Cat people, why is my cat acting like this?

Zabali_Clawbane - yes, my cat was taken from his mother way too soon, not by me but just in general. I literally know nothing about his past - a friend of a friend of a friend knew I was looking for a kitten and told me to go to this barn in the country because some farmer had 20 cats hanging out in a lean-to and they needed a home. So I guess I am the only “mother” he’s ever known and thus all the kneading. The only reason I mind is that he has very long, sharp claws so it hurts like the devil!

We have two rescued as kittens cats now. Semi-feral they were. Way too accepting of their new lot in life.
Previously had a Japanese Bobtail (non-pedigree, but if one looks up the breed in online cat fancy sites, there would be his picture). Og, I miss that bobtail. He was vocal, and ornery and nippy and sometimes downright mean. He (barely) tolerated us. My arms would be all bit up from when he’d bite if I’d try to move him from where he had plopped himself. He’d jump on the counters and push items off the shelves. He’d jump from countertop-to-fridgetop-to-cupboardtop and then lean over the edge and stare down at us. He’d defiantly stare down the ‘punishment’ of a squirt bottle. He’d jump up as high as he could onto the side of the door jambs and slide, claws out , all the way down. And yet, by Og, I still do sorely miss him. What “personality”! I must be nuts.

Sorry. Realized after I hit submit that that was actually a hijack. Excuse please.

A question that occured to me, have you thought of either clipping his claws, (**not ** declawing, just trimming them like fingernails) or getting claw caps put on them? That might help some. If you keep them trimmed, they don’t really prick, though you’ll have to get kitty a scratching post if it doesn’t already have one. Heh, Rhiow uses one of my husband’s old work boots to scratch on, she prefers it over her carpeted scratching post, so we’ve kept it for her.

“Milk-walking”?! Lol, one of our tom cats used to do that to the other, larger tom cat :stuck_out_tongue: