play scratching and bitting

by jennie
(sydney)

my 11 month old kitten won't stop attacking me my partner and our kids its just for fun but its really rough and most of the time it hurts we are about to have a baby and im really worried that he will attack the baby to he was desexed a few months ago and is allowed outside everyday for hours at a time so i don't understand why he won't stop i yell at him and even just point at him i rarely smack him but do it to try to stop it but he just does it again within 15 seconds im at witts end HELP what can we do to stop this behaviour???

Answer by KAte
His behaviour is his way of playing, unfortunately he has not learnt that this sort of play is too rough. Normally he would have learnt this lesson from his mother and litter mates during the early weeks. However either some kittens don't get this valuable lesson or are slow learners and need extra training.

Basically you and your family will all have to work with kitten on this one for it to work.

Every time he bites or plays rough, get up straight away, make no sound, do not look at him and walk quickly away out of the room from his. Do this every single time over and over again. This is a negative reaction which he doesn't want. then every time he plays nicely, give him lots or eye contact, happy noises and praise. this is a positive reaction and he will want more of those.

i know this can be a bit difficult but get all the family to do the same thing and he will soon learn what is good and what is bad.

Shouting etc is a positive reaction to a cat and so has no benefit.

Please see my page about cat disciple for a fuller explanation here is the page
https://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-discipline.html

best wishes Kate

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