Yeah, I know how silly this thread is, but follow me.
My cat is in his teenage phase- full of rebellion, piss, and vinegar. Toby, apparently, fully intends to put a boot in my ass ('cuz it’s the American way) one scratch at a time.
My toes are bloodied, my once beautiful arms are sliced, it looks like I tried to slit my wrists (thanks cat), and I lay awake at night in fear of the evil, clawed demon that sleeps above my head.
Long story short: how do I make him stop clawing and biting? Unlike dogs, “No!” doesn’t work. Sticking him in the other room whenever he is bad doesn’t work. Apparently, cats are very different than dogs, go figure .
The vet said he isn’t ready to get the big snip yet, so in time that’ll happen.
Phase of my cycle? If you’re asking what I think you’re asking: he is like this all the time, with me, with other women, with men. He’s just turned into a biting, scratching jerk.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes he is sweet, but he’s growing to be quite the jerk.
I’ll probably get pilloried for this but I’ve always found the best way to stop a cat from clawing and biting is to grab it behind the neck, hard, and hold it down on the ground for a little while. Pretty soon it gets the idea that attacking me = pain for it and it stops.
I’m not sure what a good way would be to set boundaries with him, since I don’t “know” him. He needs to have definite consequences for doing such things. One of our cats responds to a firm “No!” while being moved away from the “crime scene”, (usually the computer desk) the other takes getting squirted once with a plant mister to get the point across. (Usually just the sight of the mister is enough to make them stop now.) Other cats respond to things like shaking a can of pennies to deter their behavior. Do you play with him and wear him out before you go to sleep? Maybe if you start playing with him, making him chase the laser pointer dot, string, ball etc. for a good long session to wear him out he’ll not be so angsty while you try to rest? Maybe try something like Feliway diffusers to see if that settles him down enough for you to begin to set boundaries? I’d start putting claw caps on him, and/or keeping his claws trimmed now too. If it were me, and he came out of nowhere and attacked me, he’d get caught by the scruff of the neck, picked up gently enough, and told firmly, but showing strong displeasure “NO!” in a deep, no-nonsense voice while looking them in the eyes. If he attacked me in my sleep, he might get whacked with a pillow before I woke up fully, then caught, told “NO!” and banished to a closed room for a time. (With the litter box in it of course.)
I’ve done the scruff thing- he just makes a really pissed off face and goes totally limp. When I let go, he mauls me.
I’ve done the penny thing- he tries to attack the penny shaker.
Next step is the water spray bottle. I’ve had other cats that have gone through this phase, but Toby seems especially violent. The other cats outgrew their jerkishness in a few months, so hopefully he will too.
Your vet said he isn’t ready for the “big snip”? How old is he? The vets here will do them as small as four pounds with no adverse affects.
I had a lot of people who were against this practice tell me that early spay/neuter will “stunt their growth.” If this is so (which the vets say isn’t true) I’m sure glad Mr. Spock was done early - he weighs 28 pounds! If I had waited until he was six months, I’d be able to ride him!
He’s…three months? I adopted him from the vet’s office, so I’ll take their word on when (they’ll do it for free too, ya see).
One thing I didn’t think about: he was attacked by one of our dogs a few weeks ago. I took him to the ER vet, he had a bit of a punctured lung, but is ok. He’s been especially scratchy and bitey since then. Even though I feel for him, I can’t tolerate him biting and scratching me all the time.
Our cat actually thought the water spray was a really fun game, so in fact we were reinforcing the negative behavior because he liked the challenge of dodging the water.
We finally found something he hates. The sound of the … I don’t know what it’s called, now that I think about it, I call it the air puffer. The can of (compressed?) air that you buy to clean your keyboard and other electronics. The brand I see next to our computer right now is called “Air Duster.” Anyway, we noticed the cat hated the puffing noise when we cleaned the keyboard. When he misbehaves, I’ll puff (in the air, not aimed at the cat) and he runs.
The key for our particular cat, and maybe for yours, based on what you said about the scruff thing, is that anything that involved physical contact between the person and the cat seemed to encourage the cat to keep making contact. Even picking him up to put him in another room was enough contact to keep him interested. The puffer, however, makes him want to get his distance. Maybe you can figure out what it is that he seems to avoid on his own? (Of course, now I’m having these visions of you keeping a vaccum cleaner right next to your bed and firing it up in the middle of the night, oh dear)
Another thing I learned about biters/scratchers (unfortunately, after we had been doing the opposite thing for some time) was to never play with your cat with a toy or a ball that is in your hand. Any cat toys should be on strings, or the ends of sticks, so that he doesn’t associate your hand with what he is trying to “attack.”
