My cat Casper is now a year old and he still won’t stop attacking me. I’ve had him since he was about 9 weeks and since then he’s always had a thing for biting. How attqvks usually happens right in the morning and at night by jumping at me with his claws and then biting. He only seems to do this when i’m walking up the stairs, walking out of my room at night or if i’m simply just sitting on the couch. I’ve tried everything from spraying him w water and even trying to kick him off when he’s on me but he doesn’t care and continues to attack. He has bitten my face, stomach, legs and hands to the point it draws blood and causes bruising. Usually I just put him in the basement for a few minutes but I can’t continuosuly just lock him away. I also have to bring him with me to uni and i’m sure he’ll attqvk my roommates too which is not what i want. My parents want me to give him away and i’ve been thinking too but it’ll just break my heart. Is it cruel to give him up if all he does is attack my family?
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My Cat Won’t Stop Biting Me
- Thread starter dommixo
- Start Date
I have never dealt with this issue to the level you are experiencing. Are there any changes in body language before the attacks or biting? I am asking this because sometimes changes in body language will let you know when an attack is about to happen. I am going to post some articles that may be helpful. From what you are saying it sounds like this is either play aggression, re-directed aggression or out of control love bites.
How To Deal With Cat "love Bites"?
Cat Aggression Toward People
How To Stop Playtime Aggression In Cats
Six Surefire Strategies To Reduce Stress In Cats
Hopefully someone with more experience with this issue will be able to give you some actual advice. I hope the articles can be a starting point to at least help you figure out why this may be happening and some other ideas you have not tried.
How To Deal With Cat "love Bites"?
Cat Aggression Toward People
How To Stop Playtime Aggression In Cats
Six Surefire Strategies To Reduce Stress In Cats
Hopefully someone with more experience with this issue will be able to give you some actual advice. I hope the articles can be a starting point to at least help you figure out why this may be happening and some other ideas you have not tried.
There are a few things that you can try. First, get him to a vet and make sure that there isn't a physical issue. They often present as behavioral problems. If you get a clean bill of health, then you can move on from there. One thing I suggest for right now is a wand toy! This lets you play with him HARD, wear him right out, get those "hunt/KILL" instincts under control in a constructinve, fun way while keeping your various body parts out of harm's way! Play with him until he lies down on the floor panting! Do this several times a day.
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Is he neutered?
I have found prevention is a big help. When I see my punk get that hunting stare on his brother, I distract him with toys.
If a cat bit me I would yell ow and then ignore them. If a cat was hunting me I would toss a toy away from me. Still be hunted? Clap my hands and chase the cat away. Have a cat with teeth and claws imbedded in you? Calmly scruff the cat, hiss/say no , then detangle the cat and ignore the cat while you go clean up your wounds. Then plot how to prevent getting to that point.
A morning and night play until he pants then feed him ritual might help re-direct his hunting to toys.
If a cat bit me I would yell ow and then ignore them. If a cat was hunting me I would toss a toy away from me. Still be hunted? Clap my hands and chase the cat away. Have a cat with teeth and claws imbedded in you? Calmly scruff the cat, hiss/say no , then detangle the cat and ignore the cat while you go clean up your wounds. Then plot how to prevent getting to that point.
A morning and night play until he pants then feed him ritual might help re-direct his hunting to toys.
The time I was slowly prying claws out of me I was solely focussed on removing the claws. Not anger.
When he gets all riled up stay calm and confident. You are not prey. You are the topcat! Projecting that energy helps. Why would you be scared of him or nervous when you are the boss?
Staying calm helps. Being threatening will make him attack out of fear. I approach from a "look Im the topcat/mamacat but I love you and mean you no harm can we be friends?"-attitude. It helps, I swear.
When he gets all riled up stay calm and confident. You are not prey. You are the topcat! Projecting that energy helps. Why would you be scared of him or nervous when you are the boss?
Staying calm helps. Being threatening will make him attack out of fear. I approach from a "look Im the topcat/mamacat but I love you and mean you no harm can we be friends?"-attitude. It helps, I swear.
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We have been dealing with the exact same issue! CBD oil has had an extremely positive effect! Also, confinement overnight is helping to establish the dominance in our pride. Gus was ferocious in his attacks, but we haven't had a 'redline' attack in almost a week. I suggest you talk to your Vet about their thoughts on CBD. It's completely legal, can't overdose and it has no hallucinogenic properties. We got *this* at a vape shop. 2 drops on his paw twice a day. Don't give up!
