My kitten crawling up my legs

My mothers ex boyfriend brought a kitten for my six year old brother a few months ago.

The moment I saw little Knuckles i sad to my mother 'he's been taken away from his mother so early!' He was just the Smallest little thing. However he came from a nice home who were simply looking to get rid of their kittens. He took quite a shining to my mother and now follows her all around the house, constantly trying to climb up hers (and eventually mine) legs.

 

He was no wild, he had always been handled and around people so It may not be something that only semi wild cats do.

I thought maybe it had something to do with him being taken from his mum so early

However the only similarity between Knuckles and your kitten is that they are redheads, hey maybe that has something to do with it :P

 

This is absolutely normal. They grow out of it eventually.  Every kitten I've ever had has done this.  In fact, I would consider it odd if they did not.  Enjoy!!

thats funny you say that cus every kitten I've had hasnt. If im sitting at my desk they might occasionally climb their way up onto my lap but thats all. Its only ever my mums cat I've seen done that. The world is funny isnt it.

It's perfectly normal kitten behavior and probably more a question of personality than background. We brought Jamie home in the summer and ending up wearing long-sleeved sweatshirts and heavy jeans through all the heat because he was constantly using us as trees. He'd often wait until one of us had our hands full to charge up our legs and backs. Those needle-sharp claws really hurt!

If you don't want him scratching up your legs, and you can't really stop him from doing that, rather deviate it and find things for him to climb up. One of those cat tree's. Or my Ichi's personal favorite, our computer chair (it's a cheap old chair so I'm not bothered by it, plus he only climbs, not scratches) 

Kitties just like to show off their strength and test out their new agile abilities. 

I always thought of it as saying they wanted to be held.  That seemed to be when kittens did that to me.  King Arthur and his siblings did this to me only when they wanted held.  They were with their mother.  So it couldn't be that they were taken away too early.  It could also be practice for climbing trees.  But, as soon as I would lift them up to my chest, they'd start purring happily and relax and snuggle into me.  Try just lifting them to your chest and cuddling them.  That's what I did and it always seemed to work.

A lot of kittens do that---when they're little, there's really no other way for them to get up high! When they get too big to climb so easily they usually stop doing it. I think you're handling it correctly by pushing her down, but you need to be consistent and not allow her to do it sometimes but not other times. Red females are always a bundle of fun!

That is just instinct, the burying the food in the bowl.  My cats do this, too.  It is what they would do in nature to preserve their food and keep others from getting it.  Not all mine do this, 3/4 do!!

 

Burying their food is nothing..... My Paige, and on occassion King Arthur, like to "drown" their toys!!  Only their toy mice or any furry or feathered toy that reminds them of an animal... They "drown" it in the water fountains!!  It was the strangest thing I've ever seen when I first noticed it!! 

My parents' youngest cat, Ghibli, always climbed up my leg  when he was really young.  This is him climbing my leg,

 

Ghibli really only did this when he was around this age and when we were outside and I called his name, so it never really grew to be a problem with his claws.  We were lucky that it wasn't anything he carried with him as he grew older because I'm sure it would be painful now lol.

 

If its a regular occurance that your kitten does without being prompted to, I would go a head and start discouraging it now while the kitten's young.  Like others have mentioned, just having high objects, like cat trees available for the kitten to use to get up to that height will most likely help.

 

About your kitten waking you up by rubbing against your face,  Its a cat thing.  Lol especially if you don't have food out all the time for the kitten or cat.   Sometimes its just in the mornings, other times, your cat gets lonely at night and wants some attention.  Really the only thing to do is just to keep your door shut so your kitten can't come in and rub against your face. I know its awful, I have a slight allergy to cats as well so I know miserable you get to feel in such a short time when you have a cat literally in your face.  My cat Chacho woke me up just the other night by standing on my windpipe then proceeded to stand over my face with his belly on my face.  Needless to say my nose started to run and I started to get itchy and miserable feeling lol.   I hate shutting him out of the bedroom but when he does things like this or is in a troublemaking mood and getting into everything, I don't have much choice if I want to get any sleep.

