In general, my kitten Freya, is pretty well behaved. She is affectionate, uses her pellet litter without issue at all, drinks well from her cat fountain, mostly scratches her scratching posts, is eating a variety of quality foods without excessive pickyness, has never lashed out in anger or even fear, etc.
Unfortunately, she tries to "spar" with myself and my housemate's fingers, hands, and feet. We tried ignoring and redirecting (the latter helps a.. little), but, I decided to try an old trick I'd had decent luck with using on other cats in the past; I pretended to.. totally misunderstand her intent whenever she tried sparring. To be exact, whenever she play claws or bites at my hand, I pick her up gently by her front legs (more under them really, so that I can support hr body with my hands, rather than tug her around by her paws) , so that she's standing" and facing me, and make her sway back and forth for a couple of seconds while saying, in my sweetest gentlest voice "Does kitty wanna dance?"
Needless to say, my kitten, like every other cat in existence definitely does NOT like doing the little kitty dance, so after two or three attempts she gives me this disgusted look like I'm a moron, and gives up.
So far, it seems to be working well, since it dissuades her from the behavior, without scaring her. The biggest problem is that I have a hard time not cracking up as I say, "Does Kitty wanna dance?" to her, for obvious reasons.
Embedded video is essentially the kitty dance (I support her better and am slower and gentler, of course, since the idea is to mildly irritate, not actually scare or upset my cat)
Unfortunately, she tries to "spar" with myself and my housemate's fingers, hands, and feet. We tried ignoring and redirecting (the latter helps a.. little), but, I decided to try an old trick I'd had decent luck with using on other cats in the past; I pretended to.. totally misunderstand her intent whenever she tried sparring. To be exact, whenever she play claws or bites at my hand, I pick her up gently by her front legs (more under them really, so that I can support hr body with my hands, rather than tug her around by her paws) , so that she's standing" and facing me, and make her sway back and forth for a couple of seconds while saying, in my sweetest gentlest voice "Does kitty wanna dance?"
Needless to say, my kitten, like every other cat in existence definitely does NOT like doing the little kitty dance, so after two or three attempts she gives me this disgusted look like I'm a moron, and gives up.
So far, it seems to be working well, since it dissuades her from the behavior, without scaring her. The biggest problem is that I have a hard time not cracking up as I say, "Does Kitty wanna dance?" to her, for obvious reasons.
Embedded video is essentially the kitty dance (I support her better and am slower and gentler, of course, since the idea is to mildly irritate, not actually scare or upset my cat)
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