I'm hoping to get some helpful advice here as per usual. We can't afford a behaviorist visit to the vet right now, which is what it would take to have her answer the questions I emailed her. I'm going to reprint the email below & would appreciate any comments. Thanks in advance.
Luciano is still jumping up & scratching with his front paws & biting, usually on my right thigh, not every day but multiple times/week. The bites don't break the skin, but leave bruises a couple of days later. He does it to my boyfriend as well, last night making four scratch marks that all bled a bit on his leg (he was wearing shorts). He also has made quick bites at him when he's down on the floor doing exercises, which I think I mentioned to you before. It's always too fast to distract him with a treat, so my boyfriend has taken to closing Luciano in the bedroom while he's doing exercises on the floor. Luciano is fine when he's exercising standing up, will even walk between his legs & rub against him. Luciano is usually a little hyper when he comes out of the bedroom after that, but I don't think there's an increase of aggression due to being in there for 20-30 minutes. We usually play with him before he goes in and after he comes out. When he put him in the bedroom the first time, he heard him wailing/moaning but he didn't do that last night. My boyfriend thinks he may use the litter box then out of fear.
I got a clicker and would like to attempt clicker training with him, but first I have to find the reward that he will work for. From the book I read, he seems to fall into the category of attention seeker, yet there are times he does not want any attention. I bought a new kind of treat to see if he loves that enough to work for, but haven't given it to him yet.
A new behavior he started last night with my boyfriend & did this morning with me as well is when we're on the way to the front door, he comes from behind us & does what can only be described as a shove. No claws, no pain, but it feels like a person is shoving you. I think it was on his leg. I'm shorter, so it was on my butt. I know I shouldn't ascribe human emotions to cats, but to me it feels like he's saying 'fine, get out then if you're going!' being annoyed to be left behind. I kind of want to see what it looks like, because it was with some force & I think he'd have to get a running start and launch to produce that. My boyfriend actually thought I had shoved him last night & was stunned when I said it was Luciano.
Finally one last thing that only happened once but still has me puzzled. One morning a couple of weeks ago I noticed a mark on the wall behind the ladder in my bedroom. I got closer and realized it was poop, a small circle about the size of a dime. It seemed very new. I cleaned it up and checked around and there was no other poop anywhere but the litter box. I checked Luciano and his paws, tail, rear were all perfectly clean. I have no idea how the poop got there. The only thing I can think is that maybe it was on the very end of his tail and when he was climbing on the ladder it brushed up against the wall and stuck there. But there were zero streaks of it, very strange.
Luciano's previous owner/rescuer has said she thinks he needs to go back on medication (he was xanax when I first got him in Dec) to stop the biting/scratching aggression. Maybe I should keep a log of when and how it happens to give you a better idea of frequency.
Luciano is still jumping up & scratching with his front paws & biting, usually on my right thigh, not every day but multiple times/week. The bites don't break the skin, but leave bruises a couple of days later. He does it to my boyfriend as well, last night making four scratch marks that all bled a bit on his leg (he was wearing shorts). He also has made quick bites at him when he's down on the floor doing exercises, which I think I mentioned to you before. It's always too fast to distract him with a treat, so my boyfriend has taken to closing Luciano in the bedroom while he's doing exercises on the floor. Luciano is fine when he's exercising standing up, will even walk between his legs & rub against him. Luciano is usually a little hyper when he comes out of the bedroom after that, but I don't think there's an increase of aggression due to being in there for 20-30 minutes. We usually play with him before he goes in and after he comes out. When he put him in the bedroom the first time, he heard him wailing/moaning but he didn't do that last night. My boyfriend thinks he may use the litter box then out of fear.
I got a clicker and would like to attempt clicker training with him, but first I have to find the reward that he will work for. From the book I read, he seems to fall into the category of attention seeker, yet there are times he does not want any attention. I bought a new kind of treat to see if he loves that enough to work for, but haven't given it to him yet.
A new behavior he started last night with my boyfriend & did this morning with me as well is when we're on the way to the front door, he comes from behind us & does what can only be described as a shove. No claws, no pain, but it feels like a person is shoving you. I think it was on his leg. I'm shorter, so it was on my butt. I know I shouldn't ascribe human emotions to cats, but to me it feels like he's saying 'fine, get out then if you're going!' being annoyed to be left behind. I kind of want to see what it looks like, because it was with some force & I think he'd have to get a running start and launch to produce that. My boyfriend actually thought I had shoved him last night & was stunned when I said it was Luciano.
Finally one last thing that only happened once but still has me puzzled. One morning a couple of weeks ago I noticed a mark on the wall behind the ladder in my bedroom. I got closer and realized it was poop, a small circle about the size of a dime. It seemed very new. I cleaned it up and checked around and there was no other poop anywhere but the litter box. I checked Luciano and his paws, tail, rear were all perfectly clean. I have no idea how the poop got there. The only thing I can think is that maybe it was on the very end of his tail and when he was climbing on the ladder it brushed up against the wall and stuck there. But there were zero streaks of it, very strange.
Luciano's previous owner/rescuer has said she thinks he needs to go back on medication (he was xanax when I first got him in Dec) to stop the biting/scratching aggression. Maybe I should keep a log of when and how it happens to give you a better idea of frequency.