The "what's On Your Mind?" Thread -2021

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Lari

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I'm pretty upset with myself. I was supervising J standing along the window ledge and she reached out to touch Sparkle on the back and since she seemed to be pretty gentle I figured I'd allow it, and Sparkle turned and hissed and swatted her in the face - thankfully claws in and J didn't even react, but there's still a faint scratch near her eye and I'm feeling guilty how much worse it could have been. Lelia runs away and will allow supervised gentle pets when J is calm, but Sparkle insists on standing her ground, so I guess I'm not going to try and foster any relationship between them right now.

It makes me feel like I'm failing both as a pet and human parent. :frown:
 

KarenKat

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Lari Lari - you are definitely not failing. No one got hurt and you were right there if something had happened.
We are dealing with 15 week puppy - kitty interactions right now and once in a while I let the puppy have a teeny amount of contact. Things can always happen and we all do our best. Glad J was fine, don’t beat yourself up so much. :redheartpump:
 

AbbysMom

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makes me feel like I'm failing both as a pet and human parent. :frown:
OMG, NO! You didn’t know that was going to happen, and it wasn’t a lot worse. At some point you will have to test the waters between the two. Now you know you need to back off a little. Trying to cultivate a relationship between them is not failing.
 

Mamanyt1953

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It makes me feel like I'm failing both as a pet and human parent. :frown:
To be quite frank, horse's patootie, you are failing anyone at all. I can remember my dad telling me that my very first kitten, when I was J's age, about, taught me my first and most valuable lessons in "claws and effect." IF Sparkle had wanted to hurt J, she would have. She just let her know that right now, she needs to respect the boundaries. Much like she would have done with a forward kitten. And you were right there. Sparkle and J will be fine together at some point, and J will remember to respect Sparkle. I personally would count this as a wonderful first lesson in cats/kids relationships for both of them. I give all three of you an A+. I grade on what did happen, and what it did mean, not what COULD have happened, if something ELSE had been meant. In the end, your job as a parent is to produce a person who thinks, reasons, and acts as if they do both, and they cannot learn those lessons if they are protected from every bump and scrape (and occasional cat swat).
 

artiemom

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Lari Lari You are definitely not failing as a mom! You are a wonderful mom!
Sparkle was just setting up her boundaries. If she wanted to hurt, she would have had her claws out.
Think of this as a learning experience for J. She is now aware of boundaries! and is learning how to interact with the kitties!

Do not beat yourself up! This is life! This is learning! This is what toddlers do: reach out, experience and learn. They stretch their boundaries and explore.. sometimes there is a bit of hurt, on the way...

As Mamanyt1953 Mamanyt1953 has said, think of the positive, not the negatives of 'what if'. There will be many more moments like this in J's life. This was the first.

I am sure you are feeling awful, but do not---please do not. J is learning to interact with all things; cats included.

Be thankful that Sparkle is treating J with love... It could have been worse, but Sparkle knows that J is a baby and treating her as such..
You did nothing wrong...

You cannot literally cannot keep an eye on J 24/7, without going crazy, yourself...

((((Hugs)))))
 

Lari

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I guarantee that J learned absolutely nothing from this encounter. She didn't even cry.

I thought Sparkle was maybe coming around to the idea of babies because she was fascinated by my sister's a couple weeks ago (she jumped on the changing table with him - we were all stunned!), but thinking on things more, Sparkle does seem to prefer males to females so maybe that had something to do with it. We'll practice gentle kitty interactions with Lelia for now and keep away from Sparkle as best we can at least until J seems to start to understand the word no.
 

susanm9006

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:rolleyes:ikea is like a maze inside spent an hour or two just to buy graycie's new hang out cart.:lol: gf cant seem to just go in and get what we need without taking detours:lol:this ones much more stable and sturdy feeling though
I don’t know if layouts are the same in every IKEA but ours has a first floor, fairly open and a second floor that is a horrid maze you could get lost in for days. I pretty much only shop on the first floor because that second floor scares me that I couldn’t find my way out in an emergency.
 

MoochNNoodles

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I've never been to an Ikea. My friend was going to make a day trip of going to one with me but she moved unexpectedly.

Lari Lari Mom guilt is a real thing we all have to resist. If it didn't happen with this; it could be something else. Anything else. DS once fell and smacked his face on the counter edge not too far below his eye socket. It left a bruise in a line and he screamed like i've never heard. You can be the hoveriest hellicopter parent and stuff can still happen. Try not to let your mind always go to the worst case scenario. It really can sap the joy from your days. :hugs:

Noodles was a whappy cat. Sometimes she would whack you just for walking by. :lol: She learned to just go where the kids couldn't reach her. It took DS a lot longer to learn cat boundaries than DD. And he learned which cat wanted attention and which to leave alone. When J gets bigger she'll learn too.
 

Graceful-Lily

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Been having really violent episodes of non-stop heart palpitations since I started this warehouse job. I think it's the anxiety and stress. :sigh: I usually only have the one palpitation here and there but today, it's been going going since morning. I'm trying to relax but I'm finding it difficult to.
 
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