It IS possible for cats and babies to co-exist, and to keep both cat and kid safe! It just takes a little forethought.
Cat needs to have it’s claws trimmed regularly. It’s not hard.
How old is the cat? He may be playing, they will grow out of it, and they CAN be trained, it’s also not hard. Plus, cats don’t generally just reach out to bite out of aggression, they go to claws for that. I’d bet the cat is curious and is trying to figure this little being out. No, biting isn’t good, but it’s on par with the baby reaching for the cat’s tail - curiosity. And there’s a big difference between an investigatory nibble and an out-and-out attack.
Babies and animals of ANY kind should not be left together unsupervised, too much can happen to either the kid or the animal, or both. And it isn’t fair to either of them.
I know I’ll get lambasted for this, but I can’t help it.
The cat may not be a baby, but he is a living being with thoughts and feelings and fears, and he was in the house first. You took on a responsibility to him when you took him in, and IMO there needs to be SOME effort to fix the situation, not automatically go to “dump the cat”. He’s a cat, not something that’s going to rip the kid’s throat out. Kids get hurt, they learn, they live. Unless the child is immunocompromised, a cat scratch isn’t the end of the world.
A few changes in management and some time for both cat and kid to grow and get used to each other, and I think you’ll be fine.
But if you must rehome him, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE find someone to take him, don’t just drop him at the shelter, that would be a death sentence for sure.
And if there’s sibling that’s doing the biting/scratching, does one get rid of the sibling?
Yeah yeah, I know, cats are worthless, they’re only animals, they don’t deserve any sort of consideration, they’re just for our amusement, get rid of them if they become too much trouble. :rolleyes:
Pretty much this. I couldn’t have said much better.
The instructions for Soft Paws include trimming the nails first. If the cat isn’t resistant to nail trims, and can be done without much to-do, then skip the Soft Paws and just trim the nails weekly. No biggie, I do it with all four of mine.
The biting, I would be a titch more concerned with, and keep a close eye on how the cat reacts to the baby. Small children and pets should never be left in a room unsupervised, even for a few minutes. Babies have been mauled by dogs in fewer than 10 minutes, though I’ve never heard of a cat mauling a baby, cat bites can certainly be damaging. This particular cat may need more vigilance and need to be roomed away from the baby even if there’s full supervision until the baby is old enough to learn to leave kitty alone.
My good friend who is a veterinarian has 5 cats and a 14-month-old. There is no way in hell she would ever get rid of a cat because of incompatibility with a baby who will get older and learn. Sure he’s been scratched and nipped. He’s also learned not to grab tails and back away from warnings and to not approach a couple of the cats that don’t want to be. He’s not stupid, he’s a learning baby.
I agree with this perspective EXCEPT for in this situation. If the pet is harming a child in the household (allergies, biting, whatever), it has to go. Unless there is an option like making it live in the basement for awhile until the kid outgrows the poking/pulling stage. That’s what I’d try first, but if there was no basement or that didn’t work, I’d give the cat away.
I’d second not giving it to a shelter if at all possible: the cat will likely live out the rest of its life shut up in a tiny cage and probably be put down. This seems like a cruel fate for what is honestly a pretty normal (if unwanted) feline reaction to unwanted handling. Do you have any friends or family that would take him? That would also give you the option of getting him back later. I currently have custody of my brother’s cat for the year due to an unsuitable living situation and it’s working out well.
Kids are tough - they heal, they learn, they grow up to be confident and not afraid that the world is out to get them, if they are allowed to. I grew up w/ Great Danes. I clearly remember being towered over by the dogs, and being knocked flat a time or two as a little kid. Skinned elbows and knees never hurt for long, neither do scratches. I (obviously) love animals, my childhood did not scar me for life.
I hate that animals must pay the price for the human’s unwillingness to step off their pedestal and share the world with the other creatures in it.
I think I need to not look at this thread anymore…
You’re right, it isn’t about his claws. As a mother and cat lover I would say, supervise the child pretty closely and keep a spray bottle around for when the cat gets close. Give it a try.
