Ok guys, since this is the first kitten I've ever had that lives in the house, I have some questions for those of you who are more familiar with their behaviors.
1. What do you do when they go all out nutso on you (extreme playful)? She is currently climbing up one side of my desk chair and down the other side. I am sitting in it, so she stops behind my back for a second or so, then makes really fast movements till she jumps off again. It's like she's on speed! LOL No, I have not given her catnip.
How do I calm her down a bit?
2. What do you do to keep them from biting and scratching at you while playing?
I've told her "no" and tapped her on the nose, which seemed to help, but I don't want to hit her , even a tap, if I don't have to. I know she doesn't mean to hurt anyone, but, she does when she's playing like this.
So, any help would be much appreciated!
It's a kitten....they all do that. They are spastic for at least the first year ;)
My friend flicks his kitty's nose and says it works. I have yet to see it work for me. What does work is a spray bottle with water. Oh man, do they ever hate that. Once they associate getting sprayed with whatever they're doing, they will learn to fear the sight of the spray bottle.
But Chuck is right. Kittens are just little tornados. That's their job. :)
I hate a cats, but mabe shoot them out of the home, or drug it!, gneheheheheh!...
Hope this help, :-)))
Dom.
I remember when we had kittens 8 of them, my mother is crazy. She saved some kittens, their mother was run over and killed so she adopts these 8 kittens till we can find a home for the little buggers. One of them was a nasty little who we nick named hitler, there were 2 reasons for this #1 because he was all black and #2 the meanest cat that i have ever came across.
But about your problem yeah thwack them on the nose it is a really sensitive part of their face and they really hate it.
When I got My dog (labrador/wolf mixed) It was little a mouse and sleeping all day long, when it got a decent view It started to scrunge whatever in the home, at 1 month It started to play 24/24, WOW, never had a minute of tranquility here, it always want to play, it remain with a bone, with a toy, never sleep maybe...
Now it have 7 1/2 years old, and sitted just ove Me, and quiet (FINALLY), but if I want to play with, he here, thrust me...
This little "mouse" dog is a slant dog of 110pounds and over 2 1/2 feet (over the head), not big, but a lot of nerves, a near 8 years old kid...
Lot of patience and loving, just that...
I guess it's the same for a Cat, but the cat's have the same comportment of a dog...
IMHO...
Have a nice Day "with Your cat",
Dom.
I forget to use the spray bottle, thanks for reminding me Eric.
She can be so loving and sweet most of the time. I don't know what got into her this morning though.
We have a couple of balls with bells in them that she loves to play with, and I gave her a stuffed animal (cat) that is just the right size for her, and she loves to attack it. Usually, she uses her toys to get her energy out, but this morning she just went freakazoid on me. LOL
Earlier this morning, before getting all her energy, she was napping with me. She came in to my bed and curled up on my pillow and had her head under my chin, she slept like that for at least an hour. She also does this at night quite often...... but the energy she had this morning after her nap was just insane!
Don't you wish we could sleep for like an hour then have that kinda energy, :raspberry you mother nature.
YEAH! LOL.... that would be awesome.
Heh, after going through all this with my kitten (7 mo old now) I am thoroughly convinced that Purina puts crack in their kitten chow. She is starting to calm down a little but I still come home to find the house has been ripped apart by a fuzzball that doesn't even weigh 5 lbs.
Her favorite trick is cleaning off my desk. She get on the desk and knocks everything that will move onto the floor. I tried to stop this with some kind of spray that is supposed to deter cats from gertting on the furniture. Now I didn't want to spray this stuff directly on my desk so I got a bunch of shop rags, sprayed them pretty thoroughly and covered the desk with them. I left for work that morning thinking, "That'll keep her off it."
I came home from work that evening to find that once again, my desk had been cleaned off and the stinky soaked shop rags were all piled in the corner with Stormy sleeping on them.
Needless to say, that manufacturer got the nastiest of nasty-grams from me along with explicit instrutions on how to fold their spray bottle and precisely where to shove it.
Now I keep my desk cleaned off. Only thing on it during the day is a glass ashtray that weighs more than her and she still moves it out of her way. I keep the bathroom door closed to prevent her from stringing toilet paper all through the house. I put hook latches on the kitchen cabinets to keep her out of them. I tied the cords for the venitian blinds up so high that even I can't reach them. I put a brick in the bottom of the trash can so she can't pull it over as easily. And I don't leave anything laying around loose for her to tear up.
I was going to get a sofa, but I'll wait till I can trust her not to shred it like she did my bed.
dont forget to designate a stratching area. We have a pretty large piece of firewood that stands up on its end. Its just a round 2'long log. The cats instinct would be to climb on it and scratch it.
all kittens are like that, i suggest kittens come in pairs. So, go get another and she will probably leave you alone more. Kittens need to play , to hone their hunting / fighting skills. If you get another one, be prepared for a ton of funnies going on.
Get em a cardboard box and sit it in the middle of the room. they wont be able to resist checking it out, then all hell will break loose.:D
Count your lucky stars you dont have a "Maine puppies" kitten.
If I understand correctly, NOW You live in the cat's house, no?, Mouhahahahh!:hick:
Regards,
Dom.
Karen, the spray bottle works.
