I'm having a hard time with them & the cats

Up until about 2 months ago, my boys were SO good around our cats. Even at my parents' house, around their 5 cats, people commented on how good they were.

Fast forward to now.

Screaming, chasing, hitting, pulling tails, & completely torturing the poor furry beasts.

I don't know what to do. I tell them nicely EVERY time they act up, even at times before we see the kitties to 'prep' them. We reinforce what is GOOD to do (ie be quiet, don't run, touch nice, etc), which they will mimic, but then the next time is back to their crazy antics again.

It's gotten to the point where our poor cats hide all day or cry at doors to get locked up, just to save themselves from my boys!

Is there anything I can do?

 

Sorr y i have no advice I dealt with the same thing until the cat ran away

 

Oh my word, something must be in the air! In the past week, both have gone to Annabelle (our super sweet cat) and pulled on her tail so hard that Annabelle had to "fight" back. Royce, she popped (claws retracted) and he started crying, Alice, she popped, and Alice laughed then started hitting her. Anna gave her a warning bite (not hard, not breaking the skin) and ran off.

The thing that I have to keep telling myself is that the cats are trying to teach the kids how to behave around animals in the way that they know how. Plus if the cats want to run away, there are plenty of places they can access that the kids can't. I know it sounds callous about the kids being taught by the cats, but I really know of no other way aside from what we're already doing, "no hit, no pull," time outs etc. And the cats aren't hurting the kids and being really patient and only lashing out when they're hurt.

/shrug. . .hopefully it's just a stage. Thank goodness the dogs have no tails!!

 

My kids live with a lot of animals (check out my siggy ) We have always used time outs for mistreating our animals. They get 1 warning and if they do it again, they go to time out. When their time is up (1 minute per year of age) they are expected to tell the animal that they hurt "sorry" and to give them a hug. After a few times, they got the hint that they can't pull tails or fur.

 

We started time outs for mistreating the cat too. I was afraid that he would swipe them when we were not in the room and hurt them. They learned real quick what was acceptable and what wasn't.

 

We do time-outs for harming the animals. It happens very rarely but they know it is considered a serious offense to hit, bite, or otherwise harm ANY living creature-- animal or person. Our boys are madly in love with our cat, so they dote on her like she's a princess. They are not as soft and cooing with the dog, but they are kind to her.

 

I have no good advice. Our cat had decided that no child will make him run. He sits and waits for them and then grabs their shirts. More then once, the babies have tried to escape him only to have their shirt mostly pulled off. They pretty much leave him alone now. but that hasn't taught them any lessons about the other cat or our dog

 

Yep, we do time outs, but to no avail. My mom's cat did bite Conner once (just a nip, not hard) & he said "NO KITTY! NAUGHTY!" Ugh.

 

QUOTE(nurseandrea02 @ Feb 26 2009, 01:31 PM) [snapback]1206128[/snapback]
Yep, we do time outs, but to no avail. My mom's cat did bite Conner once (just a nip, not hard) & he said "NO KITTY! NAUGHTY!" Ugh.


You have to be consistent. If you give up, they will know that you are not serious. Just keep doing the time outs and make sure you tell them why they are in the time out and they should get it.

 

We were pretty firm about not hurting the cats...we had time outs and explanations. When they were 1.5 years old and the cats were around I would constantly say things like, "Be careful of Maggie, we don't want to step on her tail and hurt her" etc which helped make them aware that they needed to take "care" of Maggie and Katy.

Our cats are very gentle but even so, any animal will respond to being hurt so we felt it was important for the girls to understand that they could get hurt too if the cats to felt they had to defend themselves.

 

QUOTE(Tivanni @ Feb 26 2009, 04:48 PM) [snapback]1206985[/snapback]
We were pretty firm about not hurting the cats...we had time outs and explanations. When they were 1.5 years old and the cats were around I would constantly say things like, "Be careful of Maggie, we don't want to step on her tail and hurt her" etc which helped make them aware that they needed to take "care" of Maggie and Katy.

Our cats are very gentle but even so, any animal will respond to being hurt so we felt it was important for the girls to understand that they could get hurt too if the cats to felt they had to defend themselves.


Tivanni, sidebar. . .I love your website. It's helped my husband figure out some things to do with them during the day besides reading and playing.