cat behavioural problems

Factual Questions
1

back in april i adopted a small kitten. i can’t remember how old he was; just old enough to leave his mother. we live in a one bedroom apartment over which he has free reign, but he is not allowed outdoors. of course, he hates going outside, so that’s not a problem. there are two adults living here, and we have partial custody of two small children. he is fed and loved (especially by the kids, who have been taught not to torment the kitty).

the problem is that the cat plays very rough. he bites and scratches, attacks out of nowhere. if you’re petting him for more than four strokes, he’ll attack your hand. walking by? he’ll attach himself quite painfully to your leg. he also has a tendency to attack me in my sleep. for this reason, he is locked out of the bedroom when the kids sleep over, and whines pitifully all night. if locked in the bathroom, he will evacuate himself on the carpet.

it’s very obvious when the cat attacks that he is playing. for instance, the attack-the-hand-that-pets-you gimmick does not seem to be a warning to stop, but his way of showing affection. he is an incredibly loving cat, and often curls up with me, purring. he also follows me around when i’m getting ready in the morning, and is very interested in my hygenic routines. still, his actions hurt. i have what looks like it’s going to be a scar on my wrist.

i don’t know what to do. if this doesn’t stop we are going to have to get rid of him. we have two toddlers and a baby on the way. the only person he doesn’t bother is my s.o., and i can’t figure out what he’s doing that i’m not. hitting him, spraying him with water, making sure he has food and water and a clean litterbox, nothing works.

we are hoping that neutering him will help, and also plan to get him declawed, but we haven’t been able to afford it yet. is there anything to do in the meantime?

2

It’s rather possible that when he was younger, you used your hand as a toy to play with him. That’s a big cause for playful-fighting with hands and feet and such. The cats I’ve had, well, one responded well to being neutered, the other was just as playfully vicious afterward. I’m not too skilled with cats I’m afraid, so outside of water, citrus juice (not easy to soak yourself in it…) and shock mats don’t sound like they’d work. So you may just have to live with him being playful. Lead to my opinion below.

This is only personal opinion: I would not declaw him. There are very nice little plastic things you can put over the cats claws. It will make the cat happier (“Yay I still have all my finger joints and I can ‘scratch’ my posts!”) and won’t do you any damage. Just stick them on, they fall off after a few weeks/months depending on how active the cat is. Again, without much cat experience, I can only say the one cat I had not affected by neutering got very mean after he was declawed. It caused him a lot of pain, so he went over to biting anybody near him. We gave him to somebody who apparently would not mind such problems. Declawing is a permanent thing, and messes up many of the cat’s behavioural processes. He would probably still scratch and paw at you, and you wouldn’t bleed, everybody’d be happy. Preferable solution to filing them down at any rate.

3

If you do decide to declaw, sooner is better than later. My sister, who is a vet, advised us to declaw our cats when they were 6 months old. The simple reason is that the bigger they get, the more their paws hurt after the surgery.

I can only imagine what it would have felt like if I’d waited until ours were full grown. They weigh in at between 14 and 15 lbs apiece. As it was, they were jumping off the furniture the day after, so it didn’t appear to be overly uncomfortable for them. We did try for the months we had them before surgury to encourage them to scratch only appropriately, and offered them any number of posts, rugs, etc. They preferred the arm of the sofa and the underside of the bed and would not be deterred.

I did ask our vet about the claw covers and her opinion was that they didn’t work very well, fell off all the time and were a general pain in the butt. You could always try them and see how well they work on your cat. Toaster, I’ve not seen them, only read about them. How big are they? Would the discarded ones be a choking hazard, seeing as she’s going to have an infant crawling around soon?

4

The kitten is doing what comes naturally. If you don’t jerk your hand out quick it won’t hurt you. The bites won’t draw blood. The scratches will if you pull your hand out.

5

From what I’ve seen, the plastic claws are only as big as the animal’s claws. Thus, very tiny. They’re fine if ingested by the cats, so I’m sure if an infant got ahold of them it’d be fine too. Pretty impossible to choke on unless the claws are humongous.

They’re meant to fall off for some reason. And some article (years ago) in Cat Fancy I read about them, it said that the more the cat scratches/climbs/etc., the less time they’d last. A fairly inactive cat, staying indoors, I would think the claws would last awhile.

But I agree, if you declaw, the cat’s a bit old, but shouldn’t be pained for too long. Unless it’s one of those grudge-holding cats. I don’t wanna think about that.

6

I’ll try and give you some hope. I have a cat that was like this, and he almost never does this anymore. I’ve just taken in another cat like this, and I’m teaching her. It can be done.

First of all, as the cat gets older he will get less playful and this will become less of a problem.

Second, you can train him to some extent.

Never try to rub his belly. This stimulates mock fighting.

When he grabs your hand hold it completely still and say NO! Don’t move your hand. When you move it he thinks you are playing with him.

