Biting kittens

ambrosia said:
I am happy to report that the short time outs in the bathroom worked. For awhile lol, she seems to have forgotten her lessons and has been a biter the last couple days. *sigh*
Click to expand...

Retraining is easier, as she will already have an idea why.
 
When I had a dog that would bite too hard I would cry. He got the idea soon enough and never did more than mouth me after that
 
ambrosia said:
I am happy to report that the short time outs in the bathroom worked. For awhile lol, she seems to have forgotten her lessons and has been a biter the last couple days. *sigh*
Click to expand...

Time outs in the bathroom were the way I trained my partner's cat, too! When my partner had me take his cat, Kanika, to live with me for a while, she kept attacking my cat. So I started locking Kanika for a minute or so in the bathroom every time she acted aggressive toward my cat. I gave treats when they were nice to each other.

It took a few days, but it worked well! Now they are good friends.
 
It doesn't teach them what to do instead and doesn't initiate trust,
Click to expand...
Cats are not as smart as people. If you are not near the cat, and another person does the spraying, the cat will not recognize the ickiness of a spray of water as coming from you. Any negative physical touch, such as a slap, will cause a problem, in contrast.
 
I don't know how I did to my two kittens, they've stopped biting me and I had them since last Saturday. I don't know how to help you with it.
 
I've always found that removing yourself from play works better then removing the animal (cat or dog) from play. When my cat was younger, if he started playing to rough I would "squeak" and walk into another room. That's what other animals do when they play too rough together. It tells them "Ouch! That hurt! I don't want to play anymore." Each time I would make the "I'm not playing" timeout longer, slowly make the roughness needed for the break less and less, and eventually associate a cue with action, instead of just a squeak. For example, I'm playing with the cat. He bites me hard and digs his claws into my hand. I "squeak" and leave the room for 30 seconds. When I come back, he does it again, so I leave for a minute, then 2 minutes, etc. Once he figures out that biting and scratching makes me leave, he'll start testing what hurts and what doesn't. Then I would show him that yes, that nip still hurt, so I'm leaving. Yes that little bit of claw still hurt, so I'm leaving. As I'm doing that, I would pick a cue (claws for the cat, settle for the dogs), and I would introduce it by squeaking, saying the cue, and then walking away. Does that make sense?

As for the attacking your feet at night thing, can you try to wear her out right before bed? My cat did this when he was a kitten, but he's grown out of it. It helped a lot if I grabbed his feather toy (the stick with the sting and the feathers on the end?) and played played played before bed. Tucker him out. If that's not an option, or doesn't work, I don't see any problem with locking a cat in the bathroom at night, so long as they have a litter box and water. Dogs get kenneled at night. Why shouldn't cats? lol
 
Back
Top