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So Fritz occasionally bites. It's the weirdest thing; you'll be petting him, he's fine, you're fine, everything's fine, then he'll casually reach over and chomp your hand. It's not an attack, he doesn't even move quickly; afterwards, he just goes back to being fine like nothing happened. He's drawn blood once, and my wife briefly contemplated kittycide. Most of the time the bite is so slow in coming that it's easy to just pull out of the way, but if you're not paying attention - chomp. It's not violent and doesn't seem malevolent. So what the heck?
Any budding cat psychologists here want to comment on this?
So Fritz occasionally bites. It's the weirdest thing; you'll be petting him, he's fine, you're fine, everything's fine, then he'll casually reach over and chomp your hand. It's not an attack, he doesn't even move quickly; afterwards, he just goes back to being fine like nothing happened. He's drawn blood once, and my wife briefly contemplated kittycide. Most of the time the bite is so slow in coming that it's easy to just pull out of the way, but if you're not paying attention - chomp. It's not violent and doesn't seem malevolent. So what the heck?
Any budding cat psychologists here want to comment on this?
Does he only do it when you stop petting him, like he trying to make you keep going?
Does he only do it when you stop petting him, like he trying to make you keep going?
Nope, it seems completely random. Mid-pet, or occasionally even when your hand is just resting within chomping distance. It doesn't happen often and I can't figure out what triggers it.
So we picked up my babies, male is fine, jumping around, too active for my liking but not much we can do. The female is in pain though, obviously you gotta be very cautious when you pick her up. I pick her up by the "armpits" and it seems to be working, obviously anything closer to the stomach i avoid.
So we picked up my babies, male is fine, jumping around, too active for my liking but not much we can do. The female is in pain though, obviously you gotta be very cautious when you pick her up. I pick her up by the "armpits" and it seems to be working, obviously anything closer to the stomach i avoid.
Pain Pills are 1 a day.
lol, boys. When we got our mom cat spayed she just wanted to sit on the kitty warming pad. She was pretty slow for a couple days, but she did fine. I'm surprised she tolerates you picking her up.
Jack's lower leg has been swollen on and off for a few months now, so we took him in last week to have it checked out. X-ray came back clean so they had us bring him back early this week for an ultrasound. Ultrasound showed a lump that they expected was an abscess.
Surgery today showed it is not an abscess. The mass is distributed, so they weren't able to remove it. They took a biopsy and we'll get the results early next week.
He's home now and more active than I would expect. He already had a half dinner and want's more.
I've seen lots of benign tumors and such on dogs and cats in the last few years. Animals are living longer and chemicals are more prolific. The combination may correlate somehow. Don't worry too much.
So Fritz occasionally bites. It's the weirdest thing; you'll be petting him, he's fine, you're fine, everything's fine, then he'll casually reach over and chomp your hand. It's not an attack, he doesn't even move quickly; afterwards, he just goes back to being fine like nothing happened. He's drawn blood once, and my wife briefly contemplated kittycide. Most of the time the bite is so slow in coming that it's easy to just pull out of the way, but if you're not paying attention - chomp. It's not violent and doesn't seem malevolent. So what the heck?
Any budding cat psychologists here want to comment on this?
Apparently-happy cats biting you is usually one of two things:
1) he's overstimulated (too much petting, too much going on in the room, ODing on catnip, etc). Those tend to be quick hard nips and are usually preceded by being tense and twitchy.
2) they're love bites. If he's snuggled up, getting petted, purring away, and generally happy, then slowly goes in and gives you a bite-and-hold for a second, then lets go and goes back to being happy, then it's a love bite. This sounds like what you described. It's not malicious... Humans are just made of flimsier stuff than cats, so sometimes they do it too hard. He's trying to show affection, so you don't want to react too strongly; it's just the actions of the last few seconds which were unwelcome.
My cat used to bite too hard when he first moved in. The way I dealt with it was to immediately give him a little bap on the nose and a quick "tssit!", then just ignore him for a minute before going back to petting him. For particularly bad offenses I'd pick him up and plop him on the floor and ignore him. He figured it out pretty. He still does it but it's very gentle and I don't mind it.
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