Any chance of turning a stroppy sod into a cuddler?

[PenguindreamsofDraco]

We adopted the grumpy git last year My 9yo is just desperate to be able to cuddle him, or at least not have him squawk when he's stroked, but despite enthusiastic overuse of Dreamies he continues to be the cat that walks by himself. He's jumped on laps maybe 3 times in 9 months, doesn't weave round legs, tolerates strokes (from adults) but as soon as he's picked up, misery radiates from every pore.

Cat is 3 or 4, and probably didn't have the best life before us - no abuse but some benign neglect I suspect.

Is there any hope he will settle into cuddles?

It took 2 years for one of mine to sit on my knee and 5 years for the other. But they were affectionate in other ways. Our teenage hood cat wasn't a lap cat at all until he was about 9. Then became one almost overnight!

It took 15 years for dear Silver to become cuddly. We adopted her from the RSPCA (far too young we suspect) and she was more or less feral. She didn't miouw for 10 years. In her old age she became much more affectionate and loving but it took a lot of patience.

My last cat we had just wasn’t affectionate at all, you could stroke him, on his terms, never would had sat on our lap.

I was the only person who could pick him up and that wasn’t tolerated for long. He was a bit of a mummies boy. He didn’t bite me. He did bite everyone else in our household!

It was just the way he was.

We loved him to bits, broke our hearts when we lost him, had him from a kitten till he was pts at 17.

Weve had our cats 4 years. Both were pretty unfriendly. One now spends a lot of time on DDs lap and tolerates being picked up and hugged. The other is still very timid and wont let us even stroke her.

We had a cat that was merely tolerant of humans for most of her life until the other cat - who she utterly detested - died, and it was a fairly cold winter. All of a sudden at the age of 12 she became a daytime lap cat and end of the bed night time cat. She obviously hated the other cat so much she was delighted it was no longer around. She was always in the house before, and wasnt skittish but would sit in a box or the back of the sofa, ready to hiss at the other cat if needed.

We have a 3 year old cat at the moment who hates me. She's very nervous, but started to adore DD and follow her around and then added DH to her safe list - so she'll brush against them (rather than cower like they are going to tread on her like she does with me) She also sits on their laps and will sit under DH's desk. Last week she added DS3 to the list so perhaps by the time she's 20 she might put up with me looking at her without needing to run away.

Our car is a rescue-she merely tolerates is as we live in her house and feed her, there is no touching, no cuddling and no anything. Would love her to but she isn’t interested. She thinks she’s a dog and sleeps with her instead!

Thanks everyone. He is a perfectly sweet boy, sleeps happily on the end of the bed, adores being stroked but only with a brush, and likes being in the vicinity of people, just doesn't want to be picked up.

My son is just so desperate to loooove his cat, I was just wondering what, if anything, we could do to encourage cuddliness.

My last two cats were velcro cats, this is unknown territory for me