Easy…
- Tie it to the tracks.
- Just wait.
When our kitten was getting out of line, we’d stick him in the glass-doored tub for a 15min “time out”. Shut the door and turn out the light. He doesn’t like time outs, when we’d let him go, he’d be much more docile.
I’m going to get pilloried for this, too, but have you thought about declawing when you neuter? I know, I know, I know: it’s cruel and unusual punishment, it’s like cutting off a human’s arm at the elbow, it’s mutilation, it’s permanently maiming the cat and just who the hell are you for even suggesting it.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I think that declawing can help in some situations. If it’s something you can’t train the cat out of, and if it’s causing you to lose your sanity, it might be better for your health (and the health of the cat, too), to just bite the bullet and go the declawing route. You’ll be happier, your cat might be happier (because he’s got a happier owner), and you don’t have to do anymore training (which is difficult if you’re not 100% consistent, 100% of the time). Obviously, this won’t work if Toby is an indoor/outdoor cat.
With the introduction of Soft Paws, there is no longer any excuse to declaw a cat. They prevent scratching damage and injuries without any pain or discomfort to the cat.
Not necessarily. I don’t use Soft Paws, but I keep my kittens’ paws trimmed, which means when they attack my leg or feet their claws don’t do any damage, but are merely uncomfortable. However, they also bite with their sharp little teeth, so unless you’re also advocating having the cat’s canines extracted, he’ll still need to be trained out of biting.
The best way to train a cat is to leave it with an older cat for a couple of weeks.
We think that all animal behavior is innate, but much of it must be learned.
Our male cats were neutered when they were about 9 months, which is the advised age over here. They’ve been a lot less agressive since. Although I should say they never were agressive to us, just to each other.
Two dogs in the house, and other cats? Seems to me the little guy is a bit stressed, perhaps. Definitely, getting attacked by the dog must have left a psychological mark.
I seriously hope you don’t consider declawing him.
No worries, I absolutely wont declaw him. 1: What if the dog somehow corners him again? He’d be screwed. 2: My cats are generally indoor/outdoor (don’t bother telling me how they are all going to die horrible deaths- they’ve all lived years and years), so declawing him would destroy that option for him.
**QuickSilver **- you horrible man. You are going to hell. (( tries to contain giggles )) Ok, I’ll be there too.
And the two dogs are mostly outside (we have a big, fancy dog run; they still come in every night but it is in another part of the house where the cat wont ever see them). The other cat lives outside mostly. I’d prefer him to be in more, but he is my ex bf’s cat (I took him when the ex joined the Marines) and was raised being outside more.
In other words: Toby pretty much gets full run of the house.
I have a cat that will insist that you pet it but then suddenly come unglued and attack, apparently some sort of over-stimulation problem. The sort of cat that reminds you how dangerous they can be, even as small as they are. If she was tiger-sized you wouldn’t want to try to train her to perform, too unpredictable! Anyway, when she is inappropriately agressive I scoop her up and turn her upside down and cradle her snugly like a baby and hold her until she quits growling (it can sometimes take a while) and then let her go. She usually hisses at me over her shoulder as she slinks away but it seems to work. She only needs a dominance “tune-up” about once a year, usually during claw-clipping.
I think the operation will solve your problem. Everyone I know with male kittens said they were really aggressive before the snip but very docile afterwards. It should turn his personality around 180 degrees. I don’t think three months is too young, my mom got hers fixed around that age, but check with your vet.
Some cats, though, are aggressive scratchers no matter what. My mom’s fixed female cat scratched aggressively all the time, often deep enough to draw blood. She got the cat declawed. I don’t think it’s cruel when the cat is a pathological scratcher and you’re seriously considering getting rid of it. Better a maimed cat than a dead one (nobody else would have adopted this cat).
There’s also a difference between play scratching and fight scratching. My cat scratches sometimes, but it’s always light and he doesn’t run away or hiss, which is what an aggressive scratcher will do. He doesn’t just run up and attack either, he only does it when I’m play attacking him. Kittens are also a lot more wild than adult cats. I can’t see the logic in declawing a kitten, when their personalities aren’t even settled yet and they still have their nads and everything. Trust me, the cat WILL change when it’s older and fixed.
I had a kitten who scratched like that; he did grow out of it. He was my first cat of my own as an adult (as opposed to my family cats I had growing up) and I will admit for a period of time I thought he was truly evil. He was neutered, and the bad behavior stopped shortly after. He was never agressive as an adult. After the fact I thought that maybe I should have adopted two kittens, and that still may be the best way to go.
Er, are you really sure this is a cat? Maybe you got a baby panther by mistake.
One wok…1/4 cup of peanut oil, salt to taste … :eek: ok im kidding
You make it sound like a cat scratching deep enough to draw blood is unusual. My husband’s cat nearly always draws a little blood when we play with her. It really doesn’t seem to take much.
Diosa, what worked best for me training my cat (and later my husband’s cat) was a combination of making a loud “psssst” sound and clapping my hands at the same time when she did something not okay. Both sounds startle the cat and discourage them from continuing the behaviour (cats don’t like to be startled). My cat was easy to train; she has a will to please me. My husband’s cat was much more independent; she has very little will to please, but she also knows that she is not the alpha female when I’m around. Have you tried a dominance test on Toby to see how dominant he is?
Oh yeah - making a loud mewling sound like a wee kitten always gets Jim’s cat to stop biting me. I don’t know if that would work on a male cat, but not hurting the babies is very hard-wired in the females.
And, in summary, some cats always play rough, and you might need to wear a sweater and gloves to play with Poopsie.
Scruffing is actually a good method though i’d quibble ‘hard’ and opt for ‘firmly’ instead. Mothers scruff kittens to drag em around and cats tend to regress to that floppy, submissive kitten stage if it’s done to them as adults. Adult cats actually do it to each other to establish dominance. Whereever possibly when trying to train an animal you should try to manipulate it’s natural behaviours.
If you want to train your cat to do anything then you have to socialise it a LOT. It has to want to be with you and to have nice times with you. So lots of snuggles and treats and playing when it’s in a good mood. It’s actually possible to train a cat in exactly the same way as a dog - my cats will walk to heel, sit, stay, beg, play fetch (well they used to but we’ve forgotten to play it in ages) and to remain in a safe place when i need them to stay somewhere when we are outdoors. It just takes time and having them want to do it.
One of my cats likes to hang onto my feet and put her teeth and claws *on * them. She’s not actually hurting - just putting her claws/teeth on me and then making eye contact. With her it’s just devilment i think cos she knows it has freaked me out in the past. I **hate ** getting my feet grabbed! I think she does it as an invitation to play/be chased/wrestle/have me quickly pick up a toy to distract her. A clear case of the cat training me perhaps but it may be that your cat is initiating rough play rather than being aggressive.
Cats totally know what we don’t like, and will go out of their way to bug us when they want to play. What better way to get a human to chase you?
Maybe the Psst sound reminds them of flea spray or similar?