Why is my friendly cat suddenly hissing and meowing at my niece?

Question

Hello my male cat has starting hissing and meowing loudly at my niece who comes to stay with us at weekends. It’s started last weekend and she has come again this weekend and it has continued. Normally Ollie (our cat) favours her over anybody and is always by her side as best of friends. It’s beginning to upset us all as they were so so so close and now it’s putting us all on edge any ideas? My niece is 10 and has always spent time with him thanks Laura. Pet's info: Cat | Mixed Breed | Male | neutered

C. Rathjens, DVM · Accepted Answer

I'm sorry to hear that your going through this. In my mind, the two possibilities is that your niece did something that scared/upset Ollie or was even just near him when something scary happened so he associated the event and her. Cats can remember things like that for a incredible amount of time and have what seems like a wildly disproportionate reaction. This whole process can happened without us even realize we've done something scary. The second thing I would be worried about is that Ollie is ill or uncomfortable in some way -- such as starting to have more arthritis if he's an old guy or having an intestinal bug, etc. From a practical standpoint, I would recommend separating Ollie for the next visit or two and slowly reintroducing them at the following visit. It might be worth a quick vet visit to make sure everything is medically normally. Then, let Ollie have ALL of the control over how much he and your niece interact, she shouldn't approach him at all or even reach for him. You'll have to judge if this particular child can follow that level of rules - totally depends on the kid at her age. Finally, since it sounds like her feelings are very reasonably hurt by this change in behavior, I'd recommend explaining that we think he doesn't feel very good and wants to hang out by himself for a little bit.

Why is my friendly cat suddenly hissing and meowing at my niece?

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