And if you ever want to keep her off the sofa or something get like one of those emergency blankets. You know those foil things that come in emergency roadside kits. Cats are freaked out by the noise they make.
She will be a crazy kitty. My sister has 2 male cats who used to bite a lot but don't anymore. Once she feels fully comfortable with her surroundings and matures a bit, she should be fine.
Oh, and evening is playtime. My sister's cats spend all day calm and sleeping and so forth until nightfall. They wrestle with eachother, growl (yes I said growl, not meow) at eachother and run all over the house. It's hilarious.
Yes, we do live in the cat's...no, the dog's....well, I guess it's the cat's.....of course the dog has always owned it...ah hell! We live in the dog's and cat's house. :shrug:
We do get her going in the evening.... playing with string, the stuffed cat, the balls....and anything else that suits her fancy.
Oh and the dog decides to get in on the action too...he chases her through the house...she chases him.... we all just sit on the furniture and hope they don't come bounding across us too hard.
If it makes 6 months cut it's balls.If It's female drown it.
Just kiddin about the submerge.Cats do what they want.
I know I own 1 .Car that is,+ 2 felines.+ 3 dogs+ 3 kids.
Tell it whos boss.
get a pepsi box the 24 can case.. put a toy in it.. and tear one of the top portions of a flap off.. its fun when all you see is the kitty's head pokin out of the box
"Wait, this isnt what I paid for.."
Get one of those laser pointers if you really want to see some action. Olive would just about come out of her skin to get that red dot, especially if it was on the ceiling...
I second that.
Karen, as everyone has already said, that's normal. I've never done any of the nose taps or water for kittens using claws and teeth when playing. I've had cats my whole life and just take that as "normal." It's fun to get a hand in there to rough them up a bit but if they have sharp claws, gardening gloves would help.
My Icelandic cat used to jump off of the walls - literally.
A good way to keep them from clawing the furniture is rubbing the area they pick to claw with a citronella candle. The citronella gets in their claws and burns. They hate that. About the second time they try it, lesson learned and they leave it alone.
Cool, I never knew about citronella...thanks.
She's calmed down today, I just want to know who put the crack in her kitty food yesterday! :rollin: She curled up and slept with me all night last night, and was really good. However I did get her playing before bed...had her going for about an hour and a half.
I don't want to play rough with her, since Keely is so little. I don't want her to get all scratched up and then not want anything to do with the kitten. She's been wanting one for several years, and now that we have one, I want her to be able to pick her up and not get hurt.
But, I do let her attack the stuffed cat we gave her, she claws at it and bites it....I just teach her not to bite or scratch us when we are handling her. She's picked up on that pretty fast.
I've got a 10 year old cat that will still chase that thing. It layed in the junk drawer for years with dead batteries until we got the latest kitten and now the old girl is chasing it too (still).
We had crazy kitty hour every night at my old house. These two arrived in a pair as was suggested earlier and every night they'd chase each other up and down the hallway and wrestle/play. I wish I could tell you it stopped after a year or so but it went on many years and I enjoyed watching them every time. They do calm down some after about 6 months but that could've just been their personalities... until then there's nothing with as much energy and mischief as that kitten. The more she/he gets used to the environment the more you'll see the "out of control" stuff but it's usually not harmful except for the scratching. Get gloves if you're going to play with them using your hands.
Spray bottle definitely works. I make a hissing noise every time I squirt them and after a while you don't need the bottle just the noise is enough to get them to "change direction." Seems to work on older cats too judging by how often my fiance's cat doesn't get on the dining room table now. :D
...Or you could give her a few minutes in this thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15bwhVxw-Bg
That'll straighten out ANY cat
that was funny to watch.. the cat was like get me the fu@k out of here!
but i have to ask everyone here if they ever had a cat that did'nt hate water? i did .. these days he's not much into water but he's much older now allmost twelve
i miss my cat.. i did'nt want to put him threw a 1400 mile trip at his age in the car down to florida.. so Steve "CougarKing" has him at his house in Rhode island and the last time i talked to Steve he said my cat was doing great and seem to become very atached to his dad..
anyway i used to take him in the shower with me and give him a bath and back in the day he use to love taking cruses in mustang and my cougar. everytime he would hear me coming down the block he would greet me in the drive way. and i'd open the door and he would hop in and hang out till i got out everytime i work on or in the car he would be there too.. and of corse some i would take him for a cruse around town and he would either lie down in the pasenger set or lie next to me on my leg and across the center console..
he used to lie all over my car and would never lay a claw on it well lol of corse a paw or four but no claws..
one if the things that made people laugh was when i did work under the hood of my car he was lie across the plenum and watch me work ..
those were the days ..
Cigarette, the grey stray cat I adopted last year, likes water. If you're in the tub she'll sit right on your chest, in the water. She sleeps in the bathroom sink, and does not like to be disturbed, so any time I have to run water in the sink, such as to wash my hands, I run it right over her. She just lays there in the sink, with her body plugging the drain as it fills up with water. Once it gets deep enough she'll start drinking it, but stays right in it. She also likes to "help" when I work on the car (and loves to leave muddy footprints all over it), but I try to keep her out of the garage for fear of locking her inside by mistake.