Hi Pam,
I recently acquired a little torti kitten. She showed up in our bbq one night and the rest is history. She's currently somewhere between 11-12 weeks old. We found her around 5-6 weeks. She's a smart little thing but she seems to lack respect/manners.
I have 2 other cats, a male and female both fixed, 2 and 3 years old respectively.
Now the issues:
The kitten bullies the male cat who is quite the pushover. She bites and scratches at his face and back and when he does stand up for himself she often just keeps coming, otherwise he just sits there and takes it or runs away Is there anything we can do to stop this? We try to distract her with toys but once she gets something in her head she doesn't give up easily.
She also eats his food and suckles on his belly
She recently started attacking the other 2 cats in the litter room, which worries me
I just feel like she's growing into a little hellion. I haven't had a kitten in 20 years so I'm really not sure if this is normal or if I should be teaching her respect somehow or just distracting her. She doesn't know the word "no", or at least pretends not to.
I started clicker training her a couple weeks ago to curb some of the crazies. She learned targetting pretty quickly and I'll be moving on from there soon.
I don't hit her or yell at her. If she's doing something I don't want I usually say no and either put her away from the other cat or distract her with a toy. I've had to lock her in the kennel a couple of times just to give the male cat some space to eat or groom. (He's got some skin problems and stiches and I'm worries she'll rip them out with her rough play)
Thank you in advance,
Courtney,
( =^^= Loki, Isis and Freya)
I recently acquired a little torti kitten. She showed up in our bbq one night and the rest is history. She's currently somewhere between 11-12 weeks old. We found her around 5-6 weeks. She's a smart little thing but she seems to lack respect/manners.
I have 2 other cats, a male and female both fixed, 2 and 3 years old respectively.
Now the issues:
The kitten bullies the male cat who is quite the pushover. She bites and scratches at his face and back and when he does stand up for himself she often just keeps coming, otherwise he just sits there and takes it or runs away Is there anything we can do to stop this? We try to distract her with toys but once she gets something in her head she doesn't give up easily.
She also eats his food and suckles on his belly
She recently started attacking the other 2 cats in the litter room, which worries me
I just feel like she's growing into a little hellion. I haven't had a kitten in 20 years so I'm really not sure if this is normal or if I should be teaching her respect somehow or just distracting her. She doesn't know the word "no", or at least pretends not to.
I started clicker training her a couple weeks ago to curb some of the crazies. She learned targetting pretty quickly and I'll be moving on from there soon.
I don't hit her or yell at her. If she's doing something I don't want I usually say no and either put her away from the other cat or distract her with a toy. I've had to lock her in the kennel a couple of times just to give the male cat some space to eat or groom. (He's got some skin problems and stiches and I'm worries she'll rip them out with her rough play)
Thank you in advance,
Courtney,
( =^^= Loki, Isis and Freya)