Hi

We have a two year old cat called Willow that we have had since She was
around 3 months old, we got her from a humane society (she was born
there).

The best way I can discribe Willow is that she reminds me of Gollum
from the Lord of the Rings (split personalities).  Sometimes she is
such a cutey, rolling on her back wanting an ear scratch, playing with
her current favoruite toy, bringing all her toys to our bedroom at
night as a gift to us, etc.

But some times she is just plain mean, for no obvious reason scratching
us (usually me but very occasionally my wfe).  I can be walking past
minding my own business and she will scratch me.  Once near Christmas I
was sat in the living room  wrapping christmas presents and the cat
came from nowhere and scratched my back.

I think we have treated Willow very well and have a nice home for her,
we have scratching posts in every room and I'm always buying her toys
and playing with Her.  If she does something bad I usually tell Her
sternly to stop and ignore her for the rest of the day, we also use a
water squirter sometimes.

One thing which could explain part of this behaviour is that this was
my first cat so didn't really know how to treat her. When she was
younger I treated her a little like a dog by playing rough.  She seemed
to enjoy this but a friend told me that's bad for a cat, so I stopped
doing that around a year ago.

I've been trying my best to live with it and just be careful around her
(she also hates anyone in the house apart from my wife and I), but now
the time has come where she either needs to stop this behaviour or she
is going to have to go.

I'm glad to announce that two days ago  my Wife had our first baby.  A
lovely 6 pound 8 ounce baby girl.  We brought her home today and I
guess we hoped that somehow the cat would suddently turn into an
angelic creature, walk up to the baby, smelly and then immediatly be
best friends.

The reality is that we have been home 8 hours now, cat has scratched my
wife (to bleeding point) 3 times now, me once, and all other times just
walks around hissing and growling and looks at the baby with mean eyes.
Before the baby arrived we played with a baby doll around the cat, and
I have a blanked which the baby was wrapped in on the floor so that the
cat can get used to the smell.

Does anybody have any suggestions, the cat is on the most part a cutey
but I cannot live with the fear that she will harm the baby, I'm afraid
right now for example to leave the baby in her bouncy chair whilst I
sit on the couch, for fear that the cat will do something.

In my mind here are my options

1.  Lose the cat.  I guess for this I would contact local humane
societies to see if they will take her in, however is their usually a
policy that if the cat isn't adopted then they will end her life?  I
can't imagine if Willow was in a cage being looked at by strangers that
she would show Her best side.  For all her faults we do love her and
would not want to condem Her to death.

We live in Tampa Bay if anybody has any adoption advice.

2.  Declawed.  This would at least mean that if she does attack nothing
bad would happen.  She does occasionaly bite but I don't think she has
actually ever really bitten us, it seems mainly a mechanisn to tell us
she is bored of being tickled or whatever, more of a warning.

I also belive that declawing can change the cats behaviour (hopefully
for the better)

3.  Psyciologist/cat trainer.  Not sure if such a person exists, but I
would be willing to get professional help so that we we can have a
happy familty with the cat and baby (it would be so cute if the baby
and cat sat together playing with the baby play gym)
Any advice would be appreciated.