Er, do you live with other people? I ask this because it seems to be important that everyone be equally committed to correcting the cats behavior. In our particular household, one person was quite diligent about setting up limits for the cat, and the other person (heh, I’m trying not to point fingers here, but it’s really just me, Mr. Del, and the cat himself) let the cat do whatever struck his fancy as long as it was amusing, and then acted all surprised and indignant when the cat got over-excited and continued to scratch even after playtime was over.
Worth repeating. When I had to adopy my 8yo sons cat; he acted the same way as the op discribes. I finally figure it out when my son would come over for the weekends and he would spend ample amounts of time chasing the cat around the house. Before when I would see this I always thought to myself “That cat must hate that shit.” Because it had a look on it’s face as if to say “Look! kid just leave me the fuck alone.”
That couldn’t have been further from the truth. So now the first thing I do when I come home from work is chase the damn cat around the house for about ten or so minutes. She usually still wants to play more but at least its enough to keep her satiated enough no to attack my bare feet in the middle of the night!
He might still be sore then. Don’t expect to pet him, or cuddle him unless he comes to you maybe? Offer to pet him and if he seems unwilling, let him be. I might see if you could entice him to get a different sleeping nest too, so you won’t bump him in your sleep as you roll over. Try the Feliway diffuser too, it might help settle him down, help him feel safe again so he isn’t combative?
He can be quite the cuddley dude when he wants to be, but me touching him is not what causes him to attack. I’ll just be sitting there and WHAM! Cat attack. My male friends think it is funny, I think it hurts. My point is: I don’t think it is that he is sore, because he rarely claws and bites when he is in his calm, sweet mode.
And he is usually only crazy for a few minutes at night, then he cuddles up and goes to sleep. Most of the clawing and scratching happens while he is awake during the day.
delphica- thanks for the personal input! The only other person in the house is my dad, but he isn’t around the cat much at all. I do like the nonphysical punishment idea ('sides the shaker/water idea from before). Maybe I’ll invest in an air can.
Play with him about an hour before bedtime then, regularly on a schedule. Wear him out so that he won’t have to get rid of his energy before going to sleep. Have a certain “ritual” that you go through, to give him clues that it’s time to settle down and go to sleep. Give him visible cues with your actions that it’s quiet time, and not play time. The idea is to do things in the same order each night from now on, as opposed to in general getting ready for bed. Things like turning off the computer/television/radio, (unless you sleep with it on) checking the locks, shutting off all the lights but the bedroom/bathroom, changing into your nightclothes, turning out the final lights, then going to bed would be a set ritual he could see. That might help him get adjusted to being civilized.
That’s a sign of pent up energy, and boredom. He needs to be played with regularly, and since the “worst” offense IMO is attacking the sleeper, the humans should tire him out before they go to sleep so he isn’t as likely to be stuck “not knowing what to do with himself”.
As I said, I’ll usually crawl into bed, he’ll pounce a few times, then pass out next to me. So sleeping time isn’t too big of an issue. The problem is most def. during the day.
Play with him first thing in the morning or in the middle of the day then. Get his energy out, so he doesn’t have any to make mischeif of that kind. I’d also look at my post number 11 for possible insight into his biteyness. You say it really got bad after he was attacked, right? It might be misplaced aggression, or soreness.
Adding, the squirrelyness before going to sleep might very well be due to youth. If you got nicked during that, I’d chalk it up to “he didn’t mean to”. Out of curiosity, what did you do to the dog that attacked the kitten? Was the kitten trying to steal food? Are you trying to train that behavior out of the dog?
We have two dogs: a chow we’ve had 8 or 9 years and a puppy (about 6 months old, as big as the chow). The chow has always hated cats. Now, we’ve always had cats, since it is pretty easy to keep them all seperate (chow stays in the yard or in the back of the house).
When the attack happened, my dad let the chow in to take him for a walk without checking to see if Toby was around. The chow cornered him and picked him up. He didn’t bite (there was no outside blood or anything), just squeezed. I ran in and grabbed the dog away, picked up Toby, and right away took him to the vet (he was wheezing a bit).
The puppy was buddies with Toby and is now very sad. Angi’s (the puppy) best lil’ fuzzy buddy wont play with him anymore. Sorta cute in a sad way.
We’ve had a few dog trainers come out over the years and they’ve concluded that Doc is just a bit of a jerk. He’s getting up in age anyway, plus I think my dad learned his lesson about checking for the cat before letting the dog in.
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I’d also look at my post number 11 for possible insight into his biteyness. You say it really got bad after he was attacked, right? It might be misplaced aggression, or soreness.