Hi,

My friends sisters cat is about to give birth and we are likely to be the proud owner of one of the kittens!

I am slightly worried though as my friend said her sisters cat can be a bit nervous. Will this give the kitten a high chance of being nervous too?

I have never had a kitten before - we have only ever aquired older cats who decide they would like to move home and therefore I know very little about kittens! I would rather a kitten who is not afraid of humans...

Please Help

x

Well as long as the kittens are properly socialised from both, and stay with mum until 13 weeks, there should be no issues with them being nervous around humans.

I hope your sister will be spaying her girl after the litter

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I had one of my cats for sixteen years, from being an eight week old kitten - and I also had his mother, adopted at the same time. The mother cat was the softest and most loveable lap cat that you could ever imagine, despite having been taken in to the RSPCA after living rough for long enough to have a set of kittens in a garage. Her son was a total anti-social head case, and we theorise that his dad must have been a really feral street cat.

So, from our experience I would say that it's perfectly possible for a kitten to have a totally opposite nature to their mother, but I'd also caution that the basic character that you see in a kitten is going to stick with them all their life. Knowing what I do now, I would never have chosen our little black and white chap from the litter - not when I remember how he squawked and objected to being picked up. But we were green as grass, and just assumed because we had him from such a young age he'd come round to being more sociable with time. Don't get me wrong, we loved him for his foibles, but he lived his whole life in defence mode.

Each and every cat is an individual, whatever yours is like it will adapt to your home and you'll love it whatever character it develops Someone once told me that a cat will learn from its mother and if she likes humans then so will the kittens but I've seen variations on this and to be honest I think as someone else said as long as they are well socialised then they'll be great Just have time and patience and introduce kitten to as much as possible (friends visiting, very cat friendly dogs, strange noises etc). Took one of my parents cats up until a few years ago (he's 15!) to like anyone but my dad! He now asks to be carried into the house on my shoulders as well

All the best.