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Biting Cat

16 years ago

I'm sitting here trying to type with a sore and swollen hand. Our 20 pound cat does not give love bites but rather doctor visit bites. He is so large that his bites do indeed break the skin. My husband had to visit the dr a couple of weeks ago, he was petting the cat when I guess he became over stimulated. The cat bit me today after a play session - I guess he wasn't ready to stop. I was reading a book when he came up without any noticable behavior clues and bit the back of my hand. He is so big that we are very concerned for our health as well as company or children. I'm not sure that it is smart to try to break him of biting at this point. Any thoughts??

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Comments (7)

laurief_gw
16 years ago
It most certainly IS smart to modify his biting behavior! A perfectly harmless and very effective way of discouraging biting is to blow HARD directly into the cat's face when you see him about to bite. Cat's hate having their faces blown into, and it will startle them into stopping whatever behavior they are doing. You can immediately follow it up with a strong verbal reprimand or sharp clap of your hands to let the cat know that his biting is NOT acceptable. You can also try hissing at him after blowing in his face.

BTW, the size of your cat has nothing to do with the strength of his bite. I have a 26 pounder who has never done more than pinch me with his teeth when he got really overstimulated, and I have a 10 pounder who once embedded his teeth so deeply into the base of my thumb that I had to twist him around a bit to work his teeth out of my flesh.

Large cat, small cat - biting hard enough to draw blood is never acceptable behavior.

Laurie
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Elly_NJ
16 years ago
He may never have had enough feline socialization and correction as a kitten. Bottle fed kittens often are coddled by their human caretakers, and unlike momma cat and siblings, will not (should not) smack him/cuff him when he gets rough.

You must never over stimulate him, obviously. You must also read him and the situations that lead to his biting, so you can avoid creating them or just avoid them. Blowing on him, as Laurie wrote, should get him to release, but you do not want to get bit.

Should you ever need to control him, do you know how to scruff him? Scruffing a cat (often, not always) helps control the cat. If you go to this page and scroll down it describes the procedure.

I also found this on biting cats: http://pandecats.com/x/dont-bite.htm

Here is a link that might be useful: Scruffing a cat
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Elly_NJ
16 years ago
Look here too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cat behavior
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acorn
16 years ago
elly I really like the cat behavior link there is alot there. I'll try to get my cats to read it.
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lilod
16 years ago
Acorn, why do you want to do that? Then they just have more ammo to outwit you with :D
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acorn
16 years ago
Lilo you are right I'll keep the computer away from the cats.
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sue36
16 years ago
Any chance he is declawed? Declawed cats often bite, in my experience.

When my cat bites too hard (anything harder than just putting her teeth on my with the "I could bite you if I wanted to" look), I let out an exaggertated squeal of pain. She stops and doesn't do it again.
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