Cat problems after new baby
Our first child, a beautiful baby girl was born mid january. Since then, our cat of 6 years has gotten aggressive and began to use our finished basement as her bathroom. Ive tried giving her all sorts of attention. Playing with her even more than prior to the child. Ive moved the litter, changed the litter, and changed it back after there being no change. Ive taken her to the vet to rule out a UTI.
There's nothing medically wrong with her. She chased my 2 year old niece around the house swatting at her and trying to bite. She bit my mother's leg while my mom just sat on the couch holding her new granddaughter.
There is one corner of the 1800 sq foot basement she prefers to use as her restroom. I laid painters plastic down in that area trying to deter her. All she does is move the plastic!
Any other ideas? I love my pets dearly (two dogs and the cat) but I can not seem to get her to change this new bad behavior. Thanks for your ideas guys, im really at a loss here. Just hoping I can get this behavior corrected before she finds a reason to bite my daughter.
Hmm. I'm usually pretty good on cats, but you've got me stumped.
There are a couple avenues available. Two big ones are to give the cat a baby shelter. Someplace high she can jump to to escape the baby, even though of course the baby can't chase her at that age. The other option is to humble the cat a little by sending it away for a few days. This drives cats so crazy that they come back willing to appreciate just about any change so long as they get to be home.
But that's just guesswork on my part. Some people try acclimating the cat to the baby with touch, but I don't think that's a great idea. If you trap a cat near a baby, the claws are likely to come out.
Unfortunately, adoption may be your only option (the cat, not baby), especially if there's aggression towards people.
I guess I'm very lucky that my two retards are at least ok with my little girl. The older one (he was 3 when my daughter was born) avoids her by staying upstairs all day, only coming down to eat or drink. The younger one (she was 1) is much more tolerant...
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Try boarding her at the vet for a week or two. She'll be so happy to be home she'll forget about why she was pissed.
Tag for outcome. Good luck.
Sometimes they just get aggressive and all the extra attention in the world won't change the fact that there's a new being in THEIR house. I had problems with the cat I've had the longest becoming aggressive toward a couple new cats, after more than a year it eventually worked itself out when the new ones decided they weren't taking it any more. Nothing I did made a difference, though, and I tried everything the vet and animal psychologists said.
I've heard of people spraying 2 cats that don't get along with the same perfume, but it seems like fooling their noses should be harder than that. Still it's worth a shot for you, your wife, and your daughter to try using the same skin lotion and see what happens.
