Emotional support animal

Thank you for allowing me in to this group. I was hoping some of you might be able to give me your thoughts, suggestions and experience. Please be kind I suffer with severe depression and anxiety, I have asked in another forum and all I got was hate bashing which made me feel absolutely horrible and left me crying. I want to be clear I have the best interests of my babygirl and any kittens she might have, I certainly won't make them do anything they don't want and I will be keeping them all regardless. I am looking to keep the kittens my cat has in the future to raise them as ESA's (emotional support animal) they will firstly and more importantly be much loved pets regardless. I was wondering the best way to get the kittens to imprint on me. Could I or should I perhaps after the first 2 weeks try bottle feeding them intermittently but keep them mainly with my babygirl (the mummy) of course I wouldn't want this to have a negative impact on either the babies or my babygirl. Also when I should start introducing a harness and cat bag carrier so they are able to help me in going out, I suffer with extreme agrophobia, complex PTSD and severe anxiety, this means I am house bound and I'm unable to go out, so my plan is to raise the new kittens as ESA so I may be able to leave the house. Any help and advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Hello - it is generally considered best to let a mother cat feed her babies.  Giving them the perfect food that they evolved to eat will always be healthier than feeding artificial milk replacer.  For a start, Mum's milk includes antibodies that will be useful in their life and is thought to help them to better regulate stress.  Just because we *can* remove kittens from their mother at a very young age, bottle feed them and have them imprint on a human, doesn't justify it from a wealfare perspective;  you cannot teach kittens how to be a 'cat' or satisfy their emotional needs in the way that another cat can.  Furthermore, the mother will be very sad to be separated from her babies;  I feel that you need a very good reason to cause this distress to all parties and without expressing any hate or bad feeling to you, I feel that 'because I want to imprint them onto me' is insufficient reason - indeed, it would be a wealfare issue for the cats.

The Cats protection website reccommends that kittens should stay with their mother for at least 8 or 9 weeks and my own opinion is later, for their own mental and physical well-being.

Harnesses or cat-bags, on the other hand, could be introduced for short periods only, from as soon as a kitten will fit safely into one.  The shorter and more positive these experiences, the more likely to accept them in later life, the kittens may be.  Bear in mind that until vaccination takes place, they are at risk of picking up diseases from going outside.  Furthermore,  cats are not small dogs;  they are creatures of habit and territory, not evolved as dogs are to 'walk with' man.  I know that they can contribute strongly to a human's mental health in the home, but continually moving into other cats' territories / strange places can be stressful for them.  For this reason, it may be worth asking your vet for half an hour of their time / a behaviour consultation, in order to establish exactly what the life of your ideal support cats would look like, and whether this can fit within the wealfare needs of a well looked-after cat.

I wasn't suggesting to remove them completely, I only ment for the occasional feed, maybe once a day or every other day, but after they are 2 weeks old, I certainly wouldn't remove my little girls babies permanently not at all, that would be cruel and that's absolutely not what I'd want for my little girl and the babies. I think, I hope that I perhaps just didn't communicate that effectively, I'm sorry if that's the case, I'm not very good at communicating. Just as I wouldn't force the idea of being an ESA if they weren't happy with anything such as wearing a harness or going in a cat carrier bag, the whole process would be a very slow one but I like to start training such as wearing a harness etc as early as possible, no earlier than 8 weeks, I would have done this with my precious babygirl but I left it to late, I didn't know it was possible she has the perfect temperament she and I are incredibly close but she hates the harness I tried it once and she wasn't happy so I didn't do it again as I don't want her to get distressed.

Hey there, my heart goes out to you after that awful experience in another forum. Raising kittens to be ESAs is a really interesting idea. First off, it's amazing that you want to give your cat and any future kittens a loving home. That kind of love is the best foundation for any animal. Now, while training kittens to be ESAs can be a great goal, there are a few things to keep in mind that not all cats are naturals: Some cats just have calmer temperaments and are more adaptable to new situations than others, which is important for an ESA. If you do decide to have kittens, socializing them properly from a young age (around 2-7 weeks) is crucial. This means getting them comfortable with being handled by different people and experiencing new things.