Kirsten, I sympathize with you soooooo much on this point. There’s nothing in the world more frustrating. What gives him the right to come into YOUR home and treat YOUR cat with disrespect? Poor Lily girl. Think about it. If you went to HIS house and deliberately broke a lamp or something, he’d think you were terrible. But he sees nothing wrong with coming to your place and causing your trusting, loving kitty to fear…in effect, “breaking” her personality. But to him it’s all good fun!
I was surprised to see this thread when I came here today, because I was going to post a similar one of my own. But now, I think I’ll just add my woes here, if you don’t mind.
My in-laws came to visit us on Saturday. I have a 7 year old sister-in-law (who is the BEST! ), and she loooooves kitties. Of course, she’s 7, so she’s not very good at relating to them. But guess what? SHE’S not the problem! Rizzo (my wonderful, laid-back fuzzy guy) puts up with her pretty well. At least, he lets her pet him and “play” with him (she thinks she’s playing…I think he thinks she’s out to frustrate the heck out of him!). We (her mom and I) watch, and try to coach her on how to play nice with a cat. (“Don’t chase him, Sarah.” “You should let him catch the toy every once in a while.” “Rizzo needs a break, Sarah.” “Honey, you can’t boss a cat around. It just doesn’t work!”) I have a picture of her trying to hold him, which is the funniest thing. Rizzo’s so big, you can’t see the child behind the cat! We figure this is a good experience for Rizz, since sooner or later, we’re going to have children.
But like I said, she’s not the problem. Guess who is? My 26-year-old brother-in-law!!! And he lives in town, so we see him often. He’s worse with Rizzo when he has an audience, though. EVERY time he comes over, he bolts straight for the cat, picks him up, flips him upside down and holds him like a baby. Startling for Rizzo, of course, but we hold him like that often, so he usually settles down and actually purrs for him after a bit. So, not quite a problem there. But it doesn’t end there. He tickles him. He sticks his finger in his face/mouth. The other day, he put Rizzo’s head in his mouth!!! And then started blowing on his face. He chases him. He wrestles with him (we do NOT want our cat to learn to play rough). He teases him in every way he can think of. And the worst part is that he will NOT listen to me when I tell him to stop. He acts like I’m not even in the room. The only thing he’ll acknowledge hearing is if I say Rizzo is not feeling well or hurt or something. Then he’ll put him down. But otherwise, it’s like since HE thinks that I’m being silly and overprotective, he doesn’t have to listen to me and he’s free to do whatever he wants to MY cat! It makes me so mad and helpless and frustrated that I don’t know what to do with myself. I actually resorted to violence the other day. Rizzo was taking a break from playing with Sarah and was trying to eat (a good sign that he wasn’t yet TOO stressed!), and Kevin crawled up and started pretending to eat Rizzo’s food, thereby taking up most of Rizz’s feeding space with his big head. I told him to knock it off b/c the cat needed SOME normality in his day, and anyway, Sarah was sitting right there and I wasn’t letting her bother Rizz while he was eating. So I didn’t want big brother setting a bad example. As usual, he pretended not to hear me. I’d had enough. So, I, uh…*cough*…kicked him in a place that presented itself for kicking while he was in that hands-and-knees posture. Not hard enough, though, as he still didn’t move. I threatened to ban him from our apartment (which I CAN’T do, really. Him being my husband’s brother and all), asked him who he thought he was, told him he had no right to maltreat my cat, and walked off b/c I couldn’t take it any more. Overheard this conversation:
Sarah: She yelled at you.
Kevin: Yeah.
Sarah: That’s ‘cause you were bad to her cat.
I love my little sister.
I think what I’m going to do is to put Rizz in our bedroom with his stuff and shut the door every time Kevin comes over. It’s better to do that than have his subjected to extreme jerkdom.
Kirsten, since it’s entirely your call, I think NOT inviting your mom’s fiancé over again is a wonderful idea. Give Lily kisses from me, and make as many rude gestures in the general direction of your mom’s fiancé as you like.
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