u/AngelFire01

Good evening!

As the title suggests, I'm looking for advice on how to teach my toddler to be more gentle with our cat(s). My daughter is 16 months old. We have two cats, a 5 yr old female and a 2 yr old male.

Our female completely ignores the baby and keeps her distance, unless she is inconsolably crying, at which point she will come over and rub against her attempting to comfort her I suppose.

Our male, however, had been obsessed with her since I was pregnant. He would come lay across my stomach and just purr. When we brought her home he stayed nearby and would attempt to lay in my lap while I nursed her trying to be as close as possible. They have been best buddies. As soon as she could start actually controlling her arm/hand movements she started trying to pet the cat. Cat was one of her first words. He is very patient and gentle with her, he willingly lays near her, pushes his head into her hand for pets, even though it almost always ends with her tugging his fur or an ear.

To be clear, we have always been right there telling her "gentle pets" or "be easy" or similar. We have never let her abuse him.

Lately, however, she has gotten very rough with him, smacking him harder than she has before. He just gets up and walks away. She has also taken to throwing things at him and laughing. She will pick up a toy and chunk it directly at him and then laugh like it's the funniest thing. We've tried telling her 'no, gentle', 'no, be nice to cat' etc but so far she just keeps doing it.

He has scratched her once when she just would *not* leave him alone, no matter how many times we tried to redirect her. He finally had enough and popped her, left a small scratch. She sobbed like it was the end of the world then 5 minutes later was trying to chase him down again.

We do have a baby gate that allows him to escape down the hall to the bedrooms where she can't follow, but I don't want him banished, and obviously I want her to learn to be gentle and kind to animals.

Any tips? Just keep working on it?