Help! I have a Biter!

sangria

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Okay, I have read all the behavior issues, and my cat doesn't have any of them. She's friendly when she wants to be (although I have one friend that she hates with a passion) and can be sweet and cuddly on occassion, but she just bites ALL the time. You pet her, she bites. You touch her, she bites. It's like just a natural response for her, I don't know what to do. They're not hard bites or anything, she never draws blood, but it's annoying. Sometimes she'll just randomly come up while my husband is sitting on the floor, make a little chirruping noise, and then bite his toe. We've tried redirecting with toys, ignoring her, everything. She just.... likes to bite. Has anyone ever seen this before, or is my baby crazy?
The only thing she doesn't bite is the other cat! Tsuki (biter) is declawed and Sage isn't, but she started biting before we even got Sage. I dunno what to do with her! Could she be in pain from the declaw? We've tried giving her kitty asprin for a while, but that didn't seem to help either.

Advice? Opinions?

~Sangria
 

thunderbullet

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haha fluffy does that too. i dont know why i treat her real nice and she just bites or scratches sometimes. i just ignore her when she does and put her in the basement or something. i dont think your cat is crazy its probably something from the cats past or something. i hope your cat stops biting =D

-Tony
 

jen

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It also matters how you played with her as a kitten. Did you play rough with your hands? A declaw on top of that will make her a biter and very hard to get her to stop as you have basically trained her to do it as a kitten. If you didn't do this, then I would say it is mainly most likely because of the declaw.

Declaw can make cats biters becuase you took away their first form of defense, which by the way a scratch is much less severe then a bite in most cases. That is one of the many reasons which makes declawing so frowned upon and inhumane.
 

tru

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Originally Posted by Sangria

You pet her, she bites. You touch her, she bites. It's like just a natural response for her, I don't know what to do. They're not hard bites or anything, she never draws blood, but it's annoying. Sometimes she'll just randomly come up while my husband is sitting on the floor, make a little chirruping noise, and then bite his toe.
Advice? Opinions?

~Sangria
That bit sounds like what I call "love bites" to me.
On the other hand, Jen may be right that it's about her being declawed.
I have a declawed cat, (she came that way when I adopted her), that really seems to have a bit of a personality disorder. The only time I am allowed to kind of hold her is in bed if she comes up and lays on me. Any other time she has hissy fits if she is picked up or petted more than a stroke or two. She is equally nasty to all the other cats in the house without provocation.
I figure her behavior has to do with her declaw and probably a bad environment that she came from. She is one that is loved on her terms only.


You didn't mention how old she is that I could see. Is she young enough that she may outgrow this behavior? cats tend to settle a bit as they grow older.

Good luck with your biter.
 
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sangria

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Tsuki is just about a year old. We have had her since she was about 6 weeks old. My husband plays with her a little roughly sometimes, but I have tried to stop this. We had her declawed before we found out how horrible it is - when we adopted our second cat from the SPCA we got information on declawing and what it does to cats. I will never declaw a cat again - her paws got infected, she chewed on them and we had to tape these little socks to her feet - it was awful. I felt like the worst mom ever! My poor baby.
Still, I can't give her back her claws, even thought I wish I could. Is there any way to dicourage the biting gently? I'm afraid to try anything without advice, because I don't want to wound her pride more than we already have with the declaw. She is very loving and sweet when she wants to be - sometimes I think she would like to be more loving, but is afraid for some reason. She follows us around and makes all these wonderfully cute sounds, but then when we give her attention she gets uneasy. Hrmmmm.....

~Sangria
 
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