Owen, my 9 month old son, loves our cats. He stops doing whatever he’s involved in, including nursing, to watch them. Even though he’s crawling well these days they seldom let him near them for more than a second, and seeing as his level of interaction is grab fur tightly, pull, bury face in the fur and chomp, needless to say they aren’t exactly psyched about his presence in their vicinity. (While on the other hand Seeger, our dog, couldn’t care less that Owen is doing said things)
So the other morning upstairs in our bedroom Owen was fascinated by our grey cat Hurricane, very focused on ‘getting her’. So, in a moment of sneakyness, I got a small grey plush toy cat we had bought years ago because it looked like Hurricane, and put it in his view. He promptly attacked, grabbed it, pulled it’s tail, buried his face in it. He was extremely happy, he had finally ‘got’ the cat and proceeded to happily ravage it in his own 9 month old fashion. He was ecstatic, making very happy cooing / gurgling / squeaking noises as he did things to this plush cat no self-respecting real cat would ever even consider let happen to them.
I had pangs of guilt though. Am I teaching him it’s actually ok to treat cats like this? All cats are soft and squishy and have no teeth or claws (or bones for that matter). I felt like the father in ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ who was always giving Calvin the wrong answers to serious questions. ‘Yes Calvin, cheese does come from the moon…’
On the other hand, Owen is so happy with his fake Hurricane how can I not let him enjoy it. I’ll post pictures here later of the real and faux cats so you can see why he at 9 months is easily confused.