 

The kitten climbing the leg is normal for some kitties. This particular kitty may always like to be higher than the other cats. Do you have car trees around?  The climbing behavior will stop when he is big enough to jump up to the places he wants to go. You may not have seen it before, but trust us, this is not abnormal behavior. 

 

As to getting you up.....you have to ignore it to get it to stop, or use an aversion tactic to make them stop. For instance, if the kitty starts rubbing your face, blow in his face really hard, cats hate this. Typically the cat will leave and not come back for a bit. Don't say his name, don't reach up to pet him, just blow as hard as you can. We have a 14 year old orange cat that is absolutely AWFUL about waking me up when he wants something. I used to not mind but now that I am on call 24/7 and get late night early morning calls ALOT , getting my sleep disturbed is not an option. So, I have to blow on him. It took about 2 weeks but he finally figured it out (he's a very stubborn cat). He will come in and lay on me but he won't get in my face crying and carrying on. 

 

I know kittens are cute but all of your issues are why I only adopt adult kitties. 

Oh honey, welcome to the wonderful world of kittens!   Everything you have mentioned I have seen other kittens do and it's normal behavior.

 

The climbing thing, some kittens do, some don't. My Harley (the kitty in my avatar, a red tabby too...maybe it's the color? lol) was a climber. I thought it was cute at first...he would climb up my jeans and the back of my t-shirt and perch on my should while I was making dinner. Yeah, real cute when he was 7-8 weeks old (he was abandoned and we bottle fed him and his sister). It WASN'T so cute when he was 12 months old and 6lbs and still trying that. To this day he still thinks me in my jeans are his personal scratching posts (and he's almost 8 yrs old now, and MUCH heavier!). Good thing you are nipping it in the bud now. Some cats just like to climb more than others, and kittens especially will climb anything available just to show they can!

 

Burying the food is normal too for some cats. Harley (again, Harley...can you tell he's my problem child?) will try to "bury" his food if he's done for now but wants to "save" it. I keep telling him that he can't bury it in the kitchen floor but he still tries....

 

The toe and feet thing. They're kittens. They will attack anything that moves (or they think WILL move). They're practicing their hunting skills. Not to say it's not annoying when you are laying in bed at 4:00, sound asleep, and feel daggers suddenly embeded in your big toe. Of course, you jerk, and that just makes them hunt more  . When I got my first kitten I didn't have a clue. Jasper snuggled up on my shoulder and went to sleep purring his little head off. I would then move him to the top of my dresser in his little bed. I was able to get a few hours of sleep before my feet were attacked. I finally learned to keep tons toys in the room to occupy him. I would keep a few in the nightstand for when he wasn't interested in the 20 or so laying around the floor. The jingle of cat toys I could sleep through my better than the teeth and claws in my feet!

 

Oh, and the face rubs at the crack of dawn has nothing to do with being a kitten and everything to do with a cat that thinks "I'm up, why aren't you feeding me, petting me, playing with me, etc". Some never grow out of that!

 

Basically, your kitty is not weird, she's just your kitty.

Ooooooooooooooh - I know your pain, literally!  Simon & Garfunkel used me as a climbing tree so much when they were baby kittens.  They would run out of nowhere and just sink their nails in and climb like I was a tree, all the way up to my shoulders sometimes.  I had so many scratches on my legs and back... ouch!  They did eventually grow out of it, but despite having scratching pads/posts and shelves to climb, they did it for a good long while.  Good luck!!!

There are literally thousands of videos on youtube of kittens climbing human legs.

When it comes to the dog, it will just take time. I don't know of any kitten that doesn't have that reaction to any animal it hasn't seen before. My very first cat I brought home as a tiny kitten. I had an indoor bunny at the time. The rabbit was confined when we were gone but had the free run of the house when we were home. The first time Jasper saw Bunny it was as if he saw the devil incarnate! He hissed, spit, arched his back, did the little side step hopping with his tail 3 times it's normal size (pretty impressive for a kitten about 8 wks old...he looked like an overgrown bottle brush  ). Here, I was worried about the cat attacking the rabbit, and the cat is afraid of it's prey! After a few weeks though, Jasper just thought of Bunny as a weird looking cat that walked funny and they were the best of friends. They actually would curl up on the couch and groom each other. 

