995/1996 so the internet wasn't much of anything, I had to do it the old fashioned way books) but I found it and that fixed it. WE had a trainer tell us we had to beat the fight and aggression out of her and I think that is part of what started it, we did it for about 2 weeks before realizing that it was only making her behavior worse plus spanking her(not hard, a single tap on the rear) seemed useless to solve the problem. Once again, could have got rid of her, but she was our pet and I wasn't getting rid of her. She lived a long happy life and was put to sleep in 2006 at the age of 11 1/2, went blind at 5 and had arthritis for years. My parents spent more on the dogs arthritis meds a month than they did on their medications for 6 months- a year, not to mention grooming(simply getting her shaved down was $60 a pop and she had to have it done 3 times every summer, not to mention her normal winter and spring grooming when she had fur), vets, heart worm prevention, etc. Her blindness was likely genetic. I doubt her breeder was that great we got her from a family when she was 4 months old who had 5 kids under 5, wife was pregnant again(which is why they got rid of her) and didn't have a fenced in yard. They didn't need any dog much less a high energy working dog, why any breeder would let them have that dog is beyond me.
I will keep Attitude, Nuts and Maude until they cross the bridge. This is what responsible owners do.
Taryn
