Do you HISS at your cat......

[Shawna87]

I have three cats and do it occasionally to my youngest. I raised him from three weeks old so he didn’t have a mama cat to teach him certain things. He sometimes will bite and scratch me. When it goes too far I hiss. It seems to be pretty effective and we still have a great relationship. I only do it when I feel it’s necessary though.

 

[FriendofFerals]

Hissing is a defensive behavior and even kittens without their eyes open will hiss at the notion of danger out of instinct. To hiss at them "not to do something" unwanted would be confusing, I would imagine. You're telling them "Don't mess with me, I'm scary" and they can't correlate that with something you don't want them to do. I've "hissed" at a young cat I was trying to rescue who was scared and I hissed back to let him know I was scared of him too. He took that as a signal to be more bold and try to "bully me" and he came out from where he was hiding long enough for me to grab him and take him to a vet. Vocalizing/growling seems to be more of what comes before an offensive action like an attack.