So we have three cats. Two brothers, almost 4, that we’ve had since they were a few months old, and an third that’s older (we assume around 6-7).
We also have a 9 month old girl, who’s just gotten to moving around quite a bit and is now starting to approach the cats.
Two of the cats will either tolerate her inquisitiveness or move away when they need to.
One of them though…
We’ve noticed scratches on our daughter. I’ve seen him reach his paw out to her but that time his claws weren’t out and I assumed it was just a bit of playing. Today my wife saw the cat try to bite our daughter. How hard, I couldn’t say.
Thing is, this is NOT an isolated incident of the cat being jealous. He’s just a little shit. Cute as can be, and unbelievably cuddly, but a little shit nonetheless.
He’ll knock over glasses. He’ll bat at pictures hanging on the walls. They’re all indoor cats and yet every so often he’ll get it in his head to make a run for the door when it opens. He knows it’s wrong. He’ll see us watching him and then run and hide if we come after him.
But this is the last straw. We just don’t know what to do. Options present themselves:
Soft claws
Declaw him
Make him an outdoor cat
“Free cat, goes by the name of little shit”
Obviously #1 seems like the best first attempt but I really don’t think it’ll do anything. This isn’t about his claws. This is about his behavior.
Complicating matters is that he and his brother are littermates. They’ve literally been together their entire lives. The other one has epilepsy and the little shit takes care of his brother after the seizures. So I’m hesitant to break them up but…well…my daughter’s gotta come first, right?
Unless you want your child to forever have to live with facial scars and the shame of being a victim of a vicious kitten-mauling the rest of her life, get rid of the goddamn cat. Putting soft claws on him will not help, unless you plan to remove all his teeth as well.
Can I ask you a question? Why are you here? Why are you even asking this question? Why was it not out the door the second you saw the scratches? I get that people like to have internet validation when making tough decisions, but did you really expect to hear someone advocating to keep a cat that is hurting your less-than-a-year-old baby??? I seriously cannot believe you had to ask for advice on this. Would you ask for advice on what to do if she had a peanut allergy and keeping a jar of peanut butter in the kitchen was causing her a rash? No, you’d throw away the freaking peanut butter without needing to ask anyone what to do, because it’s unsafe to have it near your child.
Common sense, my friend. Trust it.
Also why was the baby left unattended, with the cats, at that age? Unless the cats are jumping into her crib at night, your eyes should always be on her when she is around animals.
I wouldn’t bother with soft claws or any of that other stuff. If monitoring your daughter so she doesn’t harasss the cat isn’t realistically possible and/or if there is any evidence at all that the cat is instigating ( which is possible if he has decided to play some dominance game ), I’d get rid of him to a good home that doesn’t have young children. And I might move to do so with his brother if they are that tightly bonded, unless that creates a major impediment to getting the “bad” one adopted out.
It sucks, but this sort of issue with toddlers and pets isn’t that uncommon. It’s how some friends of mine got their current cat - the previous owner’s newborn daughter unexpectedly turned out to be allergic.
OK, so I’ll have to be the one to disagree. I believe owning a pet should be a commitment for the animal’s life unless all other options fail. I do think you owe it to the animals to try to work something out before dumping them on someone else just because your kid is going through a phase. Right now your kid may not be able to understand the concept of leaving the cats alone but with time it will be possible (and I think desirable) to teach her limits like that. It seems like a huge overreaction to dump a family pet over something that will resolve on its own with time.
…Especially because it’s not like there are a ton of people willing to adopt adult cats in the first place, let alone adult cats with health problems. Here, even the shelters literally give away adult cats for free.
I would stop letting the cats and the kid roam around together unsupervised. If that means the cats have to spend a few months living in the basement or become indoor/outdoor, then so be it (although I am generally against keeping cats outside, if the alternative is getting rid of the animal I think it’s worth trying). I would also start keeping a spray bottle handy and spray the cat when he approaches the baby while they are both roaming around supervised. It might also be worth trying to clip the cat’s nails.
That cat would be long out of my house. If somebody can give it a good home, fine. If nobody will give it a good home and the shelter puts it down after the waiting period, that’s fine too.
