I have a new cat I took home from the pound (http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamhodge/sets/1059091/). Overall he is a GREAT cat - friendly, sociable, lap cat even. The one problem is he likes to chew things up - like a dog. It's everything - paper, carpet, anything. He's event chewed up part of the cabinents in my apartment. He also plays somewhat rough. He is declawed but likes to bite and will often come up to me out of nowhere and just decide to bite me. This stuff would just be tolerable if he wasn't such a great cat at other times. I had 2 cats growing up and I've been around enough to know what a mean cat is like. This is not a mean or psycho at all. He's great with my 2 year old daughter as well. That makes it hard to get rid of him but I can't have him eat the apartment and I'm affraid he will eventually see how the couch tastes. What should I do?
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Help with Biting
- Thread starter hodge.adam
- Start Date
How old is he? If he's just a kitten he'll probably outgrow the behaviour with some guidance from you. Unfortunately I've heard that declawed cats have been known to start biting.
If he's an older cat then you have some re-training to do and there are folks here with more experience and knowledge than I and they'll probably be around before too long to advise you.
Unfortunately, declawed cats have tendency to bite as they have had their primary defense (their claws) taken away from them. I fostered a biting kitty-boy about a year ago; TJ was the sweetest, most loving guy but he could not for the life of him play without biting. The vets recommended that I yell "ouch!" very loudly when he bit me & stop playing with him so that he would learn that there are negative consequences when he bites. They also had me spray my hands with Grannick's Bitter Apple (which, after a few days, he got used to) to discourage him. TJ finally got the point when he was adopted by a fantastic gentleman with an older boy cat named Oeddi...TJ & Oeddi were immediate best pals (not always the case when introducing a new cat) and realized that they loved to wrestle & play fight each other...since those two became a pair, TJ's biting of his humans has stopped. I guess he found someone else to take it out on
