Our cat HATES children...

Question
We adopted a 9 month old cat about 5 months ago. Linus is the most social cat I have ever encountered; he follows everyone around, is very cuddly, friendly and playful. He has no problem with new people/visitors and took about five minutes to acclimate from his foster to our home. We WERE told when we adopted him that he is a single-cat-cat and cannot have cat siblings, but the fosters and the shelter didn't know how he'd do with kids.

Well...apparently not so great. We don't have any of our own kids yet but will be adopting within the next 2 years. We regularly babysit a little boy who is VERY timid toward Linus, has NEVER hurt or noisily bothered etc. him. But it's like the little boys' very existence (his size??) freaks the living daylight our of Linus and he will just go crazy. He starts stalking the boy and in recent weeks has begun attacking him (he keeps his claws retracted but still hits pretty hard). He hisses and makes this moaning sound from deep in his gut. I think Linus is just petrified, but honestly the boy is doing nothing. He'll just be sitting there very quietly playing and Linus will start the stalking. We've started locking Linus in another part of the house as soon as he looks aggressive, but I don't see how this will train him to accept kids. Today we had another kid come over and before the kid was even ten feet into the front door Linus was batting angrily at him and hissing up a storm. I locked him away immediately (and he immediately becomes docile and gentle in my arms), but I'm not sure what to do. We can't keep him in two years should he still behave like this towards kids but we really love him a lot and his personality seems so OPPOSITE to this behaviour!

Are there things we can do to get him to stop the hatred/petrified fear of small people? I would think it had something to do with kids pulling his tail, abusing him etc. but the child he is normally around has NEVER been alone with him and so I KNOW that he has never done ANYthing to abuse Linus in anyway. He doesn't even talk loudly! The first few times he met Linus we sat with him quietly on the floor so that Linus could smell his hand and we petted Linus together very gently. We taught the kid to stay away from his cat tree and walk very slowly whenever he is around Linus. But still...!!

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Megan

Answer
Hello Megan,

Either Linus has had an unpleasant experience with a child before or he has never been socialised with children before. The sensitive period of socialisation is between 2-7 weeks of age and it is during this stage that a cat must be introduced to as many different stimuli as possible, if they are not then it is very difficult for them to accept the stimuli after this stage. Children can seem very threatening to a cat regardless to whether they have had a bad experience with them in the past. Children can be very unpredictable and threatening in their movements and vocalisation, they can be facinated by cats and stare at them and the fact they are small and sometimes crawling brings them down to the cats level, this is all very threatening behaviour to a cat.

I would suggest when you have a child at you home keep Linus somewhere so he can see the child, but cannot get to him, somewhere that has a glass door, a high baby gate or even a large dog training cage, but making sure he is not too close. While you are doing this make sure the child ignores Linus as much as possible, and someone should be with Linus playing with him and giving him treats as a distraction method. Slowly move the child and Linus closer and closer over time, using the same methods and rewarding Linus for non-aggressive behaviour. The end result should be that you have de-sensitised Linus to the point that he can be in the vacinity of the child without it eliciting a fear based aggressive response, but it is always important that he has an immediate escape route, as a cats first reaction to a fear or threatening stimulus is usually to flee, if he does not have this opportunity then fight is usually the next tactic.

Do not try and introduce Linus by carrying him to the child, do not try and pick him up, talk to him, or follow him when he is showing aggressive behaviour as this will only reinforce it or make him become aggressive towards you. The use of something called Felifriend which is a pheromone spray you can spray onto the child may be of advantage and do some research on de-sensitisation and counter-conditioning methods as these will be of help. You can also buy a CD called Sounds Scary which I use alot to habituate cats to noises that they have a fear of. You will find one that has the sound of small children playing etc on it, with this you can have it playing at a low level in the house, gradually over time raising the volume, the point of this is to slowly habituate Linus to the noises that children make so that he learns it is nothing to be scared of.

I hope this has helped a little. It may be that Linus will never fully be able to feel comfortable around children. But with some research and patients it is possible that you can try to de-sensitise him to a point that he does not choose aggression and instead chooses avoidance.

I hope this has helped you a little

Thank you

Kelly