Cat Biting Behavior If you have a cat that bites, did you know that the reason that he may be biting is because of you? I did not know this either until it was too late and I wish that I had known it sooner or I never would have done what I did. Yes I'll admit it, I am guilty of teaching my cat to bite. It was of course accidental and I was just doing what I thought I should be doing, but who knew? It's true, your cat biting behavior could have been caused by you.
Here is my story on Cat Biting Behavior. Two years ago I was driving down Main Street in town when I saw a barely weaned kitten dodging traffic while running across the street. I immediately pulled my vehicle over in a no parking zone and grabbed the poor little scared thing before he could get run over. I asked around to see if this kitten belonged to anyone and all I got were blank stares. I took the kitten home, fed him, took care of him and loved him.
Now this is where I messed up. As you know, kittens love to play, so we played and played and played. His favorite game was chasing my fingers as I moved my hand around and around and up and down. What fun that was, until he got older. He then decided that chasing my fingers and hand around was so much fun that jumping up my leg would be funner. I had so many scratches on my legs it looked like I had been attacked by a mountain lion and lost.
After he grew up and thankfully grew out of that, he then decided that every time I was going to pet him, it would be time to bite me. I absolutely could not touch that cat anywhere without being bitten. I tried petting him in different areas of his body, I tried talking nice to him before I pet him and nothing worked. I just could not figure out why he did not want to be petted. I had always been nice to him and he never wants for anything, so I just figured he was strange and did not like to be petted.
However with him being such the gentleman that he is, when I would start to pet him he would actually warn me first. Sometimes I would heed his warning and other times I didn't. His warning would be to put his paw on my hand which meant, don't even go there. The next warning would be to put his mouth on my hand, but not actually bite it. The third time if I was brave enough, was to actually bite me.
It wasn't until many months and many bites later that I learned that you are not supposed to ever use your hands and fingers as playthings with your kitten. Oh, so now I find this out and it hits me that I am the one that caused this cat biting behavior. So as a word of caution, do not ever use your hands and fingers to play with your kitten. You are supposed to use something like a dangling toy instead.
So how did my story Cat Biting Behavior end? Well I am happy to say that I can now pet my cat, but if he gets enough he will tell me and I will stop. It's a little bit of give and take but he is one hundred times better than he used to be. He really is a loving cat and loves to be on my lap and purr. I have learned a lot about cats through him and that can only benefit us both.
