Sudden Aggresiveness

[Meowrum]

My cat is 5 months old, and only about 2 months ago have we started to notice that he has been getting a lot more violent, biting very roughly and scratching us often. I don't know if this is normal since he's just a kitten and could refer to it as play, but if he does refer to it as playing then please let me know what we can do to stop him from playing like that, we don't want it to become something worse.

 

[ArtNJ]

Check this out. How To Deal With Cat "love Bites"?

To try and simplify, my take is there are three main kinds of biting that our generally affectionate pets do. One, the cat is stressed by something, say an unknown cat looking in through the glass door from outside, you touch the cat and get bitten. That is redirected aggression. Two is you pet the cat in a way he doesn't like, and you get a protest noise and a bite. Learn from those and just don't do that again. Third, the cat wants to play, and has decided this is a good way to do it. Sometimes we can make mistakes that encourage biting, like roughly playing with the cat with our hand. Never do that. If the cat is revved up, use a toy. Sometimes its just something they randomly do, and you need to be firm with a loud "No!" -- loud enough to be disconcerting to the cat. That should work to discourage the behavior -- maybe not right away, but over time. There is a fourth kind of biting -- where your cat is afraid of you -- but if your cat is generally affectionate this is unlikely to be relevant.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

I'm also giving you the link to this article about How To Stop Playtime Aggression In Cats. Now, while play aggression is perfectly normal in kittens, it also isn't appropriate. A ArtNJ is right...don't yell at your kitten, but a fairly loud spoken NO! or OW! will generally do the trick. If he's a bit slow to catch on, HISS at him! No matter where you are from, that's Cattish for "STOP THAT!" and he'll understand!