I've had all I can stands and I can't stands no more!

Lila is not exactly gentle with the kitties most of the time. She can be, when she chooses. It's very cute to see her rubbing her hand back and forth across all that fluff while the feline recipient looks extremely nervous and tries not to move. But it's much more common to see her crawl up to one of them and start whacking away.

We've been telling her since she was old enough to reach for a cat that she needs to use gentle touches. We've shown her how and taken her away from them when she's not gentle. And we've also been telling her that if she keeps being rough with the kitties, one of them is going to get angry and scratch her.

Well, it finally happened. Charlie was already feeling victimized because I took him to the vet yesterday and this afternoon Lila started in on him again. I guess he had taken all the abuse he could stand and he finally popped her on the head and hissed at her. There are some pink scratches, but I think it scared her more than it hurt. And, while I'm not excited about this, I figure it will do a much better job of teaching her to be gentle than all of my words have done.