Try to find a sound you can make that he doesn’t like. I make an EENNNKKKK sound that my cats hate. I only do that when I want them to stop doing something immediately. So after you tell the cat no, make the sound.

Hold your hand still until he lets go. If he doesn’t let go, gently, SLOWLY move his paws with your other hand. Detatch him from your hand and go do something else.

Also, find him a toy he can bite and chew. We gave one of our kittens a stuffed lion about his size. We would play with him with it, and he could bite it and scratch it and kick it with his back paws. This got some of it out of his system. Also toys you can throw are good, and string is always a great standby. Just put the string away in a closet or drawer when you’re done, so the kitten doesn’t eat it.

I know this seems frustrating. I am just getting the new cat to where she doesn’t scratch me. She’s learning to grab me with her paws, but without putting her claws out.

Looking back over your post I’ll say some specific things. You say that when you pet him more than four strokes, he attacks. So don’t pet him more than four strokes. He has some association between petting and play. So pet him three or four strokes, then stop. In time he’ll probably lose that association and you’ll be able to pet him all you want.

As for the attack-as-you-walk-by game, when he grabs your leg stop and say NO! Stand still until he lets go. Again, moving or shaking your leg seems like playing to him. You have to teach him this isn’t a game. If you have to, reach down and slowly remove his paws.

As for the attacking-the-sleeping-human game, I think all my cats went through this phase. You move your foot or hand under the cover and they pounce. Usually they grow out of it. One of my cats was very bad about it, and would bite so hard through the covers it hurt. So I would say NO, then put him on the floor. Eventually he learned.

It may take time to teach your kitten, but it will feel wonderful when he starts to learn.

7

If you do decide to declaw, find a vet that does it by laser. No removing of joints or anything except the “nail” part. The vet pops out the claw and lasers it off. We had two of our cats done, and they had no bandages, came home the next day and were running and jumping as usual, with no ill effects at all.
They both still “scratch” on the furniture.

8

My vet didn’t have the option for laser, but they did use the glue instead of stitches. I got my cats declawed as adults, and yes, they were in pain for about a week. I had to bring water to one of them because she wouldn’t move, and I carried them around a lot.

I honestly tried everything up to then to keep them from ruining the furniture and carpet but nothing took. We even spent two weekends making a giant 6’ tall scratching post which they loved, but it didn’t solve the problem. They still “scratch” the new furniture I was actually able to buy to replace the torn up (read: cat scratched) stuff I had before.

9

Lesa has the right idea & lots of good tips. One thing about kitties; they don’t like to be ignored. So you can use that as punishment when they bite or scratch. Another thing about this situation; you can use it to teach the kitten and to teach the kids too – how to play with kitty safely etc. Also, give the kitty something to play with that it can’t hurt and when it wants to play take time to play with it. Someone told me if I would play with my cat for 10 minutes when I first came home (mind you, he wasn’t alone all day, but he still missed me) that he would be much easier to get along with, and it’s true. He wants my attention. I play with him with a “chase” toy until he gets bored (usually less than 10 minutes) and that seems to get rid of his urge to bite and scratch. Don’t give up!

I will also use this as a place to argue for adopting adult cats. They are usually grateful to have a home again and they have often gotten rid of their excess energy and are content to sleep a lot.

10

I have friends with several cats, they love the little laser pointers. Chasing that around on carpet gets the clawing out of them and having them chase it on linoleum or wood floors is funny as hell. Thier largest cat, Eddy, is a male with some nasty claws and teeth, to really play with him we’ve been using a small childs fishing rod and a little pink thing that looks like a boa only with a smaller diameter, 2 inches or so. Tie on some weight and the toy, cast it out as far as possible and slowly reel it in, drives em nuts.

11

Yes, I agree. One of my cats was adopted at a year and a half, even though I went looking for a kitten. I’ve never regretted it. She is the absolutely sweetest cat in the entire world, loves to have her belly rubbed, loves to cuddle. I love both my cats to death, but everyone loves her.

Oh, and a laser pointer even got my parents’ lazy cats to play.

12

thanks for all the advice. i’ll let you know if any of it works.

one last question. if we do end up having to get rid of the cat, i’ve heard that we shouldn’t take him to the spca. a friend told me that they’d put him down rather than let another family with kids adopt him. whoever said that he’s just acting the way kittens do and isn’t really hurting us is wrong, he really should not be around small kids unless i can get him acting better.

i’m wondering if there is another organization i can take him to that would make sure he got a good home, if i have to?

13

I live in New York and there are many shelters here that have “no kill” policies. North Shore Animal League is the biggest and most famous. I’m sure they would be happy to help you find such a shelter in your area.

Try hissing or making a painful meow like cats do when they are hurt. This often works instantly.

I have had 25 cats over the course of my life and only declawed one who was obsessive about scratching. I was very conflicted about it but the cat took it in stride. He was back to normal behavior in a day or two and caught and killed a mouse 2 weeks after being declawed. We got him because our (newly constructed) building was riddled with mice, but our declawed cat kept our house mouse free with no problems.