Defiant little kitty....

Yesterday, I was prepared to make mittens out of my cute little furry kitty!!! I was home sick yesterday....and my husband was out of town. Sooo...I was sleeping on the sofa downstairs, Where the Christmas tree is. Hunter has been doing fine with the tree, I have a squirt gun that has been working well to keep him away. WELL, yesterday Hunter was SOOOOOO bad....he actually came up to the squirt gun and sniffed it as I was preparing to shoot him with it. Not only that, but he would move to just where the stream couldn't reach him and them jump up in the tree and look at me, like "Haha Mommy, I know you wont pull me..."...well I did pull him out of the tree and gave him a kitty time-out in the basement. Well....this did no good..as soon as Hunter was out of the basement...the game was on again....this was quite the frustration for me. I even offered the little devil some other toys to play with, I even got in the floor and played with him (he still preferred the tree)....back in the basement he went.
Needless to say...I am ready to make mittens out of Hunter....or I may have to put the Christmas tree away...GRRRRRRRRR GRRRRRRRRR...
:x :x :x :x :x :x :x :m30: NOT!

 

Sounds like you were having a fun day. Kitties can be so exasperating sometimes. I hope you don't have to take your tree down. Don't want to see you kitty as mittens either, though. Hopefully Hunter will settle down and get used to the tree.

My kitty Mittens (that's her name) does not do well with the squirt bottle. I've tried it on her and it just makes her more hyper. She's my adhd kitty. I tried squirting her when she clawed the furniture and it just made her worse. She would start running from room to room and clawing at different furniture. Then I'd get more upset and that made things even more worse.

She seemed to calm down better if I keep calm and talked to her slowely and called her to me.

The other thing that works well when she gets in her hyper moods is I just leave the room. She has no one to impress then.

Hope you're having a better day today. How come these things seem to always happen when you are home alone with not support?

 

I also tried the squirt bottle thing with Vianne to keep her off of the furniture and counter tops....only worked the first time. After that she would just look at me like " go ahead and pull the trigger, i can take it!" Consequently, she would end up getting soaked but still winning the battle. The thing that did wind up working very well for both of us was that whenever she did something like jump up on the table or counters i would run up her while she was still there and grab her by the scruff and hiss in her face really loud and put her on the floor-every time i caught her and gradually i began including the command "get down" just as i was about to scruff her. She did NOT like me hissing in her face and she picked up on this pretty quickly. I havent had to hiss at her like that in a long time. Now if she's doing something she's not sposed to all i have to do is say "get down" or give her a nasty hiss from across the room and she immediately responds. And she's a very good kitty about not getting up on my counters or table. Oddly enough I let her sit in the chairs, but she knows not to put her feet up on the table. Its actually kinda cute when she sits across from me at the table watching me eat or do homework, hehe. Now she's a little lady and I never really used punishment, just voiced my displeasure in kitty talk. Maybe you could try that with the christmas tree.....but offer a treat or some good thing if you kitty sits nicely by the tree without touching. Good luck! hope you can still keep your tree up and have a pleasant Christmas with your kitty

 

Sounds exhausting! :shock:

It's not long since Kyrre was that way too... I used the squrting bottle, and that worked well on him. I always shouted a "hey" at the same time, and now I just have to shout at him whenever he is a "bad boy". Witch is not too often, he settled down a bit as he got older. sometimes he'll bite my arm and just hang on to it. He'll bite harder if i try to move, so then i have to stare him in the eyes and hiss at him... But I'm afraid that one day he'll fell superior to me and bite even harder if I do that. I have no idea why he does it... It's always when he is hyper active and playful, but all of a sudden he seems very angry (this only happen now and then, not every day)

But anyway, good luck with the kitten/christmas tree combination!

 

Bente-
do you think that Kyrre really wants to hurt you or he is trying to play with you? Vianne bites my hand all the time when we are playing. I'll will run up to her while she is laying down on the carpet and i will flip her over on her back and rub her belly and she grabs my arm with both paws and hangs on tight while she kicks me with her back feet and bites my hand- not too hard but if it does hurt i will say "ouch!" and she stops and licks me where she was biting. Also sometimes she will walk up to me and start licking and chewing on my finger...really gentle, but she chews on it with her back teeth. Its seems like an affectionate thing to me when she bites. Maybe Kyrre just doesn't realize he is biting you so hard? Do you let him know it hurts or just stare him down and wait for him to let go? If he is trying to be dominate with you, maybe you should grab his scruff and hiss to let him know thats not ok? That technique has worked with me and my kitty for just about any bad behavior i can catch her doing.....but she is a perfect angel :mrgreen:

 

I tried the squirt bottle with Copper too and he also grew tolerant of it. Now I can just make a "spray" noise and he will close his eyes but not even move. I got the ssscat deterrent thing today to keep him from spraying the corner of the kitchen. The problem right now is the dogs keep setting it off and Copper is hiding. He hasn't even been shot at yet but is afraid of the beep and the air being sprayed. (I bet it would work with a Christmas tree too.) Has anyone else tried it? Also, can anyone tell me how to post some pictures of my fur-kids??

 

I don't know... It start out as playing, but all of a sudden he acts like "thats it! I've had enough of you!" even if I don't play along and just sit with my hands in my lap. In the beginning he didn't bite very hard so i thought it was this affectionate thing, and I didn't do anything about it. But now he'll bite harder (never so hard that it is really painful) and he'll kick with his back legs. I think he is playing with me the way he would play with another kitten. It's their instinct to learn how to fight and kill so... :0011:
I always grab him by the scruff when he does this, but it's not always enough to make him let go. :0010:

coppersmom: To post pictures you must first upload your pics from your computer to a hosting site like Photobucket.com. Thats the one I use, there are more but I can't remember any right now.
Then you copy and paste your picture's URL in your post here, easy as that!

 

hey! Kyrre is alittle ANGEL and i wont hear otherwise. he's too cute to be a devil kitten. *nods* :mrgreen:

man hearing all these FUNFUN times with kittens and trees is REALLY starting to worry me...i know Lex dont care about a tree... but Raz... oh dear.

 

Well it sounds like he is just trying to get you to play. He isn't growling or anything, right? Maybe if you initiate it instead, so that the game can be on your terms instead of his. Then he won't attack you if you are the one attacking him to play Just put on a long sleeved shirt and pull it down to cover your hand. If he starts to be to rough, stop moving and make a sound like "ouch!" and then start playing again when he lets go. See how he reacts. I can't imagine that Kyrre wants to do anything but play Just if he gets super rough and doesn't calm down enough to play nice, then leave the room and let him settle down. I think maybe he started biting you harder becuz you didn't want to play and he is trying to say " hey, did you notice me? i really want to play now!"

 

I wonder if Ssscat would be effective in keeping cats out of Xmas trees?

Here is some info. about it:
http://www.pettrainingproducts.co.uk/Pr ... tivet.html

Tiddy and Chieve both grab my arm, bite and kick with their back feet when they are feeling extra rambuncious. Tiddy is very gentle when he does it though so it never hurts but Chieve does hurt. I don't usually play with them with my hands but sometimes when I'm petting Chieve and he wants to play he does this and when he does I just get up and walk away from him and give no attention to him for the next few minutes and/or toss his foamy balls around for him to chase after.
Here are a couple links regarding play aggression that I think you might find helpful:
http://www.usask.ca/wcvm/herdmed/applie ... aggre.html
http://www.sniksnak.com/cathealth/aggression2.html

 

thanks Nern
Great links! I think I have to be more determined in how to react... Not try different methods every time.