 

I think your kitties will be just fine with the dog once they get used to each other. Keeping them separated right now is a good thing because they will get used to each other's smell which will make actually living together much easier. 

Integrating cats and dogs just takes a little patience and work on your part. I will preface all of this saying I have had cats and dogs for many years and have run the gamut of reactions from both species.

This may sound mean or 'unfair' to you but you have to allow the cat to be higher in the heirarchy than the dogs. No matter the size of the dog, it has to understand kitty is first. That doesn't mean kitty can beat up on the dog at will, but rather they both understand they have a place and that place is consistently reinforced.

First thing, you MUST obedience train the dog. This isn't a suggestion, it is a must. Even if your dog is small, it is not cute or OK for it to be untrained. In obedience, your dog will learn to focus on you and gain some very important commands that will help integrate it with the cats. My absolute favorite command is 'leave it'. My 18 pound dog can be looking at anything....cat, cat treat, trash on sidewalk and I can calmly tell her to 'leave it' and she turns away from it and moves on. This is a super important command as you will use it alot when the dog is interacting with the cats.

You must never, ever, never allow the puppy to chase the cat while it is learning about the cats. This is an instinct for them so you have to watch carefully and when you see the signs the dog is getting ready to chase,issue the 'leave it' command and positively distract the dog with a toy or game.

If the dog and cat nose each other and the cat hits or spits, don't allow the dog to bite at or lunge at kitty. Tell the kitty no and redirect the dog. However, if the dog is jumping on the cat, barking and generally acting a fool, he needs to be popped by the cat, it's the cats way of teaching him how to behave and there is nothing wrong with it. Just redirect the dog away from the cat with a toy or game.

Eventually they may start to play together. You may see the kitty initiating chase and if you do, that's ok. The difference between play chase and pack behavior chase is very evident. We have one cat that loves to chase with our little dog and I never correct the dog when the cat is 'finished' but the dog doesn't understand. I always tell Riley that he started it so he should know what he's getting. Lol

Above all, allow the animals to feel each other out but never allow the dog to scare or chase the cat.

Oh, and we always feed the cats first, dogs second. And the dogs aren't allowed in my lap, that is reserved for cats. The dogs lay next to me, but not on me. Just another heirarchy thing.

By pairing the cat with an aversive item (newspaper), you are training the dog to fear the cat like the newspaper. Don't punish the dog because she gets popped and is barking, redirect her to something positive like playing fetch or squeaking her favorite squeaky toy, something good, not aversive. If the kitty is in a lap that she is used to having, make room next to the person, don't punish her for wanting the lap.

And, give them some room to work out their differences. I'll give you another example. We have 5 cats, 3 of which couldn't care less about a new dog. They have literally NO reaction to it and do a great job of teaching the dog how to behave around cats. However, when we brought Abby home, she was TERRIFIED of cats. She would run and hide from them and our sweet kitties just couldn't understand. It wasn't even a week before Abby was nosing those 3 and getting used to them.

However, our other cat is a bully. Simon has to establish his dominance with every animal in our home. He is definitely the top animal. So, the first night we brought Abby home we figured out real fast that Simon had to go up for a day or two so they could both get used to the new sounds and smells. When we introduced them, we had to keep a very close eye on them and as we suspected, Simon pushed her around and established where he was in the pack, at the top. We only interfered if Abby got too upset and if Simon got too aggressive. We simply redirected both animals and didn't make a big deal out of it. As they both got more comfortable they started setting their own relationship. Abby will submit to Simon on most occasions, but, every once in a while Simon gets in a bad mood and looks to take it out on someone and when he chooses Abby, Abby will fight back and we let it go. If Simon approaches her out of the blue and starts popping her and Abby bares her teeth and lunges (she has never bitten, can't say the same for Simon) and it scares Simon off. It's actually pretty funny cause Simon will move about 3 feet away, turn his back to Abby and lay down with the most annoyed look on his face.

The main thing to remember is to not associate the cat with aversive items. When there is a positive interaction you can treat reward both animals. Always attempt to use positive reinforcement and redirection.