bc

Our kitten is about 13 weeks old now and he is very aggressive. My wife
and I both have lots of scars on our hands where he has attacked them
and drawn a fair bit of blood. He has also gone for the children a
little bit as well, but they know to keep away at the moment. We give
him loads of toys and playthings to use up his aggression, but it
doesn't seem to be working at the moment.
I've never had a cat in my life, I'm a dog person, so my knowledge is
very limited. I also don't know how to tell a cat off either. What's the
best way for us to handle this?

Thanks in advance

Ben

--
Badger Badger Badger

fishwife

Hi Ben,

In message <9hxgd.1420$sc3.1104@newsfe1-win.ntli.net>, BC <BC@fake.com>
writes


In my experience, all kittens are like this. We have two 9 week-olds at
the moment, and they're little monsters.

Try not to let them get to your hands. I have a toy called a "kitten
mitten" which is a glove with long spindly fingers and bells and jangly
things on the end. They love it. I don't think it really matters how
many toys you give a kitten, they need lots of attention to get them
used to dealing with humans. Where did you get the kitten from? Was he
handled a lot in his first few weeks? What size litter was he from?
How old was he when you got him?

Anyway, I think it just takes time and patience. Reward "nice"
behaviour with treats rather than telling him off - it will just
alienate him. There are some nice Felix cat treats that all our cats
love.

Good luck and let me know how you get on.

PS - aren't you on uk.misc?
--
Katie Walker

bc

Thanks Fishwife. I am indeed on uk.misc sometimes, although I don't have
enough time to read everything on there.
We have one of the kitten mitten's, and he loves playing with it, but
sometimes it's just not within reach.
We can't be sure about his handling early on in his life, we got him
fairly early in life from an ad. I believe he was in a litter of two.

We have plenty of felix treats for the cat.

--
Badger Badger Badger

i.p.freely

Best to handle him a lot with slow strokes and calming noises. He is
probably still in kitten 'play' mode and just needs calming down and a lot
of handling.

--

I.P.Freely

victor martinez

When the kitten hurts you, say OUCH out loud and slowly move away your
hand. Cats can be trained, but it takes a lot of consistency. You have
to repeat over and over, until the kitten learns that it hurts.
Another option would be to get the kitten another kitten to play with. A
cat is the best toy for another cat.

--
Victor Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
Send your spam here: uce@ftc.gov
Email me here: pistorLITTER@BOXaustin.rr.com

buckethead

kill it, cook it, eat it
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Twonky and so many others, even you, Ray.

chris

Have your trimmed his nails? No matter how many scratching posts, etc. he
has his nails will still grow and he may be scratching unintentionally
because his nails are too long. Its not that hard to do with a special cat
nail clipper but you might want the vet or the vet tech to show you how to
do it....

hilly

Kittens play rough, and it's getting 'stung' by a sibling that teaches a
kitten to temper the aggression out playing. We give

Catnip mice and scratching posts don't bite or claw *back*... and that's the
problem.

The post in this thread by Victor Martinez is the (in my opinion) best way
to handle this.

--
Hilly.

fishwife

In message <ajzgd.272$oJ3.80@newsfe1-gui.ntli.net>, BC <BC@fake.com>
writes


Hmm.. Once you killfile everything that's cross posted, there's usually
not a lot left. (


I did wonder if that was the case. Our two are from a litter to two as
well. It's a bit of a long story, but originally we were only going to
have one, and then we ended up with two, but we got them both about a
week apart.

We got Ella first, who we think is the eldest of the two. She fitted in
straight away, and was very relaxed around us. We got Louis a week
later, and he is (still) very standoffish with us. The two of them
play-fight constantly, and it looks really violent, but they tire
themselves out and curl up together and go to sleep. He doesn't usually
interact with us unless we 'play rough'.

However, our older cat was a bit like this, and he's settled down an
awful lot now.

--
Katie Walker

bc

Thanks for the help, hopefully he will settle down in the end. Really
do think the fact that he came from such a small litter is the problem,
must point out though that he is a very loving cat, loves being carried
around like a baby and is always cuddled up to someone just does not
know how to play without getting evil! Sounds like your one kitten is
the complete opposite of ours, and if your older one has settled down
there is hope!

Not keen on clipping his claws as chris suggested, one as he will be
going out after he is done and micro-chipped and i would like him to be
able to make full use of tree's and fences and also as this is a play
induced problem, when he is being cuddled he always keeps his claws in
to touch us even with the kids.

We will just keep on telling him no and removing our hands from his
claws and putting him in another room each time he does it til he calms
down, just hope he gets the idea soon as he is really losing out on play
time with us as we keep having to stop so as not to encourage him to be
nasty and another kitten is really not an option.

gonna be fun at christmas with all the decorations for him to attack, he
had a great time yesterday playing with toy spiders and bats and trying
to get into pumpkins{which had glowsticks and not candles in!}
--
Badger Badger Badger