Cat Aggressive About Treats

[heart slob]

hi. i adopted a cat a month ago from a family who had problems with him bullying their older cat. he's about a year old now, and he's pretty well-behaved for the most part aside from usual irritating cat behaviours such as not letting me sleep and pulling my bath panel away to hide under my bath for whatever reason and chewing whatever small objects he can find in whatever tiny corner he can pull them from like my own personal roomba.

another issue he has is scratching furniture and curtains. i don't mind cats needing to scratch, and he has a post that was given to me by the owners alongside some of his old toys, and it seems very well-used which the owners said was pretty much all his doing since he was younger, so i know he's fond of this post. i put it next to my couch, the areas where he scratched most, because clearly he liked scratching something there, and it's elevated so he can sit a few feet above the couch and look out the window. i figured he'd enjoy it that way, and he does, but he keeps scratching my couch, and my curtains, and my rug. some of my next paycheck will be spent on getting him some more posts with different materials based on what he scratches most around my house, but that's a few days from now. one thing that deters him is vaporub, because the smell is too strong for him (to the point where he'll run as soon as i open it), but i'd rather not rub vaporub on my furniture past, like, cupboard doors and bin lids where it's easy to rub off. i've also tried tinfoil, but he seems to... enjoy that? and also just lifts the foil to scratch the couch under it LOL. he's crafty, i'll give him that.

ANYWAY... i've been trying to teach him that using his current post = treat, and using my couch, curtains, or rug =/= treat. it's simple cat maths, i guess. the only issue is he's very aggressive about the treats i offer him. he's not a food aggressive cat, i can grab his bowl and move it slightly or take pieces out while he's eating and he won't care, and he doesn't beg for my own food except porridge and chicken and fish. it's just treats that drive him crazy in a sort of scary way! it's nice to know he likes the things i pick out for him, but his attitude is horrible once i break out the dreamies. he'll eat them out of my hand easy enough at first, but if i give him a second one or spoil him with a third, he starts becoming really rude about it.

for example, i'll hold the treat up to the post to encourage him to put his paws up on it somehow, or even sniff the post, with the idea that i'll click once he does and give him a treat. more cat maths. the only problem is, once i hold the treat behind the post, he'll attack my arm by biting and batting at it; nothing overly serious, but enough to hurt. i'll tap the post to get his attention on it, and he'll attack my hand, or i'll scratch the post myself to get him interested in the noise and he'll do the same, even if there's no treat visible. he also displays pretty rude body language (tail whipping, ears back, that look in his eye that says he'd murder me if he had the thumbs to do it) when i tell him off, as if it's my fault he's being mean!!! like i said, he does this when i'm not training him either, just giving him a treat for letting me sleep through one night.

i don't use my hands to play with him. Most of our games involve minimum contact with my hands, so he knows hands are for feeding and petting, so the worst i get is a lovebite when i'm petting him. i'm not entirely sure what happens when he sees the treats. i'm assuming it's excitement, but i'd prefer he was excited in a different way! he's a very excitable cat to begin with (to the point where when we're playing a vigorous game of fetch or with one of his on-a-stick toys, his tail will puff up... which i HOPE is out of excitement and not anything i'm doing!) so if it means i just need to be more hands-off with my approach to scratchpost training, then so be it.

in the meantime, i'd prefer he stopped shredding my curtains. i was hoping i wouldn't have to use fellaway or anything similar, but if that's the other case, then... i guess i'll add that to my cart lol. i know his last owners sprayed him when he was bad, because he's very afraid and aware of squirt bottles even when i haven't used them against him, but i'd rather he just lived with me and was good because i was kind to him than lived with me and was good because i scare him!

sorry for the long as hell post... i'm trying to give as much info as possible.

tl;dr, my cat really likes dreamies and uses his claws and teeth to show it.

 

[ArtNJ]

I've never seen any evidence you can train a cat to use a scratching post. You can train a cat (well try to at least) not to scratch in a particular place by a loud "No!" when you catch him, which might or might not work, but I seriously doubt the treat thing could work. At least its not the "put his paws on it and show him how to scratch" method which is probably counter-productive. He likely just thinks its some kind of game which is why he gets into it with you. So my recommendation is to try different kinds of scratching posts and see what he likes while doing the "No!" thing re: inappropriate scratching. Many cats like the one with some rope & carpet. They need to be sturdy enough that your cat won't knock it over, so a bigger stronger cat may need a bigger post. The cardboard ones I find much less interesting / useless to many cats.

Do you cut his nails and have you tried nail caps (such as "Soft Paws"). They are kind of a pain and not cheap, but they do fix this issue entirely if you can get a system down and your cat isn't particularly good at getting them off.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

This might do the trick, at least on the furniture. Drapes...dunno, but they do come in sheets, as well. From Chewy.

 

[BonitaBaby]

Yes, I agree w/ A ArtNJ that the "teaching" using the scratch post by giving him treats probably doesn't work.

