what to do with a brat?

I am having issues with Lucky, (she is my bottle fed orphan). she loves me up, snuggles, lets me pet her, but she attacks my DH , and hiss bites , he can't picky her up, well he could but he'd have no arm left. she kisses my youngest goodnight every night, but she gets pretty nasty with the other kids, It is becoming a big issue in our home. A few time she has went after me, I put her in her crate for a few minutes, she comes out purring and lovey.

I've used the time-out method with success for cat on cat aggression, so the same concept should apply to cat on people aggression. I would put the aggressive cat in the bathroom (with food, water, litterbox) for a bit and then let him back out with the rest of the crew but he would go back in as soon as he started again. It took about 2 months but the fighting stopped! and I wasn't very consistent either, so if you're consistent it would hopefully take less time. Can't hurt to try!

I have put her in three time outs this morning, I am going to keep trying, she always comes out purring and seems content, I am hoping it is the same as with children, be consistent, I think she is overly attached to me, because I bottle fed her since she was only a few hours old. I think she is jealous of DH, she doesn't want him near me. Last night she really went after him , I had to grab her and put her in her crate, He is started to really dislike her,

I was just reading another thread, I think it is tortitude,

How young is she?

When I raised our two feral kittens (niles and frasier, got them at ~4 weeks they're now ~7months), whenever they would bite/claw me or do something else that wasn't safe, etc. I would play the mommy cat, hiss at them and then scruff them briefly. i.e. if they play-bit me, I would hiss, grab scruff of their neck (while hissing), hold them there, on the ground for about 5 seconds and then let them go. Usually they would not continue with the bad behavior after that. Now, I can simply hiss at them from across the room and they stop.

If she still thinks that you are her "mommy" this trick may work for you also.

Not that I'm an expert, but I thought I'd post my experience.
Art

Originally Posted by artgecko

How young is she?

When I raised our two feral kittens (niles and frasier, got them at ~4 weeks they're now ~7months), whenever they would bite/claw me or do something else that wasn't safe, etc. I would play the mommy cat, hiss at them and then scruff them briefly. i.e. if they play-bit me, I would hiss, grab scruff of their neck (while hissing), hold them there, on the ground for about 5 seconds and then let them go. Usually they would not continue with the bad behavior after that. Now, I can simply hiss at them from across the room and they stop.

If she still thinks that you are her "mommy" this trick may work for you also.

Not that I'm an expert, but I thought I'd post my experience.
Art

Click to expand...

Yup - did the same with my bottle feds when they acted out too much. The scruff is done lightly just to calm them down. Your kitten didn't have a cat mom and she can only learn from her human mom. This is not an easy thing to do with orphaned kittens.

This can become a perpetuating cycle, because a person will approach the cat with apprehension, the cat will wonder what they are up to, and then one wrong move will frighten the cat.

Even attempts at affection, from a person the cat doesn't trust, will be interpreted as aggression.

Is there any difference in the way the people in the house who get along with the cat behave compared to the people the cat showed aggression towards? Ignoring the cat and letting the cat come to them can help the people who are having trouble with the cat. Trying to make friends with a cat with these issues has to be done passively; by letting the cat come to you, responding only verbally, and not moving until the cat either touches the person or goes away.

Try to figure out what signals the victims are sending, and how the people who get along differ in their signals, can help solve this problem.

Originally Posted by artgecko

How young is she?

When I raised our two feral kittens (niles and frasier, got them at ~4 weeks they're now ~7months), whenever they would bite/claw me or do something else that wasn't safe, etc. I would play the mommy cat, hiss at them and then scruff them briefly. i.e. if they play-bit me, I would hiss, grab scruff of their neck (while hissing), hold them there, on the ground for about 5 seconds and then let them go. Usually they would not continue with the bad behavior after that. Now, I can simply hiss at them from across the room and they stop.

If she still thinks that you are her "mommy" this trick may work for you also.

Not that I'm an expert, but I thought I'd post my experience.
Art

Click to expand...

She is five months old she has been doing this, from the beginning. She does think I am her Mommy, she follows me room to room, If she can't see me she calls for me. I am going to try pretending I am her mom and see what happens, DH has had enough of her nastiness, he tries to be nice to her, but she will have none of it.

I hope you have luck with it.
The only other advice I can give, is that you need to be the one to do the hissing/scruffing (correcting her for her agressive behavior), at least at first. Your DH does not need to get involved with that, at least until she starts to accept him (otherwise she might think he is being agressive towards her).

I would have your DH try to play with her (try the toys on a string, they are my cats favorites and the cat doesn't have to be right up near you to "play" with you) and reward her (if she has a favorite treat?) whenever she is close to him and is behaving herself. Hopefully this will start to build some good associations between her and your DH (i.e. DH = playing with my favorite toy and getting treats). You can supervise and only correct her if she acts agressively towards him.

Other than those play sessions, I would say that your DH needs to basically ignore her. It might be a good idea though, to keep treats or toys handy so that she can be rewarded if she approaches him (in a good way) on her own.

Hopefully, once she gets used to him via the play sessions and understands that agression is a no-no, she will accept him. At that point, if she is responding well to your corrections (knows that the hissing+ scruffing = mom doesn't like what I'm doing), then your DH can try hissing at her when she starts to become agressive (i.e. looks like she's going to pounce on him) and then redirect her to a toy.

Some of this *might* be regular kitten-play behavior... I know that one of my kittens (that has been adopted) wanted to play very rough with me and my family...biting, scratching, latching onto my hand and "kicking" me, etc. He quickly learned to redirect this onto his feline brothers though (when I did the hissing, scruffing, etc.), but was still rough with them...

Did your DH or other children play rough with her when she was smaller? That would fit (and explain why she is that way with some and not with all), but my boys don't usually "hiss" at each other before play-fighting.

HTH,
Art