Stealing Breath

When you are adopting you get all sorts of questions. We always welcome your questions. One question I have gotten a couple of times is, are we getting rid of our cats when we have a baby?  My response is always, "Uh, no. Why?"  "Well you know cats suck the air out of babies when they are sleeping, stealing their breath and killing the baby."  Huh?  They do what?  I had to google this.

From snopes (my go to myth buster), "cats just don't do that."  This old wives tale has quite a few theories behind its origin.  One is that the cat will smell milk on the baby's breath and that draws the cat in for the kill.  There was a case in 1791 in Plymouth, where a jury determined the cause of death of a child was from a cat sucking out its breath, though there was no proof and no apparent cause of death. Another is that cats will lay across the baby's head while they are sleeping and suffocate them. My cats don't drink milk or eat any human food, so no worries there. Also, they don't sleep with us, so I don't think they sleep with our baby either.

I think a lot of this lore is from superstition. We've all heard if a black cat crosses your path make an X on your windshield to prevent bad luck. Cats get a bad rap sometimes. We did have a black cat one time named Superstitious. Come to think of it, that cat did have a sucking issue. She wasn't weened properly and would suck on our arm, leg or any bare skin. We started calling her "Super Sucker". She went to a nice home with the neighborhood cat lady. Our cat Filthy never cared for Super anyway. The cat lady straighten her right out and Super led a happy life renamed Cabal.

I have no worries about Edie and Twiggy stealing the breath of our baby. Just look at them, they may kill you with cuteness though.

My sweet girls.

Edie loves to be high up. On top of the door is one of her favorite places.

Twiggy likes to snuggle.  Curled up under the covers is her favorite place.

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