I don’t care that the baby will grow up soon to be bigger than the cat. The cat would be lucky I had the self-control to resist the urge to kill it the second it harmed my child.
Wait, though… what if this behavior is just a temporary thing because you’ve got a 9 month old that doesn’t know any better than to get in Little Shit’s face and pull his tail, or whatever?
I’d give it a few months, and maybe try and keep LS away from the baby until she grows up a bit and learns some cat manners?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pet cat that would tolerate a baby that tried pounding on it with their little fists or yanking on its tail, which I think is what all babies would do. That being said, it seems that it’s only one specific cat that’s causing the problems, so I imagine Little Shit is probably fucking with your kid. Out it goes.
**A PERSON’S OBLIGATION TO HIS FUCKING CHILDREN ARE THOUSANDS OF TIMES MORE IMPORTANT THAN TO ANY PET!!!
**The cat has injured the child. Full stop. I don’t give a damn that the baby may not have “cat manners.” You can’t expect that of the baby. It is a parent’s job to protect a baby from harm.
Ender, get rid of the fucking cat immediately. Hopefully you can find someone to give IT a home, but even if can’t, get rid of it. You owe it to your daughter, and any suggestion otherwise is insane.
If you take your kid to the playground and another toddler there pushes your kid down, you don’t run onto the playground and start beating the child to death because it dared to “hurt” your child.
Just like small children, animals don’t know any better when they do things that cause injury.
If my cat scratched or bit an infant, I’d consider it more my fault for not supervising them rather than blame the cat in any way. Infants really should not be left unsupervised with animals in the first place.
The cat in the OP has repeatedly injured Ender’s child. That cat is gone. I wouldn’t care if it was the most beloved of the cats I have owned; it would be out of my house and lucky not to have been stomped to death.
I’ll go further than I did before. Caring more about one’s pet than one’s baby is not merely insane; it’s immoral.
ETA: No, I wouldn’t beat down a child who injured my child, and I wouldn’t (necessarily) remove one offspring from my home for injuring a younger sibling. (Hell, I caused pain to my little sister when we were 10 and 5, out of stupidity and arrogance and maybe some sibling rivalry; I can understand how it happened.) But humans are more important to children. I have no tolerance for an animal harming my kid, because Evil!Skald only exists on the Straight Dope.
If a dog tried to bite your daughter you would (at least I hope you would) get rid of the dog. The same thing goes with a cat. Honestly, if you daughter does get her face scratched, ear bitten, whatever, by the cat, are you willing to live with yourself?
In the end, it’s still just a cat, no matter how attached to it you are.
I, for one, like EvilSkald, no matter how internet-only he may be. It’s much easier to read his words than Skald’s words.
Also, cats that are good around kids do not retaliate to a baby pulling their fur and grabbing their tail. Good cats either put up with it, or trot away looking slightly puzzled at this thing which is clearly young and stupid and grabby and cat-sized, but human in appearance. Good cats will recognize that you hold it and feed it and pay attention to it all the time, and not fuck with it. Bad cats will want to compete with it and hurt it because they’re mad you’re not feeding and paying attention to the cat, instead.
Keep the cat and work to teach your daughter to be gentle with the animals and keep them separated until she is old enough to understand not to antagonize the kitty. Soft Paws would be a good idea while you are teaching her about boundaries with the animals.
I get that people are more important than animals and if the cat were jumping in her crib or otherwise seeking her out to cause her harm then getting rid of him would be the right thing to do, but honestly kids are going to get hurt and injured exploring the world around them all the time. You do what you can to protect them and teach them to keep themselves safe but at the same time your kid isn’t made of glass or a hemophiliac or anything either so the occasional scratch if you don’t catch her before she grabs the kitty won’t be the death of her. Try the Soft Paws. Try letting him be an outdoor cat if that is a possibility. Be vigilant about not leaving them alone together until she is old enough to know better. If you try everything you can to encourage them to live in peace and it just can’t happen then find the cat a new home but exhaust your other options first.
Yeah, sorry about the vehemence upthread. I’m not really objective about harm to kids.
I don’t contend that it would be ethical to do violence to the cat for scratching or biting a baby, and I would try very hard to restrain the urge to do so. But I know myself well enough to know that I’d be furious and would have to fight the impulse.