My poor cat is terrified of my little niece.
It’s a shame really; they have so much in common:
- They are both tiny creatures in a world of giants
- They both enjoy hanging out under tables
- They are both scared of the vacuum cleaner
But my cat really isn’t used to kids. Maybe he could’ve gotten used to them in his kitten days, but as a slow-moving, long-sleeping, mostly-decorative senior cat, he finds the chaos of visiting children very alarming. My niece is basically an Energizer Bunny masquerading as a three-year-old, and she doesn’t walk so much as gallop. Whenever Loki hears her coming, he scrambles under furniture with speed impressive for a cat of his years. If she still gets too close, sometimes he even hisses at her.
Fortunately, Niecelet is too young to be insulted by Loki’s behavior. She doesn’t understand that he’s hiding from her, or that he’s hissing at her. And, perhaps unfortunately, she is fascinated by the kitty.
Every time she comes over, she wants to look for the kitty, and then she wants to know what he’s doing and what he’s saying, and why he’s doing what he’s doing and saying what he’s saying. She wants to play Hide and Seek with him, while he just wants to play Hide.
We tell her that he’s just shy, and try to teach her to be respectful of cats’ personal space, and to approach quietly, but ultimately the best solution, at least until she’s older (and less noisy), has turned out to be a small stuffed cat puppet we had lying around. It has the same orange tabby coloration as Loki, though it’s possible that may not matter.
Niecelet loves this puppet kitty. She invites Kitty to all her tea parties, puts him down for naps, and takes him for walks in her toy stroller. For her, Kitty the stuffed puppet is just as good as Loki, and she can play with him to her heart’s content.
I think the puppet is just as real to her as Loki, if not more real. One time, my sister-in-law came to pick her up, and this happened:
The regular kitty. Yes, the stuffed puppet is “Kitty,” and Loki is “the regular kitty.” It actually amuses me quite a bit, so I’ve started referring to Loki as “the regular kitty” to her, in hopes that it’ll reinforce it and she’ll keep doing it. So far so good, though I don’t know how long this will last as she gets older. Well, I can hope. And write blog posts about it that she will one day read and find mortifying.
Anyway, here is a picture of the kitty and the regular kitty:
