Fiance - Cat Tension

[Anonymous]

Aside from feeding the cats, get a mouse on a string toy (the kind with a stick to hold) and have your DF wave it around when he is around them. They will learn to play with the toy and not swipe at him.

[Anonymous]

I hate cats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate cats.

You must be a miserable person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thanks all for several very helpful suggestions.

I absolutely do not intend on giving up the cats. The cats used to be fine around DF before he moved in, the aggression and the repeated swiping started only once he moved in. They are also fine around most visitors.

I have had DF give them treats but that hasn't resolved the situation so far. I'm not currently considering therapy or putting cameras in the house.

Did you read the above posts as just "have him give treats" and that's all? That alone won't fix everything. Really hoping you see that as just a first step. You got plenty of advice beyond therapy for him or cameras in the house.

Op here.

Yes I intend on making use of the advice.

I bought a toy for him to play with the cats and we are going to work on more socialization with the cats.

[Anonymous]

OP, your cat hisses because your guy is bad news. For real. Cats and dogs can sense people. Time to get rid of him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he makes a good faith effort to bond with the cats and one or both try to scratch his eyes out, get rid of the cat or cats. Trust me, if you have a baby and the cats abuse the baby you will get rid of them.

Tell that to my neighbor whose dog bit two kids, including her own baby, and she still has the dog.

It's called pet training. She needs to take her dog to a trainer or group training. Obviously don't leave the dog alone with a baby.

Maybe some people just have to face the music and admit that the pet or pets simply aren't fitting in with their actual family. You know, the spouse and the kids. I couldn't imagine either of my parents putting up with hostility from an animal over ensuring their children were safe and unharmed. But that's just well, um, normal?

[Anonymous]

I highly recommend what someone upthread recommended. Give your cats a multi-day timeout in a room in your house. They need time to adjust. I had almost the same situation with my cats. I put them in a room for 3 days with all their food, litter etc. It totally chilled them out and when I let them out, they were fine— they stopped the bad behavior.

Playing with toys really isn’t going to help. They need time to feel safe. They view your fiancé as an intruder in their territory. They need a few days to safely listen and smell through the door without the stress of being around him. It doesn’t matter that he’s been to your house a lot— they know the difference when he moves in.

Does it sound psycho? Yes. Will it work? There’s a good chance.

[Anonymous]

I have a suggestion for him: RUN! Cats suck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a suggestion for him: RUN! Cats suck.

+1 Cats want to eliminate the competition for their mistress. Eliminate the man, eliminate the baby. It's no surprise they carry a parasite that could cause birth defects or miscarriages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I highly recommend what someone upthread recommended. Give your cats a multi-day timeout in a room in your house. They need time to adjust. I had almost the same situation with my cats. I put them in a room for 3 days with all their food, litter etc. It totally chilled them out and when I let them out, they were fine— they stopped the bad behavior.

Playing with toys really isn’t going to help. They need time to feel safe. They view your fiancé as an intruder in their territory. They need a few days to safely listen and smell through the door without the stress of being around him. It doesn’t matter that he’s been to your house a lot— they know the difference when he moves in.

Does it sound psycho? Yes. Will it work? There’s a good chance.

This sounds like animal abuse.

[Anonymous]

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/cat-psychopaths/583192/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it possible your cats were abused by men in the past? I rescued a cat who I'm pretty sure had been because she'd cower and shrink away from them. Women were fine, though she would hid from everyone except me. I was the only person who could pet her and hold her but it took a while for her to warm for me.

The first night I had her, she came out from under the bed when I was going to sleep and bit my ear and head so hard I had to turn the light on to see if I was bleeding. She did that periodically over the years...I always said she was 98% world's best cat (for me) and 2% complete asshole. She once attacked me so viciously that I had blood pooled on my bed and a trail of blood to the bathroom with splatters I continued to find for a couple of weeks. I took her to the vet the next day to make sure there wasn't something wrong with her because it was a particularly brutal attack. In the end I had to go on broad spectrum antibiotics which between the diarrhea and regrowth of gut flora and the yeast infection was the gift that kept on giving.

Anyway, all of this to say that if they were abused by men before you had them, it's possible they might never get used to your fiancé. Having him feed them and give treats is a good idea but they might just kick his ass in the middle of the night. You never know.

This story is hilarious.

Maybe you don’t know what hilarious means. If a cat (or dog for that matter) attacked me so badly that blood pooled anywhere, that animal would be gone from my home without a second thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are they around other people?

The one time my love bug hated a guy I was dating...I should’ve paid attention. He was such bad news.

Was he hitting them?

No. He tried to win her over. But she would have nothing to do with him. I called her my slut kitty because she LOVED everyone. I cannot tell you the times she ended up in guests laps or sleeping with them if they stayed over. But him, she’d ignore him, walk out of the room he was in. Wouldn’t sleep with us when he stayed over.

Turns out the divorced Dad of two was a Married Dad of three. He told so many lies. About stuff he didn’t need to lie about. When I realize what kind of POS he was, my cat’s behavior made sense. She could just tell he was bad news.

Hmm sounds like my ExH. Were his initials KK?

[Anonymous]

Cat people are so gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a suggestion for him: RUN! Cats suck.

+1 Cats want to eliminate the competition for their mistress. Eliminate the man, eliminate the baby. It's no surprise they carry a parasite that could cause birth defects or miscarriages.

NP. Yep. Our (adopted) cat decided to eliminate our 3-yr-old son by taking over his bed and attacking him. Poor DS was obviously lowest on the totem pole and the cat apparently thought he could start there and work his way up to 6-yr-old DD. No, DS wasn’t torturing the cat and loves animals, and anyway 3-ye-old DS couldn’t get near enough to the cat to do anything without getting attacked. We didn’t get rid of the cat because he was clearly unadoptable and we knew what the end would have been, but it was years of stress for the whole family until DS got tall enough that the cat gave up. OP’s soon-to-be-DH seems to have invaded the cats’ space. As others here have said, some cats are assholes. All this stuff about how the fiancé must be a psychopath is cray-cray.