New kitten being a brat!

Hi everyone!

This is my first post, but I have been reading these boards since I found them Feb. 2006. You guys are a wealth of information!

My dilemma is this...

My boyfriend and I just recently adopted an 8 week old kitten who we named Aura. She is such a cutie and we love her to pieces. We also have a 5 year old giant neutered male black cat named Arlokk.

Arlokk has been great with Aura. They started out on the right paw with each other and he had been very patient with her. Aura, however, has become increasingly more rambunctious with very aggressive play toward Arlokk. She will constantly attack him and bite him, grabbing him around the neck and even biting his lower jaw and holding on to it.

Well you can imagine that he doesn't like this and the patience that he had with her has run out and he will bite her and hiss at her. But this doesn't stop her! She will yelp and run off only to come right back and commence attacking him again.

Our problem is that we live in a small apartment and both are indoor cats. There is just no where for Arlokk to go to get away from her to get some peace. We realize this is play fighting for her, but we think Arlokk would just like to be left alone sometimes. He does get into play fighting with her a bit and they will chase each other around. He never initiates aggressive behavior, only defends himself when she is being a brat and won't leave him alone.

Any suggestions on what I can do to give my big boy some peace in quite in a small apartment. I will say we did try to put one of them in the bedroom with the door closed, but that didn't work. Neither of them liked that.

edited: date I found the forums.

They may not like it, but unless you protect the kitten til it's larger (and has a fighting chance, as well as a bit less craziness) when you're out, you could be asking for trouble. Right now things just sound fine, but I wouldn't want to predict the future.

Thanks for the reply.

I think what we are going to do is when we can tell he doesn't want to play, we will pick her up and put her in the bedroom for a little bit until she calms down.

We were watching them closely last night and noticed that earlier in the evening he was all for it and when she attacked him they started chasing each other around.

Later that evening when our big boy was trying to relax she was attacking him and he was blowing her off. She would meow very loudly at him and jump on him again. She did this a few times before he pinned her and held her down by biting her on the scruff of the neck like a mother cat would handle her kittens.

It was actually pretty funny to watch because you could tell she was getting mad that he wouldn't play. She kept it up until we picked her up and put her in the bedroom for a bit.

It's just bizarre because its as if she is saying "you will play with me whether you want to or not".