Play aggression (or dominance aggression?) in kitten / adolescent

[pmv]

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.

 

[ArtNJ]

Its not really "acting out" -- its being a six month old kitten. So its more a good thing that it isn't both of the kittens that are like this, because it easily could be. Sounds like they are on either end of the range of normal, which certainly happens sometimes. Use a loud "no!" to discourage latching onto you. As far as bugging the 7 year old, thats totally normal, and him getting a little growly and bopping him back is a fairly mild response and much better than fear. You don't need to to anything to guide the process, they will work it out.

As far as morphing to true violence as the kitten becomes perceived as an adult, its not impossible, and in fact it happened once to me when I added two kittens to an older cat (don't recall exactly how old, but a bit older than your seven y.o. I think). Just like you, I had one chill kitten and one very active kitten, and eventually, maybe when the kittens were 10-11 months, we had problems with the active kitten and the older cat fighting and becoming actual enemies. However, its somewhat rare, or at least isn't a given just because there is some mild tension now. Improvement over the coming months would be more common. In the instance where I had an older cat's distaste with an active kitten morph to violence, I had more sharper distaste than it sounds like you do, with maybe some actual fear or at least a good bit of avoidance, during this phase. In any event, I don't think there is much you can do that you aren't already trying.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

And keep in mind that cats mature more slowly mentally than physically. He's not a teenager yet, he's more an 8-year-old boy, and you know how they can be! He'll be mentally mature at about 2 years old.

I agree with A ArtNJ , as I almost always do. Keep doing what you are doing. The chance of Copper and Reggie (love all of the names, BTW) becoming actual enemies is slight, but there. If it is going to happen, there is very little you can do to change that. Again, the chance is only slight.