Originally Posted by turbokitten (Post 1368014)

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.

Originally Posted by rleete (Post 1391976)

That is a baby bobcat. Note the ears.