I have never been a cat lover, but in the past I've lived with people who had cats. No problems, the cats minded their own business and sometimes wanted to cuddle. To sum up my impression of cats before recently in a word: I thought they were low-maintenance.
A few weeks ago, my fiancée said she wanted to get a cat. I've only ever had dogs before, and I trained them well and everything was peachy like a testimonial for the shelter. Assuming any cat would be much like my past roommates' cats, I said okay, and the time since has been the most infuriating experience of my life.
Our cat is, I think, younger than any other I've lived with (~1 year old). The others never scratched anything but their scratching posts, whereas this guy will run past everything we give to him, preferring to attack our feet and the couch. He constantly jumps on counters and knocks shit off. He has broken several dishes, usually by jumping onto a shelf in a tiny opening and then getting scared and jumping off violently. He kicks his litter all over the place even after we got one of the rim lids meant to catch it.
We live in a studio apartment and I work from home so the cat and I are stuck with each other most of the day every day. The frustration is already straining my relationship with my fiancée. His behavior is not really any better when she is home, but I feel like she thinks he can do no wrong ("that's just how cats are") and I need to train myself to be his pet. I absolutely cannot tolerate that in the long term.
I don't want to become the "it's me or the cat" guy - and not only because I'm not sure she'd pick me. I am committed to him being "ours" rather than "hers", but that means he has to also be "mine". I get the impression he does not recognize me as his owner, like I'm just some asshole killing his vibe who won't leave his house. I need to correct this first probably, but I also need to adapt my dog person brain to the task of modifying cat behavior.
Please help me train the cat and myself so we can live together. I'll take any resources or personal experiences you have, particularly on behavior modification and how to make him like and respect me more. It would be especially helpful to hear from people who have lots of experience with dogs.
[link] [comments]
from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/cluht7/help_me_make_peace_with_fiancées_cat/
No comments:
Post a Comment