need your opinions!

Okay question for you ladies...

We recently got a new kitten. Now we live with my fiance's parents while we're building our house. Since we got the new kitten... who is rather scared of people i might add... my fiances mother has been feeding him & changing his water.

Now i'm not a fan of her doing this. I make sure that both of our cats have water and food at night and in the morning before i go to work. Because she gets up earlier than i do... everything is always full. Now i'm just afraid that our new kitten is going to get confused as to who his parents are.

Because our kitten is scared of people, you often can't get close to him or pet him. So this morning, my FMIL tells me all about how the kitten let her pet him and so forth.

I feel like we should say something and tell her not to feed him because what if he gets confused and thinks that she's the parent???

Re: need your opinions!

Hmmm this is a tough situation. On the one hand you don't want to look jealous or ungrateful, but on the other it is your kitten & you need to establish yourself as the *parent.* Having gone through this with our pup Loki, I can tell you from personal experience that it took a very long time to reestablish myself & DH as the dominant figure in the house. Explain that although you are grateful for the help, that it is important that only you & DH set the boundaries etc for your kitten in the early stages.

Good Luck

Re: need your opinions!

cats are very intelligent animals and i don't think that your MIL feeding him is going to cause too much confusion. however, make sure that you spend a lot of time playing w/him and nuturing him. if you establish a routine, i am sure he will be fine and adapt very quickly.

if you really are against her feeding him, you could always say that due to the fact that he is so young and not accustomed to his new environment, you want to make sure to establish a routine (including feeding) so that he can adjust more quickly.