Thread: Bit of help!

I have a 5.5 month old MC male (who's just had the chop) and he does occasionally give a nasty bite. I've started to notice the signs to look for though when he's had enough and he always gets evicted from the room if he goes too far... Rasputin mainly does it when he gets overexcited, just like a child does I guess! What do you do when she does get vicious?
Also do you encourage her to play with your hands?
Has your girl had the snip? Not sure if it makes as big a difference with the girls?

were any of your babies only kittens? or weaned from mum and siblings early for any reason?
much of the play they do as kittens teaches them how far they can go before "play" is not funny anymore. mum will certainly scold them and littermates will have a go back.
if they miss out on this socalisation they need you to teach them how far they can go in play and its a difficult thing to get right.

other than that, are they defending a resource they feel is very important, such as a great sleeping place or some of your dinner leftovers they have come across?

the only advice i can give if its done in play is to just go limp when they start to bite so that they let go and then remove them from your lap or stop the game, hopefully they will get the message.

if it is happening in response to something you are doing, such as grooming, then i would look at how you were going about it, perhaps swaping to a really soft brush and giving treats as you to to make it a nice experience.

i hope thats of some help! when they are this size, agression just is not funny.

My first girl was a retired breeding queen & a hand reaired one at that & we had quite a few teething problems with her,we used to use time out for her,one good advantage
of having cats sleep in their own room was the fact that getting put in there for something that she shouldn't do & ignored the no's hurt her more than anything because
they would really rather be with you.There were times when she went in hissing & struggling but it was always with a firm no & shut away for 10 minutes or so.Found it worked
well if you then messed around with a toy or talked to yourself,made her feel she was missing out on something good,but we always had a kiss & cuddle when she came out.
There was not a lot that the naughty room didn't sort out for her,she was the one that in the end if she done something naughty used to run & put herself in the room then look out of the doorway with a "What now look" but didn't put her off of the room when it came to going in for the proper reason. These cats are very clever & once they think they have the better of you they play on it.......

Neither of ours are vicious but Monty is currently going through a very boisterous stage and keeps having to have "time out" to stop him from bullying Gracie. Rather than put him in another room which didn't seem to have much effect, he now goes into his 'naughty bag' which is his soft cat carrier in the room that we are in. Hopefully it seems to be having a more positive effect

I've heard, and it does work for me, that kittens learn how hard or ruff to play or bite by the response of their litter mates. So when Paris plays too ruff I "yipe" and she really backs off...she wants to play, but she really doesn't want to hurt me. Now if she was out to hurt me, she probably would continue.

Since I've learned this trick, playing with her is fun and not painful, she still, however, uses her back feet claws when she is leaving my lap sometimes..and that hurts...almost like she is doing that for traction.