Is Buster a burbler too?? Maybe it’s more common than I’d thought – I never heard that particular type of purr until I got Packer, but now I’ve heard it from two of your cats in the space of, what, two weeks? Buster Burbles might be a good band name. Burblin’ Buster? Buster Burbler. I’ll work on it and get back to you.
Who was the little black Pepper in the “Wild Things” video towards the end who was trying to stay clear of the shenanigans and got pounced on anyway? I LOL’d at that almost as hard as at the head-bonk and total wipeout in the “Yellow Stool” video. Yellow Stool would probably not be a good band name, but WOULD be a pretty good reason to see the gastroenterologist, and I am going to bed now with my tired-ass self.
I think Buster Burbles would be a GREAT name, and when I find my musical talent, I will totally name my ’80s cover band Buster Burbles. Hmm. Buster and the Burbles?
That was Sally Peppers toward the end of the shenanigans. I’d say she’s a lover not a fighter, but she’s been witnessed starting plenty of fights. They can all BRING IT when they want to!
(Also, I would have used a term other than “Yellow Stool” for that video, but (1) I couldn’t think of a better way to describe that piece of furniture and (2) It made me LOL to type it that way. I amuse myself far too much.)
So now do we get weekly reminders how pretty Buster is too?
Of COURSE. If y’all forgot how pretty Buster is, I’d never forgive myself.
I’ve been lurking since the day the McMaos were born – the post came up on my mom’s Google Reader, she sent it out to my sisters and me, and I’ve read every post since. While I love them ALL, I think Miz Poo is my favorite of your cats – my Quinn is a tortie, too, so I’m probably biased. I just wanted to let you know that during Hurricane Irene, when we lost power (I’m in NJ), I started reading Fred’s book on my Kindle. I finished it this past weekend, and I really enjoyed it! Tell Fred to keep writing!
Thank you! I’ve told Fred that you enjoyed it (and conveniently included a link up there to Fred’s book for those of you who haven’t read it and might be interested – it’s available on the Nook as well).
Fred’s about 25% finished with his next one, and you can read a rough draft of the first chapter, here. I’ve read most of what he’s written so far and I really think it’s the best thing he’s written.
Will you be able to put the black Peppers kittens up for adoption around Halloween? I’ve heard (but never confirmed) that shelters around me do not adopt out black cats in October in fear that they will be abused or used in satanic rituals or something. But maybe that’s just a local rumor? (I do live in the Salem MA area…)
Challenger’s House doesn’t usually put a hold on adoptions of black cats around Halloween, but the adoption counselors are aware of the whole issue and are always (around Halloween and at all times!) careful who adopts Challenger’s House cats.
God bless the CH adoption counselors, because sometimes people get maaaaaad when they’re turned down. I know that one man said “Geez, lady, it’s just a CAT!” to the shelter manager once (which strangely did not convince her to adopt to him!). They have a Do Not Adopt (DNA) list that they keep current.
99.999% of the time, the household goods sold at flea markets are hot. Random assortment of “new” items, usually in smallish quantities…people professionally shoplift all of it! It’s crazy, there is at least one documentary out about it. 48 hours? One of the new corps. had a big thing on it a while back. (p.s. not trying to make you feel bad for your purchase! I once bought a bunch of Nivea moisurizer overly cheap from a flea market in TN once!)
I should have added that the entire reason I bought hair stuff at the flea market table is because the Sunsilk styling spray (I can’t even remember the name of it, but I’d recognize the bottle – it was a leave-in spray conditioner in a yellow bottle and had UV protection in it) is no longer made. I saw the familiar bottle on the table and HAD to have them. Otherwise, I don’t generally buy that stuff because I figured it probably sits in a hot truck with the sun beating down on it. The idea of people buying food from those tables just gives me the willies.
Also, Lisa sent me this link yesterday – Meth lab found in flea market. That’s the flea market we went to over Labor Day weekend and that we occasionally visit! I had no idea that sort of thing was going on – but I probably shouldn’t have been so surprised, either.
Wasn’t Sheila (from the Rescuees) a silver tabby? Or was she just grey?
I was thinking she was just gray, but went and looked, and I think I’d call her a silver tabby. It’s hard for me to tell – she was darker than Molly is, but the light parts of her coat were pretty light, so… I think she’s a silver tabby (but I could be wrong)!
PS: Look! It’s Sheila and a much younger Buster!
Awww, and Sheila and Reacher! I’m going to say, comparing the two, that if Reacher’s a silver tabby, then Sheila definitely is, too!
I’ve thought about getting into fostering and was wondering if it was hard at first. I do have an extra room that I could strip down and remove the carpet. Can you remember what you went through when you first got started in fostering and how long have you been doing it ? Love your journal and hope you never stop. Especially love the pictures with the cute sayings. Also enjoy the photos from around the yard.
I would highly recommend taking the carpet out of the room if you can – otherwise it’s going to get seriously stained (at least, my carpet in our previous house certainly did!)
It’s hard to say whether fostering is hard – there are hard times, especially when you’ve got one or more of a litter who are sick for no discernible reason and you don’t know what to do for them. But the joys of fostering far outweigh the hard times and it is so, so worth it.
I think really all you need to start with is a room where they can be segregated from the rest of the house’s animal residents, litter boxes, cat beds to sleep in (though even old towels and old blankets can serve that purpose) and some toys (and when I say “toys”, I mean anything cats will play with. You don’t have to go out and buy toys; my cats love to play with straws and crumpled up balls of foil and the rings off a milk jug. I do buy a lot of cat toys, but that’s not because they’re demanding them, it’s because I’m clearly a cat toy hoarder.) Anything else you need, you’ll figure out along the way.
