Winslet has a brave

[wendyzski]

I am seriously annoyed at the idiots who took and then returned Lady Winslet. Aggressive my ass! She spent most of the weekend lying in one of her favorite spots - her carpeted balcony or sprawled on the tile floor - while peering suspiciously at the open cage door. She came out for a few sniffing circuits, but bolted for the cage as soon as I came into the room.

I thought that maybe she might be cage-protective but even that isn't it. She didn't even blink when I emptied her litterbox (aside from staying as far away from me as possible).

Tonight was different though. With the assistance of some tiny bits of dried banana she came up to me, and even nosed my book looking for more. I snuck in a few pets, although she it still very dubious about those. She hopped up on the hay storage tub and stretched out on it to eye me suspiciously.

Her nails are very long and pointy - such that she clicks and slides on the tile floor. I'm going to have to do something about those pretty soon. Not looking forward to traumatizing her, but mommies have to be mean sometimes.

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Comments

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

Does it make me a bad parent that, if I had a cat that was prone to biting my kids, I'd tell my kids to stop annoying the cat? That's basically how I grew up.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of when a friend with a then-3-year-old was invited over. He was concerned that she might poke the bunny and get nipped. I told him it was a self-correcting problem. Kid pokes bunny. Bunny nips kid. Kid learns not to poke the bunny. The End.

[rebeccafiddler.livejournal.com]

No it does not. It makes you an observant and caring parent.

In the case of my cat, she was just too young to be placed in a household with A) younger children, and B) novice kitten wranglers. Once it was determined that she was only being a baby kitty (for real), resolving the problem became much easier; as she grew up and filled out properly, she stopped the 'biting' behavior and went for the head butts instead (something she still loves to do.

The only cat we have that 'bites' unexpectedly is our Siamese, AKA Max the Clueless. As is the case with most Siamese, he is seriously cross-eyed; if you move too quickly into his near vision range, he will sometimes nip in startlement (because he cannot focus clearly enough to see what's coming at him, a common problem with crossed-eyes). He gets a scold when that happens, but we also remember that we have to move a bit more slowly to avoid future issues.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

Yeah - some pets just won't do well with kids. Some of our more easily frightened buns have "homes without young children" noted on their petfinder page. But Pepper was assertive enough to hold her own and knew enough about people to nip without breaking the skin - just hard enough to get your attention.