STILL dealing with DD and Cat!

[MamaRuga]

So I posted 6 months or so ago about DD and our cat. She was only about a year old back then but we are still dealing with the same problem. Only now she is 18 m.o and more mobile and clever. She loves the kitty but pulls her leg and tail all the time. She also likes to lay on top of her and hug her. I've been redirecting her, telling her that it hurts kitty, showing her how we pat gently, giving her a stuffed animal cat that she *can* pull the leg/tail of, moving the cat out of the room, moving DD out of the room....

I am so tired of simply saying the same thing/doing the same thing over and over. Tonight we had to keep after her again and again. The cat is very gentle and, for some reason, seems to want to be with DD. So when I try to move kitty to a safe spot she will just come back again. Sometimes I have to lock the cat in the basement or another room just to keep her safe, but it seems sad for her to be away from the family (she is a very people oriented cat).

I am just not sure what to do. Tonight DH and I were both really starting to raise our voices as she went after the cat for the 15th time and then laughed when she sees we are angry. I am afraid that she will seriously hurt the cat but I am also wanting to DD to LEARN that we really will not accept her hurting the cat. Is this unrealistic for a 18 month old? I just don't know what to do. I had hoped that after months of redirecting and showing her the gentle way of petting we would start to see some change. But not so far. She can be gentle and often is.. patting and kissing "ms. kitty" but then she moves onto the tail or leg pull. How can we handle this in a GD way and help DD understand that this is not acceptable?

I seriously need some ideas!

[Mylie]

I could have written your post word for word...

LOL....My little one is 22 months and I have a very gentle loving cat that L loves to also pat(hard) and lay on top of to hug her...I think the last month or two has been the hardest...I have been telling her to be gentle and love the kitty and now am telling her to be gentle and to get off the cat!!

My reasoning for getting a little bit stricter with her is this cat has never even opened her claws around L..She very paitently takes all the abuse while eyeing me "Please help me"..My theory is that we cannot expect animals to be gentle with children that aren't made to be gentle with them..And vise versa..So I have been giving L some couch time when she is her harshest with the cat...Don't get me wrong..She isn't downright mean just rough..But she is almost two years old and I expect her to have boundaries when it comes to being gentle with other living creatures just like they are gentle with her..

So I will pick her up off the cat(and this is after doing it once time and giving her a warning)putting her on the couch and very firmly in front of her saying No!! You cannot sit on the kitty..We have to be gentle with the Kitty.It is starting to work...She is learning..It is a process because she is only 22 months and I am trying so hard to be very consistant.

My advice is to give it time and just be firm(but loving) and consistant..She will eventually learn to be gentler with her kind gentle pet..

Good Luck!!

[buttercups.nest]

When my daughter was 11months old she crawled for the first time....after the cats The one stayed away from her all the time, but the other would insist on sitting right beside her. She did the usual...pull the tail, pull fur, etc and we spent about a month-two months trying to teach her to be gentle. What finally clicked for her was when I took her hand and I petted her head and repeated over and over, 'gentle, this is how we be gentle'. ever since we started that we have had very few problems.

Problems now are if the cats are sleeping and DD wants to play...but then its just a reminder the cats are sleeping etc. Even when we got our new kitten 2months ago we had no problems with her picking the cat up trying to hold it, or pulling his tail etc.

Hope this helps!
Good luck

[kiwiva]

I think she's too young to get it. Yes, keep reminding and redirecting but no matter what you do she still will not be able to control her impulse to bug the kitty. She understands gentle when you are doing it with her, but then that tail is there to be pulled. It will sink in eventually but even if she can repeat the rule back to you and demonstrate it, that doesn't mean she can control her exuberance.

We have 3 cats, 2 just took off away from DD always.1 did not, she stood her ground (she also did see DD as a people kitten, she would guard her when others were in the home). DD got scratched a few times and STILL was not deterred. So no matter what I did, if I yelled or punished or something it wasn't going to help if being hurt by the cat didn't help. Also sometimes yelling or using stern voice can backfire bc it is such a novel reaction, that it can make it more fun to do something to get that to happen.

All I could do was be vigilant about keeping them separate (very difficult I know when neither the cat or baby was cooperating), keep trying to move the cat higher and hope she stayed there. At some point a few months ago, it stopped being an issue and I could expect DD to be gentle consistently. DD is 32 mos now.

[Beppie]

Can you give the cat a higher place to sleep? Maybe put a cushion or blankets on top of a shelf that dd can't reach? We have 2 little girls and a lazy cat who also won't move when they give her a hug (lying on top of her)... but the situation got better when we gave kitty a higher place to sleep.

On the other hand, if the cat is really bothered by it, the cat can move! I think 18 months/2 years old is still a little too young to understand what you are saying about the cat. Other than redirecting her, I don't know there's much that you can do. Especially since the cat doesn't get up and move itself. You mention the cat seems to like her a lot. Well, then, maybe just let the situation be, and maybe your dd won't be as interested doing anything if she knows you're not giving the situation your attention. just an idea.

[sp24]

I am having the same trouble with my 17mo. old! He started 'loving' the cats about 3 mo. ago by laying on them and pulling tails. I thought with consistent, gentle reminders that the behavior would eventually change, but it has gotten worse. I think the advice is good here, and would love any other ideas too. I'm about at my wits' end! Unfortunately the cats just lay there and take it until it gets really bad. I've tried redirecting and teaching gentle petting, not reacting at all (until it really seems the cats are in pain...) and I've tried yelling (when I have no patience left--and always regret it later). Nothing seems to work! I guess it seems you all are saying it just takes time? I think I'll also try putting the cats in another room--but I hate to 'punish' them because of the torture they're enduring! At least it is helpful to know others have had this issue and have come through it...thanks for the support!

[guestmama9972]

I have three kids and two cats, plus foster cats (only one at a time) from a local shelter. We have had to do lots of teaching with the kids about how to treat the cats. My youngest is 18 mo and with her repetition is the key. By repetition I mean that we have been teaching her to pet the cats gently from the time she was just a few months old and was interested in them. She still needs watching and reminding, but she is finally getting it. Of course, her version of gentle is a little different than mine, but I can tell she understands what the goal is.

One of my cats is not so patient with little people and, while she doesn't scratch, she does slap and sometimes bites, however gently. She has never broken dd's skin, but she will do it hard enough to get her message across. I figure that the cat gives as good a lesson as can be had.

[sapphire_chan]

We got Lina to use open hands to pat the cats instead of grabbing a hunk of fur and flesh in less than a month when she first started going after the cats by controlling her hand 100% in petting the cats, followed by guiding her hand by the wrist. "gentle, open hands, see how the kitty likes it? scritch behind the ears, happy kitty"

now we're working on making the patting more gentle. mostly by guiding how she touches our faces so we can be sure we know how much force she's using and so the cats aren't the victims if she does an excited slap. (baby jazz hands are funny, but a sure sign it's time to move her away from my face/belly/arm)

I don't know how well it would work with an 18 month old though, since she's already started to have resistance, from time to time, to being shown how to touch. Back when she was 6 months old, she didn't care as long as she got to touch cats.