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- Jun 24, 2020
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Hey all,
So my cat family is Regulus (Reggie), a 7-year-old neutered male, and two kittens, Archimedes (Archie), a spayed female and Copernicus (Copper), another neutered male. Archie and Copper are littermates and roughly six months old.
While overall they are fine being around each other, Copper is acting out more and more, and it's definitely annoying Reggie (and me). He really enjoys play attacking - both of the other cats and my arms / legs / hands / feet can be targets. He seems to be doing this in a playful spirit - he inhibits his biting and while sometimes he'll grab so you can feel the tips of his claws, he's certainly not digging in with them either. Nobody ends up bleeding, and neither cat seems afraid of him (although Reggie prefers to keep a few inches of distance between them). They have mealtimes and such together and nobody seems to care about any of the others, and they can all be laying on the floor in the same room without incident, unless of course Copper starts looking for trouble.
I have tried increasing the amount of playtime I give him, and it certainly helps, but in some sense trying to wear out a six-month-old kitten feels like trying to soak up the ocean with a mop and pail. Reggie gets pretty upset when Copper will grab his head and nibble on it - not to the point where it escalates to a real fight, but there's a lot of unhappy meowing from Reggie and bopping Copper back, and I worry someday it will escalate until someone gets hurt. Plus it's annoying when I get suddenly attacked, even if the attacks are more startling than painful.
Any tips or tricks for surviving the teenage years and hopefully teaching Copper some manners? When he's not being an energetic bite monster, he's actually a super sweet and cuddly cat, too, in fact he's by far the cuddliest of the three and he spends a lot of time laying against my chest purring, too.
And just because everything's better with pictures, here's a photo of mealtime. Reggie's the black cat on the front right. Archie is the tuxedo in the front left, and Copper is the orange tabby in the back.
So my cat family is Regulus (Reggie), a 7-year-old neutered male, and two kittens, Archimedes (Archie), a spayed female and Copernicus (Copper), another neutered male. Archie and Copper are littermates and roughly six months old.
While overall they are fine being around each other, Copper is acting out more and more, and it's definitely annoying Reggie (and me). He really enjoys play attacking - both of the other cats and my arms / legs / hands / feet can be targets. He seems to be doing this in a playful spirit - he inhibits his biting and while sometimes he'll grab so you can feel the tips of his claws, he's certainly not digging in with them either. Nobody ends up bleeding, and neither cat seems afraid of him (although Reggie prefers to keep a few inches of distance between them). They have mealtimes and such together and nobody seems to care about any of the others, and they can all be laying on the floor in the same room without incident, unless of course Copper starts looking for trouble.
I have tried increasing the amount of playtime I give him, and it certainly helps, but in some sense trying to wear out a six-month-old kitten feels like trying to soak up the ocean with a mop and pail. Reggie gets pretty upset when Copper will grab his head and nibble on it - not to the point where it escalates to a real fight, but there's a lot of unhappy meowing from Reggie and bopping Copper back, and I worry someday it will escalate until someone gets hurt. Plus it's annoying when I get suddenly attacked, even if the attacks are more startling than painful.
Any tips or tricks for surviving the teenage years and hopefully teaching Copper some manners? When he's not being an energetic bite monster, he's actually a super sweet and cuddly cat, too, in fact he's by far the cuddliest of the three and he spends a lot of time laying against my chest purring, too.
And just because everything's better with pictures, here's a photo of mealtime. Reggie's the black cat on the front right. Archie is the tuxedo in the front left, and Copper is the orange tabby in the back.