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- Oct 30, 2017
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Hi! I have read some threads on this topic, but I am looking for new responses; I hope this doesn’t seem redundant and thanks in advance.
My cat Ruby will be one year old in September. She is a very large, strong Siberian cat. Ever since she was a baby, she will do a kind of fake bite if a human pats her “wrong”. We never encouraged her with hand play—we only let her do play fighting with toys. And she has a cat friend, our older kitty, whom she gets along with very well. The bite is never hard enough to draw blood or make a mark, or even really to feel most of the time. Her head snakes back quite fast toward your hand, when you’re patting her a moment too long. The nipping is not play fighting. It seems like she is just saying, “go away”.
Ruby likes me best of all the people in the house (my husband is very bonded with the older cat and my seven-year-old is noisy and the cats don’t like her much. Thankfully she never really pesters them, and has not provoked anything worse than the nipping I mentioned). Ruby often sits with me for long cuddles, which she does not do with my husband and kid. However, last night she nipped me. Instead of obeying her (as I saw it) by just ignoring her and walking away, I scruffed her and hissed. Needless to say she has been rather cold since then. I am showing her extra gentleness etc...hopefully she’ll love me again soon. I know I made a mistake.
How should I address the nipping? How can I teach her to just jump down and leave if she is all done being patted, instead of saying “go away” with a nip? I totally get that ignoring the cat is the way to go if they are aggressive, but won’t that teach her that nipping works—that it makes the annoying human go away? This is the thing I don’t quite understand about the other advice I’ve read. Thanks for reading!
My cat Ruby will be one year old in September. She is a very large, strong Siberian cat. Ever since she was a baby, she will do a kind of fake bite if a human pats her “wrong”. We never encouraged her with hand play—we only let her do play fighting with toys. And she has a cat friend, our older kitty, whom she gets along with very well. The bite is never hard enough to draw blood or make a mark, or even really to feel most of the time. Her head snakes back quite fast toward your hand, when you’re patting her a moment too long. The nipping is not play fighting. It seems like she is just saying, “go away”.
Ruby likes me best of all the people in the house (my husband is very bonded with the older cat and my seven-year-old is noisy and the cats don’t like her much. Thankfully she never really pesters them, and has not provoked anything worse than the nipping I mentioned). Ruby often sits with me for long cuddles, which she does not do with my husband and kid. However, last night she nipped me. Instead of obeying her (as I saw it) by just ignoring her and walking away, I scruffed her and hissed. Needless to say she has been rather cold since then. I am showing her extra gentleness etc...hopefully she’ll love me again soon. I know I made a mistake.
How should I address the nipping? How can I teach her to just jump down and leave if she is all done being patted, instead of saying “go away” with a nip? I totally get that ignoring the cat is the way to go if they are aggressive, but won’t that teach her that nipping works—that it makes the annoying human go away? This is the thing I don’t quite understand about the other advice I’ve read. Thanks for reading!