Quote Originally Posted by Ginevive
If I started kicking him around and tossing him away when he nuzzled my feet, over and over, would he still be attached to me? No, he would learn that humans are bad, and be gone when he saw one.
I'd have to somewhat disagree here... Now I must say I've never kicked my roommate's cat and have not been cruel to him in any way, but I always move him away when he seeks attention from me. I'm severly allergic to him and he sheds like crazy - I've worked in a vet clinic he has to have some sort of disorder because he's a short haired cat but if he's brushed every two days you can actually fill a shopping bag with hair each brushing and the dander that comes off is just crazy - then again he also weighs about 27lbs. My roommate won't let me bath him with dander shampoo because he thinks it will traumatize the cat.

When he comes to me for attention I walk around him, if he comes into my office (which other than our bedroom is the only cat free room) I take him out, when he hops up on the couch with me, I gently put him down. If he goes on his 10 minute long sitting in my door way meowing at me for attention I do get annoyed and drop a bit of water on his head - although typically now I just tell him to shut up then he sits there and stares or goes to meow at someone else... But he still comes to me for attention constantly, and even if every one else is home. And when I get home from work he always runs to the front door and meows a bit and tries for attention.

I'm always gentle with him, but if I spend more than half an hour in a room with him I can't breath and my eyes start to swell up, and once I touch him the hair just kind of sticks everywhere! I'd had cats before both pink and white skinned, they only bothered my allergies for the first month or so... We've had this on going battle for about a year now, and he still loves trying to get attention from me.

Now that's not to say that if I see his food and water empty I don't fill it for him, or that I'm mean to him with my actions, or that on my way by I don't occassionally give him a rub on the head for a couple seconds before thoroughly washing my hands. The only time I think I hurt him was when he managed to trip me down our stairs and that was only because tripping over him "gently" and not trying to do a header at the same time is more difficult than you might imagine!

He came to my roommate a month before he moved in here as a rescue. When he moved in here the cat had yet to come out from under his bed. He would spend all his time under our couch, and got lost in our basement for a month he got up in the ceiling rafters, so when we ripped it apart we had no clue where he was, we could hear him but couldn't find him, then he came down for me while I was doing laundry one day, and he's been upstairs and loving us all ever since. If someone new comes over he still gets a bit skittish and hides for a bit - if they've never been here before typically hides for the entire visit.

But for some reason he still follows me around and wants attention all the time. I think its because he's trying to torture me and that he's actually just really evil.. But who knows, it could be love... Or it could be that I'm the only one with fingernails for a good scratch behind the ears