Hi All,
I'm new to the site, so please bear with me here. About a week ago, a flea-ridden, stray, six-week old cat wandered up to the door of my house. It was starting to get cold at nights here and my roommates and I didn't want to leave him out because he seemed to fragile. We decided to take him in and adopt him, bringing him into the vet, combing and bathing him to get rid of the fleas, and giving him love and attention. We've all had cats at one point or another and are generally observant on the needs and wants of a feline.
Sidney (the kitten) has been getting quite aggressive lately, however. Every time that someone goes into the kitchen, he follows them and yells (yells, not meows) for food. I usually ignore him in order to to reinforce the behavior with any attention at all, and it works some of the time. Whenever someone gets his food out, though, he goes wild. When I say wild, I mean absolutely wild (it resembles a feral cat on the hunt). He begins to scream loudly and claw at the legs of the person who is dishing out the food. He's getting quite violent, and I'm not sure what to do. This and the begging are spiraling out of control and I'm hoping that someone here can help me. It got to the point today where he scratched up my roommate quite badly when she was dishing out his food, and I decided to put him in the bathroom (where he sleeps at night) until he quieted down. He hasn't quieted down yet, and I'm beginning to worry that I did something terribly wrong in attempting to teach him that he can't get food if he claws and bites.
He will also try to get at human food whenever possible. He's starting to get the message of not climbing on the stove because he gets a shpritz of water every time he does, but he'll still try to climb up and grab whatever food he can off of other surfaces. If he gets something and you try to take it away from him, he bites (when I tried to get a piece of cheese pasta he had gotten yesterday, he bit me so hard that I bled quite a bit).
Help! I don't know what to do and it's killing me!
I'm new to the site, so please bear with me here. About a week ago, a flea-ridden, stray, six-week old cat wandered up to the door of my house. It was starting to get cold at nights here and my roommates and I didn't want to leave him out because he seemed to fragile. We decided to take him in and adopt him, bringing him into the vet, combing and bathing him to get rid of the fleas, and giving him love and attention. We've all had cats at one point or another and are generally observant on the needs and wants of a feline.
Sidney (the kitten) has been getting quite aggressive lately, however. Every time that someone goes into the kitchen, he follows them and yells (yells, not meows) for food. I usually ignore him in order to to reinforce the behavior with any attention at all, and it works some of the time. Whenever someone gets his food out, though, he goes wild. When I say wild, I mean absolutely wild (it resembles a feral cat on the hunt). He begins to scream loudly and claw at the legs of the person who is dishing out the food. He's getting quite violent, and I'm not sure what to do. This and the begging are spiraling out of control and I'm hoping that someone here can help me. It got to the point today where he scratched up my roommate quite badly when she was dishing out his food, and I decided to put him in the bathroom (where he sleeps at night) until he quieted down. He hasn't quieted down yet, and I'm beginning to worry that I did something terribly wrong in attempting to teach him that he can't get food if he claws and bites.
He will also try to get at human food whenever possible. He's starting to get the message of not climbing on the stove because he gets a shpritz of water every time he does, but he'll still try to climb up and grab whatever food he can off of other surfaces. If he gets something and you try to take it away from him, he bites (when I tried to get a piece of cheese pasta he had gotten yesterday, he bit me so hard that I bled quite a bit).
Help! I don't know what to do and it's killing me!
And as Stephanie said, kitten food given in the right amount, will not only provide the required nourishment for Sidney but it will also make him less demanding. 
