Lunging and Biting HARD

Chester has been with me for about a month now, I still think he's the sweetest cat in the world, while the honeymoon stage is definitely over.

He is almost 6 years old and still has a ton of energy, and he is declawed. When I play with him, he's been fine, being that I keep a distance and throw little balls and play with strings.

The problem is with other people, my girlfriend has been over a few times, and attempted to play with him like she does with her other cats, (moving her hands all over the bed and making (usually) kitty friendly noises) the few times that she did this, Chester went into what I think is attack mode, squinting his eyes, and lunging and biting both of us HARD, like breaking the skin hard, and when we stopped and stood still (away from him) he came to us and continued "attacking".

My attempt to resolve this is to not let anyone try to play with him with their hands, but I'm nervous and not sure what to do because he gets like this at such random times and never when I'm alone with him. Also, should I not consider adopting other cats? Would he be likely to attack and hurt them?

To make a long story short, i've never seen this kind of behavior in cats, is it play? is it attack? and I'm not sure how to resolve it.
Thank you for reading this!!

It is common that once a cat is declawed, that they start to use their teeth in earnest. Claws are their first line of defense, and without them, they use their teeth. You might just have one of those cats.

There is a sticky on cat aggression towards humans that talks about different reasons why cats are aggressive, and some tricks you can use to avoid this. Let us know if this helps your situation.

To tell you how common this is: Due to medical reasons, I had to have all the teeth removed from one of my cats. After the surgery, I jokingly asked the vet: "they say that declawed cats start to bite, does that mean detoothed cats will start to claw?" She laughed in agreement. Vets know this fact.

I wish I knew more of his history, and why his previous owner declawed him.
I think the best thing is to get him out of the room for "quiet time" like it says on the sticky, but sometimes I get too scared to pick him up when he starts biting.

It's so weird, any other time..he's purring and cuddling away.

I've seen this before and always with declawed cats. I think they know they can't defend themselves as well and supremely overcompensate. The mental effect is, to me, the number one reason not to declaw though there are many. (I know he was declawed by a previous owner!) I'd follow your instincts and avoid playing with him with your hands. The only thing I've seen help a cat with the instincts of yours was another cat and he was a kitten full of energy and more obnoxious that the declawed cat. For that reason, I don't know that you necessarily need to avoid getting another cat if you're interested in doing so. I'd just take my time with the intros and see what happens.

Originally Posted by helloChester

I wish I knew more of his history, and why his previous owner declawed him.

I think the best thing is to get him out of the room for "quiet time" like it says on the sticky, but sometimes I get too scared to pick him up when he starts biting.

It's so weird, any other time..he's purring and cuddling away.

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One of my cats is an over stimulation biter. It took me a while of working with him to figure out his signals before he bit me, then took me more time to work on alternative ways to pet him so that it wouldn't trigger the bite. You might have to modify your technique a few times before you find the right combination of things to do. Try to be patient in the mean time. The reward is so great when you can outsmart them!