Attachments
He obviously hasn't learned the limits in play time that comes with being with mom and siblings from 6-12 weeks of age. I don't suggest it unless there is a mention of getting rid of the cat or they have tried every thing else. I use this method for cats that just won't learn any other way, especially with distraction (throwing a 'kickeroo' from Amazon is a great one!) or yelling NO and leaving the area. The next time he attacks, grab him by the loose skin on the back of the neck(NOT the neck itself)and hold him still to the ground while saying NO very loudly, or OUCH! Hissing works even better, but do that while you are alone! 
You have to do this EVERY time. Just as with toddlers, you have to be consistent and if you miss a time you have to start over. Holding them still like this is something they hate, so they usually learn quickly. If he comes right back at you, do it again. This is what mama cats do when they are disciplining. It looks like it hurts, but it hurts their pride more.
At a year old he is still basically a kitten and needs to learn how to play nice. I want to tell you he will calm down with age too, usually between two and three. All the luck!
You have to do this EVERY time. Just as with toddlers, you have to be consistent and if you miss a time you have to start over. Holding them still like this is something they hate, so they usually learn quickly. If he comes right back at you, do it again. This is what mama cats do when they are disciplining. It looks like it hurts, but it hurts their pride more. At a year old he is still basically a kitten and needs to learn how to play nice. I want to tell you he will calm down with age too, usually between two and three. All the luck!
Biting in cats is really difficult and frustrating, especially in cats who don't respond very well to the usual tricks.
TLDR: My cat was a pretty bad biter at a year old and 9 months later is MUCh improved (and no I *never* encoruaged biting behavior by using hands or feet as toys, she just was a bitey as heck cat). what made it better was patience, age, staying calm, and communicating how much I hated it when she bit me (for a clever cat, she had a really hard time with that idea, since she loves biting me, and figured I must love being bitten as much as she loved to bite me...). Also you might consider a vet appointment to check for issues, and maybe try a felien ssri
Anyhow, I have some personal experience with a bitey cat...
Freya was a real biter when she was a kitten, so i know how difficult it can be. With her, it was (and to a lesser extent still is) status and play aggression. For me the thing that helped most was to realize that, even when she did draw a little blood, Freya was actually not trying to injure me. She never went for sensitive places (except a gentler love bite on the face or nose.), and didn't use enough force that it would have been more than mildly painful to another cat. That realization and attitude change in me made a huge difference in her. Cats can read nonverbal queues quite well, and realizing that your cat isn't trying to hurt you, changes the dynamic.
The other thing that has worked very well has been a relatively gentle admonishment when she gets amped up and a little bitey. I'll say in a chiding but calm and friendly voice, "Are we biting?" ( I actually almost went with the phrasing of, "is my kitty a zombie?", instead, but i'd already committed to the "are we biting", and didn't want to lose progress) Most of the time when I say that Freya will stop biting my hand and look guilty. She'll bite me again, five seconds later most of the time if I don't disengage, of course, but the important part is that, she learned that, however fun it might be for her to bite me, that I don't think it is very fun at all.
Sometimes she would (and kind of still does) lay her ears back and pounce and bite me, a lot like you are describing with your cat (though never my face stomach, or other obviously vulnerable body parts, so I'm not sure that it is the same thing...) For that i used water bottles (one in every single room of the house, and 2 in the livingroom...), and so did my wife. Every single time she bit, we'd spray her and shout "no biting!" It would have worked in most cats, and it did help with Freya, especially at first, but also long term in toning the behavior down.
She learned that biting got her squirted, and she didn't especially enjoy being squirted, so most of the time even when she wanted to bite me, she'd restrain herself, though sometimes she'd bite and run like a bat out of hell to try and avoid getting squirted, or sometimes she'd decide being squirted was worth getting to bite me...
These days, she doesn't do that nearly as often, and when she does, she tries to see how far she can go before we'll squirt her. She'll bite the air an inch from my hand, bite very gently (which will get a calm gentle "no biting!", or even a gentler "are we biting?", smack my hand with sheathed claws. (which gets a gentle "no smacking!" Sometimes she'll start to bite me or (more rarely) my wife, then stop herself, as she realizes it will upset us.
Reducing her biting is still a work in progress (Freya is super stubborn), but with perseverance, a strong bond, and age (she's almost 2 now, and that calmness from impending adulthood is glorious...), Freya's biting is only perhaps a third as bad as it was a few months ago, and i firmly believe ti will continue to improve with time.
I actually don't always squirt, I alternate squirting with locking her away from me for a couple of minutes, which to her is a much harsher punishment, but the important thing is to communicate just how cast your displeasure with being bitten really is, without losing your temper.
