Problem Biting

[steffianne]

Hi guys.

My 9 month old kitten Dexter, went through the usual biting stage when he was younger but it seemed to stop almost completely up until about 2 weeks ago. Lately I have noticed he is biting alot, and much harder than he used to. They are not aggressive bites more out of boredom and he also doesnt just bite us he will bite hard on pretty much anything.
Im just worried because like i said he had stopped biting almost entirely and I dont know why he has started again. As far as I know he should be finished teething.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

[gen]

Tigger is my terrible tiger. When she wants attention she bites, be it me or the mouse cable or the other cats. She's about 1 year old now, and the behaviour started in September.

If she bites me the only thing that works is shunning her, although I feel like a crazy cat lady as I stalk off though the house announcing "I´m not talking to you" to my cat. If I see her gnawing on other things I usually can distract her with a came of chase the string.

Yelling "NO", or swatting at her didn't work. It just made her anxious and aggressive.

 

[darkmavis]

My Genever used to bite hands too much and I've heard many suggestions on this site on how to help stop it, many of which worked. One big one is, if your cat starts biting while you are petting or playing, then immediately ignore him, and he'll associate biting with the end of fun time, which is no fun! Another tip is to distract him with another toy, like a string, or a wand toy of some sort. One popular suggestion I've heard is plastic drinking straws- have a bunch of them all over the place so when he starts biting you can just grab a straw and distract him with that. My cat sure likes to chew on them.. I don't leave them out when I'm not around though because she does chew pieces off and I don't want her to choke.

The main thing, I think, is to distract him from bad biting with toys that are appropriate to bite, OR to ignore him when he does it so he will associate the bad behavior with the end of playtime or petting time. Good luck!

 

[steffianne]

Thanks for your suggestions guys....
Thats pretty much what I have been doing with the distractions of toys and trying to ignore him...My partner yells but he definitely doesn't seem to get it. I will work on what I have been doing and try to get my partner to do the same.
The hardest part is the biting is usually at night when we are asleep, and I dont want to lock him out of the bedroom because he scratches to get back in........
Oh well its a good thing hes cute. =)

 

[shanynne]

Trying yelling in pain. Like "oooooowwwwww" and pull your hand away. Then rub your hand and while looking straight at your cat say, and you don't have to yell, "ooooww that hurt." and then walk away and ignore him. After a while, he will realize he is hurting you when he bites.

Also try playing with him a little more, sounds like he is bored.

A laser pointer is great toy to try! There are also those little mice that are great too!

 

[darkmavis]

Training your partner to act the same way as you do with the biting might be the hardest part! Consistency is key with cats. I had to train my BF while training the cat not to bite. He'd let her bite him while playing, and so I had to keep yelling at him "Hands are not toys! Don't let her bite you!"

Eventually I got them both trained..