Husband wants cat-lover to get rid of pets

By: Maggie Shayne, Columnist
Published: April 2nd, 2008

Dear Maggie,

My husband and I get along wonderfully except for one area where we disagree. I love cats, and I have four of them.

He hates cats and wants me to get rid of them. We fight about it constantly. He says they stink up the house, leave hair everywhere, and he’s embarrassed to have people over. I say they use their litter boxes, which I clean daily, so it’s not as bad as he’s making it out to be. And besides, they’re my pets and I love them.

How do we solve this?

Cat-lady

Dear Cat-lady,

This is a doosie, but it’s really not so far different from anything else couples really, really disagree on. It seems like you can’t both have what you want, but I think you can.

Okay, he wants a home that doesn’t smell of cat odor, where he can sit on the sofa and not get up covered in cat hair. You want a home with the animals you love that make you happy.

The first thing is for both of you to try to see it from the other person’s point of view. For you, I have to tell you, I’ve never been inside a house with more than one cat and not been able to tell by the smell that cats were present. No matter how much you clean, four cats is going to leave a distinct scent. And the hairs — well, that’s an ongoing problem too.

For him, I have to say that some people really can’t be happy without a pet, and there are cat people, and there are dog people, and you, his bride, are a cat person. If he wants you to be happy, he’s not going to be able to see that happen without a kitty in the house.

So how can you both have what you want? Well, is it possible to have both pets, and the odor-free, relatively hair-free home? It is. I’ve seen it done. I’ve been in homes with pets that had no odor and were spotlessly clean. The tricks?

Limit yourself to one cat. And make it a female.

Make it a cat that loves to spend time outdoors and isn’t a 24/7 couch potato. (If you live where that’s possible, of course.) Make it a short haired breed. Brush her coat daily. Be adamant about cleaning the litter box and locate in an out of the way place where it’s not going to be in your husband’s path. Use Fresh Step kitty litter, (smells great) and those scented litter box liners. Be sure to have her spayed. Keep her clean and groomed. Don’t overfeed.

Try your best to train her to stay off the furniture.

Have a constant supply of those sticky-lint rollers on hand, to pick up the cat hairs. Another thing that works for getting them off the furniture is to use long strips of masking tape.

It seems to me that if you can get your husband to sit down and talk with you about this, and if you offer to bend a little — giving up all but one cat — that he will bend too, giving up his insistence on zero cats.

One, clean, well behaved cat would be, it seems, a perfect compromise.

And if that he won’t budge, well then you have to ask yourself who you’d rather have living with you, and make your decision based on that. =)

Good luck!

Maggie

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Reader Response

1 comments on this story

April 3rd, 2008 at 4:16 am

I don't agree with this advice at all. First of all, did she have the four cats before they got married? If so, oh well, too late, he knew what he was getting into and needs to learn to deal with it. If not, then why did she get the cats knowing he hated them? That would seem selfish and mean to the husband as well as the cats.

Did they ever hear of compromise? If not, their marriage has more problems than just cats.

She shouldn't have to get rid of the cats now, they can still all co-exist.

When I met my husband he said he didn't like cats either, for all the same reasons and he said he was allergic to them. I used to have cats before I met him, I like cats even though I'm allergic to them too.
When my son asked if we could get a cat my husband said no, he didn't want one. I was on my son's side, I wanted to get a cat. So we compromised, decided to take in fosters, that way we could take kittens in on a trial basis. No obligations, if it didn't work out we wouldn't take in any more. My son and I promised to care for the cats, which included cleaning litter pans. We kept them clean and odor free, and brought them back to the shelter to be adopted when they were ready.
After a few foster kittens came and went, my husband realized that cats weren't so bad, that the house really didn't smell, and that they didn't bother his allergies.
Then he started getting to like the kittens and started to play with them more.
Eventually we did keep a kitten (he suggested it first) then took in an adult cat which we kept. A year later we had a litter of foster kittens which he picked out one he liked from the beginning, HE wanted to keep it! We wound up keeping two kittens from that litter.
Now we have four cats, guess who's turned into a cat lover???

There's proof it can work.

I don't agree with what you said about every house with multiple cats smelling bad. With the right litter, the smell will not be there as long as the pans are cleaned. Have more than one pan also.

Have all the cats neutered and spayed, it gets rid of the male cat strong urine smell.
Use room deodorizer, the plug in kind work wonders to get rid of animal odors.

No need to let the cats outside, that's not safe for the cats. If the cat is killed by a car that won't make the wife happy at all.

To keep them off the furniture, give them their own place to sleep. Buy or make one of the cat "condos" to sleep on and scratch. Give them places to hide and play, even a cardboard box hidden behind the couch will make a cat happy. Not one of my cats is sleeping in the living room now, they have their own cozy little spots to sleep.

Also the husband should compromise and realize a little cat hair isn't the end of the earth. Is their house always spotless? Does he vacuum? Does he track mud across the carpet with his muddy boots? Pick up his clothes up off the floor?

I say let all the cats stay, and work on a better compromise. If she wants the cats, she has to do the extra work to keep them clean. And he needs to be a bit more tolerant.

These are the types of things couples should work out before they get married in the first place. Would she have four kids if he didn't want them?

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