Clicker type training helped a bit, too. It got my cat used to the idea that doing what i wanted her to do worked out for her in the end, sort of a very gentle way of establishing dominance.
Some things didn't help...
Play didn't really help. It made her happy and was good for our relationship, but it didn't really do all that much to reduce her biting.
Saying "ow!" when bitten didn't help. in fact, Freya learned to meow a pretty good "ow!" herself, and would meow "ow!" at me then bite me... it was hilarious... and painful.
clapping my hands, shouting "no!", scruffing, shaking a can of pennys, blowing a puff of air, etc all just made her angry and aggressive, so I dropped them all very quickly.
TLDR: My cat was a pretty bad biter at a year old and 9 months later is MUCh improved (and no I *never* encoruaged biting behavior by using hands or feet as toys, she just was a bitey as heck cat). what made it better was patience, age, staying calm, and communicating how much I hated it when she bit me (for a clever cat, she had a really hard time with that idea, since she loves biting me, and figured I must love being bitten as much as she loved to bite me...). Also you might consider a vet appointment to check for issues, and maybe try a felien ssri
Anyhow, I have some personal experience with a bitey cat...
Freya was a real biter when she was a kitten, so i know how difficult it can be. With her, it was (and to a lesser extent still is) status and play aggression. For me the thing that helped most was to realize that, even when she did draw a little blood, Freya was actually not trying to injure me. She never went for sensitive places (except a gentler love bite on the face or nose.), and didn't use enough force that it would have been more than mildly painful to another cat. That realization and attitude change in me made a huge difference in her. Cats can read nonverbal queues quite well, and realizing that your cat isn't trying to hurt you, changes the dynamic.
The other thing that has worked very well has been a relatively gentle admonishment when she gets amped up and a little bitey. I'll say in a chiding but calm and friendly voice, "Are we biting?" ( I actually almost went with the phrasing of, "is my kitty a zombie?", instead, but i'd already committed to the "are we biting", and didn't want to lose progress) Most of the time when I say that Freya will stop biting my hand and look guilty. She'll bite me again, five seconds later most of the time if I don't disengage, of course, but the important part is that, she learned that, however fun it might be for her to bite me, that I don't think it is very fun at all.
Sometimes she would (and kind of still does) lay her ears back and pounce and bite me, a lot like you are describing with your cat (though never my face stomach, or other obviously vulnerable body parts, so I'm not sure that it is the same thing...) For that i used water bottles (one in every single room of the house, and 2 in the livingroom...), and so did my wife. Every single time she bit, we'd spray her and shout "no biting!" It would have worked in most cats, and it did help with Freya, especially at first, but also long term in toning the behavior down.
She learned that biting got her squirted, and she didn't especially enjoy being squirted, so most of the time even when she wanted to bite me, she'd restrain herself, though sometimes she'd bite and run like a bat out of hell to try and avoid getting squirted, or sometimes she'd decide being squirted was worth getting to bite me...
These days, she doesn't do that nearly as often, and when she does, she tries to see how far she can go before we'll squirt her. She'll bite the air an inch from my hand, bite very gently (which will get a calm gentle "no biting!", or even a gentler "are we biting?", smack my hand with sheathed claws. (which gets a gentle "no smacking!" Sometimes she'll start to bite me or (more rarely) my wife, then stop herself, as she realizes it will upset us.
Reducing her biting is still a work in progress (Freya is super stubborn), but with perseverance, a strong bond, and age (she's almost 2 now, and that calmness from impending adulthood is glorious...), Freya's biting is only perhaps a third as bad as it was a few months ago, and i firmly believe ti will continue to improve with time.
I actually don't always squirt, I alternate squirting with locking her away from me for a couple of minutes, which to her is a much harsher punishment, but the important thing is to communicate just how cast your displeasure with being bitten really is, without losing your temper.
Clicker type training helped a bit, too. It got my cat used to the idea that doing what i wanted her to do worked out for her in the end, sort of a very gentle way of establishing dominance.
Some things didn't help...
Play didn't really help. It made her happy and was good for our relationship, but it didn't really do all that much to reduce her biting.
Saying "ow!" when bitten didn't help. in fact, Freya learned to meow a pretty good "ow!" herself, and would meow "ow!" at me then bite me... it was hilarious... and painful.
clapping my hands, shouting "no!", scruffing, shaking a can of pennys, blowing a puff of air, etc all just made her angry and aggressive, so I dropped them all very quickly.
