My Cat Seems To Dislike Me... Would I Be Horrible For Rehoming Her?

[teeari]

I have two cats: a boy and a girl. The boy is larger and more dominant, the girl is smaller and more submissive/very shy. They're just over 2 years old.

The boy is great - 0 concerns with him. The girl, however, I'm struggling with. She's always been skittish, but there was a situation a couple weeks ago that I think screwed me over. She bit me and I swatted her on the nose (not hard, just as a "hey, stop that!" type thing - in retrospect, I know that was a bad decision but it was a snap reaction, so please don't judge me, I already feel absolutely horrible for it) and she bolted away. Now, she hides from me constantly, despite me leaving treats for her, trying to be as un-frightening as possible, speaking in a soft voice... but it's not getting any better.

The weird thing is, she seems to love my boyfriend. She always curls up to him and enjoys coming around him, even though he tends to be pretty loud (and loud noises generally scare her). I'm getting really frustrated, because I take care of this animal who doesn't want anything to do with me.

I'm unhappy with the situation, and I can't imagine that she's too happy if she's constantly hiding. I rarely see this cat anymore. So, my question is, would I be a horrible person if I found her a new home? I just don't think this is the best situation for either of us.

 

[susanm9006]

Rehoming traumatic for any animal so in my opinion it should only be a last resort. Your cat doesn't dislike you, she is afraid of you. She may not get over this in a week but if you give her time she will come around but may never be the cuddle lap cat type. If you can live with this long term then the best thing for the cat is to stay with you. If it makes you angry with the cat then maybe not.

 

[kikilove]

Maybe treat her like you would a semi feral that you're trying to socialize. Throw away all expectations and thoughts of how it was before The Incident. Start doing things like just sitting w her, reading aloud. Just ignore her. Read w treats next to you and when she comes to her them just ignore her- resist the urge to pet her. You're doing a reset. It's worth trying as rehoming is an extreme answer to a usually workable situation. Patience and no expectations are key.

 

[Kat0121]

Maybe treat her like you would a semi feral that you're trying to socialize. Throw away all expectations and thoughts of how it was before The Incident. Start doing things like just sitting w her, reading aloud. Just ignore her. Read w treats next to you and when she comes to her them just ignore her- resist the urge to pet her. You're doing a reset. It's worth trying as rehoming is an extreme answer to a usually workable situation. Patience and no expectations are key.

Yeah. I agree. It's not that she doesn't like you. The best thing to do is take a deep breath and relax. She is picking up on your anxiety. All relationships take time to develop. Talk to her. Tell her that you're sorry it happened and you did not mean to upset her. Tell her that you want to be her friend and you want her to be happy. She's already bonded to your boyfriend so I personally would recommend trying to repair things before considering rehoming. You have to give her control of the relationship. Once she feels that the anxiety is no longer there and that you want to be her friend, she should start to relax a bit too.

When she behaves the way you want, praise her and give her a yummy treat. Hands free play time like with a wand toy or laser pointer are good too. The play time and treats will associate you with good things.

I don't think that you want to rehome her. I think you want to keep her. If you didn't, you would not have bothered coming here for advice. You can do this. This could turn out to be a wonderful friendship with time, love and lots of patience. Hang in there and feel free to ask us anything. You can do this and we want to help.