Expert: Ali - 10/15/2009

Question
Dear Ali -

I am currently the mother of three male cats, all of which are strays and all of which - I'm quite lucky to say - are very friendly and affectionate cats.

However, their friendliness is starting to become a problem. More specifically, I'm not a small woman and  happen to have a very curvacious figure. Two of my three cats seem to think that this is an excellent opportunity for them! They can use my chest as a lovely shelf to hold all 12-15 pounds of them while they're rubbing themselves all over my face. Sweet as that may sound, it's actually quite uncomfortable and, in some cases, downright painful. (After all, my breasts obviously weren't designed to be used as shelving units, let alone for something with claws.)

I've tried moving my cats to my lap when they do this, verbally correcting them with a loud and startling "NO!", pushing them off of me entirely, setting them onto the floor, and spraying them with water to get them to stop. None of it seems to help. Most distressingly, the more I push them away, the more they seem to want to come back, over and over again, until I've spent 10-15 minutes literally trying to shove a cat off of my chest. It's getting to the point that I just don't want my cats snuggling me anymore, as it's practically guaranteed that coddling them will hurt me!

How can I break this habit?

Answer
Melanie,

I'm not entirely sure that there's a way to stop cats from seeking out attention and affection. I do think that trying a homeopathic remedy geared towards demanding kitties might be worthwhile though. Bach flower remedies are homeopathic remedies that are derived from flowers, these remedies are gentle and effective in my experience. Here is a list of a few remedies that might be helpful in this situation:

- Chestnut Bud which will help the kitties to break the habit and learn what you want from them more quickly.

- Vervain is an effective way to help kitties who are overly enthusiastic to settle down somewhat.

- Chicory will help to deal with the overly clingy behavior.

You can generally find Bach flower remedies at health food stores, naturopathic pharmacies, some mainstream pharmacies will stock these remedies in the section with their vitamins and other nutritional supplements and you can also purchase these remedies online if you can't find them in your local area. I've found that the gentlest way to administer these remedies is to gently massage 4-5 drops (one at a time) into the relatively fur free area in front of the cat's ears. The remedies are quickly absorbed into the system this way and they don't tend to lose effectiveness quite the way that they would if they were given by adding them to the cats' water bowl. A trip to a holistic vet isn't a bad idea either, these doctors are trained in conventional medicine as well as one or more alternative therapies which could include homeopathy, acupuncture, massage or herbal medicine to name a few options. If you don't have a holistic vet in your area I'd suggest that you consider contacting Dr. Chambreau on the Ask A Vet portion of this site, she will do phone/email consultations for a fee in the US. Hopefully this information is helpful, if you have any further questions, concerns or you'd like me to clarify anything in this answer please feel free to contact me again, I'll do my best to help you out.