I need help! Operation: Save my Kitty from munchkin torture!!

[oregonmama79]

Hi there,
Ds is 19 mos old and just a joy and usually a very happy and non hitting little guy. But we have this persistant problem with him grabbing the cat by her belly skin or tail or leg or whatever he can grab! We consistnely tell him to be gentle and model how to pet the kitty. When he does get really rough ,he goes to time out for less than a minute and then we go practice petting the kitty and say sorry. Well this method has been generally ineffective and last night we reached an all time low! DS pulled our cat off the window sill by her leg!! We didn't notice until after he went to bed that our sweet little kitty was limping! We need some help here! How can I teach my LO that we NEED to be gentle with ALL animals. (Note-- he is really only like this with our cat.) Soemtimes-it get so bad, that DH and I just find ourselves yelling at him to, "Stop torturing the kitty!!" He of course doesn't understand this yelling nonsense and typically laughs and continues! Please help! I need to save my kitty's limbs!!

[River's mum]

:

[heartmama]

I really need to make a sticky for this forum called "Your child and your pets" because this is such a big issue.

There are countless threads in the forum on this issue. Try searching the word 'kitty' or 'cat' in the Gentle Discipline Forum.

I can boil down most of the advice to three steps that are simple on the surface but require vigilant consistency for a period of time:

1) No unsupervised contact between toddler and pet. Period.You figure out how to make it happen. It will not be forever. But it will be for awhile and there will be some sacrifice of freedom on the part of the pet and child. There are many ways to do this. You can isolate the cat in one room during the times of the day your toddler is awake and active. The cat may have total freedom during naptime and nighttime. Cats are mostly nocturnal. This won't be a great loss for the cat. Whatever you do really depends on the size and layout of your house. You may have to set up a large ex pen for the kitty if space is limited. But somehow, the cat must be totally out of reach of your toddler.

2) You bring kitty and toddler together during supervised visits. You stand right over the kitty. Show the toddler gentle touch. Give him a task to do, like feed kitty a treat, or brush her fur. Immediately put the kitty away before the baby gets rough. Intervene before any rough touching.

3) Gradually lengthen the supervised sessions as your toddler matures and shows that he is reliable. This will not happen overnight. It may take a year, or longer. But it will happen. The kitty will be spared a year of tail pulling and skin grabbing which easily might have turned a sweet kitten into a scratching biting crank. Remember: it is infinitely easier to prevent animal behavior problems than to cure them.

[PlayaMama]

Originally Posted by oregonmama79

When he does get really rough ,he goes to time out for less than a minute and then we go practice petting the kitty and say sorry. Well this method has been generally ineffective

okay, two quick thoughts,

1- making someone say sorry doesn't mean they feel it. especially a toddler, they have no concept of what sorry is and having him say it just really will make it an automatic response with little meaning later in life. i promise you that if you model saying sorry to him and to each other WITHOUT asking him to say it back, he will start to say it and MEAN it.

i can't tell you how awesome it was to have my ds leave the room after hurting my dd and maybe an hour later when they were playing on their own i heard him say, "i'm sorry for knocking you down." he did it on his own and he meant it.

sorry for the rant but as you said yourself it's been ineffective and i thought i might expand on that.

2- the time out. it's totally unrelated to what is happening. i think it might be more effective to remove the kitty. like, "oh! poor kitty, she needs to go to her cat tree now. i know you want to play with her but you have to be gentle. we can try again later."

my advice is this: don't leave the cat within reach without being right there. it's not fair to your kitty or your little guy. he obviously can't control himself regarding this issue and you're setting him up to fail by letting him and the cat get together. maybe you could let him pet the cat gentle with you right there and as soon as his energy changes, remove the cat.

i have a 14 mo dd that does "good dog" pat pat and in general is gentle with the cat. she will pull on the tail but if i say gentle or "no no" she stops. now, my ds was a different story. he was ALWAYS getting cat scratches, no matter what i did.

he finally got gentle (mostly!!) at around 3. of course, today he dumped a shovel full of dirt on the dog i'm just saying this may take time, lots and lots of time.