: How to make a cat comfortable towards a person with whom she relates a terrifying experience? One tenant girl had bought a huge teddy bear and came to show it. Bhutu, my cat, reacted as if she has seen a ghost and ran for

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The trick is not to let the girl approach the cat, but to let the cat approach the girl. You need to get the cat to consent to interacting with someone she currently does not want to interact with.

A simple solution can be found via treats. If the girl holds treats, without being too forward towards your cat, the cat has two choices:

Face her apprehension and get treats
Refuse to interact and get no treats

It's probable that she'll refuse to engage the first few times. However, every time nothing happens, is also a (silent) interaction between the girl and the cat which does not end negatively for the cat. Over time, the cat is going to realize that this girl has not harmed her the last 10 times she saw her, so why would she now?

You'll see that she'll inch closer, and eventually will take the bait and go for the treats.

Note: It's also possible that the cat refuses to interact with the girl, end of discussion. Some bad memories stay bad memories; and you're not going to fix it by forcing the cat into an interaction she does not want. Sad as it may be, if she does not want to reconsider interacting with the girl, then you should respect that decision. All you can do it give her a benefit to voluntarily interacting such as treats.