When my kids were very small I had a cat who liked to do toddler bowling, i.e., kid is toddling around unsteadily, cat comes out of nowhere, pounces, kid falls down. This happened many times. The kid is now grown and owns three cats, and when I reminded him of this he said toddlers are going to fall down a lot anyway (which is true).
Dogs are different–dogs can actually do a lot of damage in a short time.
So yeah, your daughter comes first, and it’s your cat, but maybe some increased vigilance for the next few months would solve the problem.
Leaving the keep/get rid of debate aside, the “little shit” sounds energetic and bored. It might be beneficial to tire him out a few times a day with a laser pointer (watching this is also entertaining for the baby). Give him a wide variety of toys to play with (if giving catnip, or catnip toys do so in a room where the baby won’t be, just in case it makes him MORE wired for a while).
I agree, too. The OP created this situation; he decided to get three cats, then he decided to have kids - this situation was almost guaranteed to happen eventually. The cats have had an incredible upheaval in their lives, and cats like routine. This is their home, too - cats aren’t just furniture.
The OP might also try getting the nails trimmed at the vet for a while - we had the vet do one of our cats, and they trimmed the nails so short they took a really long time to grow out again.
We have a bitey cat, and she never just nips out of nowhere - if we get bit, we were definitely asking for it or ignored the warnings. If your cat is just biting out of the blue, he really is a little shit - I don’t know if he can be trained out of that.
For a couple of years when I was a small child, my family owned large dogs. These dogs frequently knocked me down, scratched me, and barked/snapped at me. I quickly learned to live in terror of them, and to this day I feel nervous and anxious whenever I have to be around a dog. My kids would love to get one but I simply can’t tolerate it. My childhood experiences with dogs did scar me for life, and additionally even if some other 6-year-old child were able to have those experiences and not be scarred, we are talking about a 9-month-old baby here. 9 months is not an age for letting the child explore the world and learn that the world isn’t a safe place. It’s an age for babyproofing the shit out of everything around them, because they will try to inappropriately climb it/yank it/break it/stick it in their mouths.
I’m not a pet owner (obviously) but in my opinion you either come up with a solution that involves the child never, ever being alone with the cat, and I do mean never, or you get rid of the cat.
Some people shouldn’t have kids, and I mean that in a good way. If this is a moral dilemna for you, then please don’t have kids. If you have kids then get rid of the fucking cat already.
I have an autistic child. I have to live with the fact she got some pretty nasty second degree burns in day care (and 2 years later, I think we dodged the bullet on permanent disfiguring scarring). It would really suck to have a child that was scared physically or mentally from an *easily *avoidable action. Not sure how common but your child could lose an eye if things were really unlucky. Hmmm, let me think about this, keep little kitty sugar and risk the kidlet having lifelong issues, tough choice, let me get on the SDMB and ask the teeming millions for some direction.
Gah, ruin your own stupid pathetic life but give your child a chance.
Give the cat a chance. Its not a dog, its not a real threat. At most, the baby will get some scratches, no more than he’ll get himself crawling around the house
Keeping the cat and the baby hermetically sealed from each other will kind of tough as both cats and babies tend to get into everything. Plus, to be frank, it really does not sound like you have put much effort (so far) into monitoring that interaction given that you are discovering all these scratches after the fact, and have no idea when they happened.
If (as you’ve indicated) the cat has an innate behavioral tendency to be bitey and scratchy, it’s unfortunate but the cat needs to go. Kids may be tough, but they are also quite delicate re their eyes and skin and a pissed off cat letting go on a kid could easily do significant damage.
I understand people love their cats, but there are scenarios where I don’t think it makes sense to roll the dice and this is one. In weighing the moral and ethical obligations to a cat vs the same obligations to a human child, fair or not, the cat is always going to be on the far short end of the stick,
Yeah, what’s a few easily preventable scratches from a cat? It’s not as if the cat will ever scratch the child’s face or anything. And if it does, so what? The cat really was there first, so really, it’s the baby’s fault. I’m sure your wife will understand.