“My cat is jealous of my new baby”, is quite a common statement on the internet. Is it jealousy? Or is it a territorial thing? Or both, and more besides.
This is a real situation and one we read about on the internet not infrequently. Some mums (moms) give up their cats when they have a new baby but that is unnecessary. However, it seems that some cats relate to the new family member as an unwelcome intruder onto their home range (the cat’s territory, which is the house and perhaps back yard etc.) and also, perhaps, as an interloper breaking up a stable family unit and existing relationships.
A visitor, Jasmin, made a comment, yesterday on this tricky topic….
I have a cat that has been living with me for almost 7 years. Her name is Baby and she has been spayed.
She sleeps with me every night ever since we adopted her from an animal shelter.
Ever since our daughter, Leah came into our lives last September, Baby has been showing signs of jealousy towards our girl.
The latest incident happened on 01-24-13 at about dinner time. Baby turned around instead of joining us for dinner (my wife, daughter, another cat named Sophie & myself). We didn’t see Baby at all during the entire time we had dinner.
What happened was Baby went into my daughter’s room and defecated in one corner of the room.
Baby has previously smacked Leah on her head and cheeks. She has even lured my daughter into giving her a kiss and then smacked her on her head.
Baby has hissed many times at Leah even though both of them have played together nicely as well and giving each other kisses.
How can I stop Baby’s behaviour or is she just plain jealous of my daughter?
I answered the question as best I could but I would love it if one or two people could assist in finding a neat solution, if there is one. My personal view is that there is no neat solution.
The problem is about the individual character of each cat. Some cats won’t mind so much and some cats will be upset and stressed. Defecating in the corner of a room is scent marking and a sign of stress due to territorial issues.
In summary, my suggestion was (a) that Jasmin spent more time with her cat to try and offset the stress and (b) allowing more time to adapt and adjust to the new family member, which applies to all the family.
I also believe that for some cats no amount of time can resolve the problem. It may be partially resolved but for some individual cats life is never as good again. It can be hard as well, to tell if a cat is stressed or discontent. Not all cats will pee on the bed or whatever as a sign of distress.
In the wild, cats fight over territory. One cat wins. He has his territory. It is not shared. In the wild cat world of the big cats a male cat will have female territories within his extended range.
Feral cats choose their associates (friends). The introduction of a baby is rather like the introduction of a new cat into a household where there are existing cats. There is no automatic acceptance of the new cat by the existing cats. Cats do have preferences and ideas on who they like as an associate.
Returning to the case in point, there may be other factors that are causing the cat to be stressed and it would be wise, I feel, to check all the possibilities as well the central issue: the introduction of a new “cat” (the baby girl Leah) into the household.
lol yes the PoC army would sort anything out between us
I agree, there is a lot going on inside a cat’s head that we are not sure about and don’t know about. And it might be that “Baby” is just playing, pocking and prodding as in play. That is not an act of jealousy or upset. Although Baby has hissed at Leah. Hissing indicates fear really and a cat being in defensive/aggressive mode. But the hissing may be a response to Leah being too rough and mishandling Baby. As you say we don’t have the hard details. I think, the ideal would be for us all to go in to the home and be army of cat behavior consultants 😉 We’d sort the problem out wouldn’t we…
The trouble is with these problems we don’t always know the full story, some people don’t think to mention that a cat is declawed because they think it’s just a routine thing they had done to them. A vet sold them it with neutering and that’s it, they’ve no idea it can cause the cat problems and pain at any time in the future. At 7 years old Baby could easily be suffering in silence which would make her even more unhappy about the new baby ‘playing’ with her.
It can make a difference to how to look at a problem if we know if a cat is declawed or not.
Baby may or may not be, we just don’t know, it was just the way the father said smacked made me wonder because although you are right that a cat may be careful with her claws around a baby it seems unlikely that one upset enough to walk away from the family and defecate in the baby’s room would be.
I’m still not assuming she is declawed though. Cats are careful with their claws and especially with something like a baby. They know not to scratch the baby. I’d give this familly a head start for caring so much about the cat and asking. Clearly they are close. Some cats don’t bother to have dinner with the familly in the first place so it comes from a place of great love I think. In my opinion the complaint should be that they had a baby 🙂
Thanks Rose. It is good point. Declawing affects behavior and the mentality of the cat.