My cat sometimes scratched the sofa. I put a scratching post against the sofa where she was scratching to stop it, but sometimes I caught her still scratching the sofa. I just decided to let it go, but it was a hand-me-down sofa. She did have multiple scratching pads, post and cat trees. Her favorite are the horizontal rope scratchers. Not the cardboard type.

To avoid your cat getting so aggressive over treats, you should probably hand them over immediately. As soon as he smells one, he wants it ASAP.

 

[Kal_shadowsmom]

As Mamanyt1953 suggested, sticky paws. Or since I had it on hand, I just used double sided sticky tape. Might be a bit cheaper too.

Shadow still scratches at my recliner, but she mostly does that when I dont immediately pet her. What I did to get her used to the post was, I put a bit of catnip on it while she watched. Then I ran my fingers on the post like I was scratching at it. Every time she scratched the post and not my couch, I would give her a treat and call her a good girl.

As far as the aggressive behavior when dealing with treats, as BonitaBaby suggests, just give them immediately....but maybe only one, to encourage good behavior. What i would suggest too, is see if wearing him out with play will help before giving him a treat. He might be too tired to get aggressive.

Maybe his previous family used their hands a lot in play so that's why hes seeing hands and arms as something to play with and attack. I don't know what kind of toys hes showed interest in, or what you have available, but maybe get a toy or two that kind of remove your hands from the equation, perhaps a wand toy or something.

Best of luck, and keep us updated on his progress!

 

[KarenKat]

My girl Olive is very food and treat motivated. She also gets playful if anything ducks out of site or hides around a corner. Maybe your kitty is trying to pounce on a disappearing treat if it goes behind the post. Try not having the treat and your hands be so associates and feed the treat on the ground instead.

Also I heard cats like to scratch vertically and horizontally so when looking at scratchers maybe try one of each? Not sure if it will help, Olive also likes to scratch the couch next to our scratching post as well.

 

[Hellenww]

Cats can be taught to only use a scratcher. I haven't been able to do it but we adopted Sqeeker at 7 mts and he was so well trained. If he begins to scratch a chair I say "not a scratcher" and scratch the one closest to him and he switches immediately. He had an amazing foster Mom. She said initially she would move him to the scratcher. Then using the same words to verbally redirect him but you have to do it every time. It takes a lot of patience and consistency.

As far as the treat aggression if I were a cat and saw a yummy treat waving around I'd want to go for it too. So just a miscommunication between you. He saw it as an invitation to play rough. Also many cat treats have cat nip in them that can make kitty very excited. I looked at Dreamies site and can't tell weither or not they have cat nip.

It sounds like you have a fun little fella

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Actually, now that I think about it, I never give Hekitty treats by hand. She has a special treat dish, and now all I have to do is say, "Want a treat? Then sit like a lady" and she sits in front of the dish and waits for the treat. Something like that might work for you.

 

[ArtNJ]

Cats can be taught to only use a scratcher. I haven't been able to do it but we adopted Sqeeker at 7 mts and he was so well trained. If he begins to scratch a chair I say "not a scratcher" and scratch the one closest to him and he switches immediately. He had an amazing foster Mom. She said initially she would move him to the scratcher. Then using the same words to verbally redirect him but you have to do it every time. It takes a lot of patience and consistency.

Thats quite interesting, might be worth another try the next time I have an indoor only cat! (It seems comparatively easy to teach an indoor/outdoor that certain targets are unacceptable.) But I do suspect this is one of those theoretically-possible-but-highly-difficult trainings. After all, if you forcibly put most cats on a scratcher, wouldn't the normal cat-reaction to be to view the situation negatively and have bad vibes about the whole situation, post and all? Certainly, doing so has never worked for me in the past.

 

[Hellenww]

I think Sqeeker was very young (under 3mt) when she trained him, so still at the stage that a Mama cat would be paws-on training.

 

[heart slob]

thanks everyone! i tried the double sided tape, and i got him a wall-mounted scratch pad. he's still going for the couch, but i put up the tape a few minutes ago so... we'll see.

i stopped using treats around the post as a lure, and started responding to him using his post with "good cat!" and give him a treat. i think he's responding to it well enough; scratching his post and the wall scratcher = treat, so even if he still goes for the couch, at least he'll be... more motivated to use the things he gets treats for.

as for treat aggression......... that's not something i even thought of haha. i guess it makes sense he's a bit impatient. i haven't used them as bait since i made the post, and he's back to taking them carefully. the worst aggression i get now is when he thinks the leftover treat smell on my fingers is an actual treat and tries to take them off me before he realises they're not as tasty.

i'm not sure if catnip will work as well... he responded to catnip-filled toys the first time he got one, but now he doesn't seem to care. can't tell if that's just crappy catnip (i got cosmic nip?) or if he doesn't care for it to begin with... we'll see. i'll put some on his new scratcher to attract him to it, but if he doesn't care then i guess i can start dealing catnip on the street.

 

[Mamanyt1953]