We’ve been fostering since May of 2005 – Mia and her babies were my very first set of fosters – and Charlie and Patty Peppers are fosters numbers 164 and 165. The number would be higher, but in the Fall of 2005 when Fred agreed that we could adopt Sugarbutt and Tommy, he made me promise to wait until they’d been with us for six months before I started fostering again. It turned out to be almost a year before the fostering bug bit me again, I took Maddy as my very first bottle baby, and we’ve been doing it ever since!
Myself, I’m wondering if the lady didn’t just make up the “my doctor said” thing. Seems like the most logical explanation – that she didn’t want to keep the cat for whatever reason/s but was (rightfully) ashamed about saying so, and thus added “my doctor says” to her excuse for extra credibility and blame-dodging.
Curious, though – everyone I’ve known who’s had to take a pet to a shelter or rescue agency says they give you the third degree about your reasons for relinquishing. A former friend had an unrehab-able sprayer and her landlord said it was her or the cat; when she tried to take the cat to the rescue agency they told her they needed a letter from her vet saying that the cat had been checked for UTIs and attesting that the owner had done, in the vet’s opinion, everything possible to properly box-train the cat and that relinquishing was the only option. And a friend of my mom’s wasn’t going to be able to care for her dogs after a major surgery, and got the same type of response from a different shelter – they were willing to take the animals (with a suitable donation) but they really grilled her long and hard about other options… friends, family, boarding until she was recovered (which was expected to be up to 18 months, so not feasible) – they even suggested that one of their volunteers could come over a few times a week to help with big stuff (grooming, yard cleanup, walks) in exchange for the same “donation” they would require for her to relinquish the dogs. They really ran her through the wringer; she didn’t want to have to give them up and it seemed like they made it as hard as possible for her, even though she was expected to be bedridden for 3-4 months and then minimally mobile for at least a year after that. (One of her grandchildren eventually moved in with her to help out, and they were able to re-adopt the dogs back. Yay!)
So I’m curious now whether the people at Challenger House challenged (ha) the lady’s story of “ammonia fumes,” or if they just decided it was better to take him back than to risk her dumping him off in a field somewhere.
I’ve honestly wondered whether she used the “my doctor said” excuse to return Buster because there was some other reason that she felt didn’t have as much strength to it. Was she overwhelmed with the idea of having her third kid and having to care for Buster, too? Let’s be honest here, Buster’s a drama queen. Was she worried that he wouldn’t be good around the baby? I can say that he talks a good game, with the complaining and growling (we say he’s “blustering” when he starts up), but even when he grabs my hand because I’m doing something that displeases him, he never uses his claws on me.
Because Buster was a Challenger’s House cat to start with, her story wasn’t challenged because any Challenger’s House cat will be accepted back at any time, whether that’s two days, two years, or a decade after the initial adoption (though you won’t get your adoption fee back if it’s been longer than, I think, 30 days).
Had she called the shelter and said “Look, this cat’s smudgy face bugs me. I don’t want him any more.”, he would have been accepted back. There was a time when she would have tried to convince someone who wanted to return a cat that they should try this or that, but she’s been doing this long enough that she can tell whether someone wants advice on what to try or just wants to bring the cat back for whatever reason. If they’re intent on bringing the cat back and she tries giving them advice, it’s entirely possible that they’ll just opt to, I don’t know, dump the cat on the side of the road or turn it into a kill shelter instead. Better not to question them and get the cat back, you know?
I saw this page on my local online newspaper and thought I would share, it is such a cute idea:
Pre-owned, certified cats on sale this week.
That is adorable, and that kitten’s face is cracking me UP!
Totally off topic…unless you want a 15th cat, I stumbled across this yesterday: Glow-in-the-dark cats helping with FIV and AIDs research. How cute would a wee gitd kitty be?
That would be WAY too cool!
Charlie’s protectiveness of Patty is one of the sweetest things I’ve heard of in a long time. Does Challenger’s House even do that – insist on kittens being adopted together?
They do strongly suggest kittens being adopted together; I’m not sure if they insist on it, though. And actually, I’m starting to wonder if Charlie and Patty were so on top of each other all the time just because they were in such a small space. Now that they’re in the guest bedroom, they’re almost never in the same space – he likes to sleep on the cat tree, she curls up on the bed. They do play together, but I’m not sure they’re as closely bonded as I initially thought. Though even if they aren’t, I’d still love to see them go to the same home, of course!
I need some help for a co-worker of my husband’s. He and his wife have had a kitten (5 to 6 months old,not spayed yet) for a couple of months and she is very active and has a fantastic personality.The problem is that she likes to put her teeth on your hands when she plays. She won’t break the skin and to be honest it wouldn’t be a problem if his wife wasn’t watching kids all day in their house. They have tried the can of air (which worked perfect to keep the kitty off the counter) but it doesn’t seem to phase her when she’s nibbling. I talked to them yesterday and they are willing to keep her if they can break her of this nibblyness deal. Otherwise she is going to have to find a new home :-(.
I don’t have any suggestions here, but I’m hoping maybe someone out there has some helpful hints!
Just love Charlie and Patty, no matter how crusty or raggedy they are! And am I the only one who is thinking Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty?
You are not – and for good reason! Sally and Lucy’s names were stolen from Connie – Sally here, Lucy here – and when I needed names and decided to keep “Peppers” as the surname for these two rather than go with a whole new naming theme, I ultimately opted for Charlie and Patty. Though I kind of think that Linus would have been a really good name for him, too!
I’m still worried about the junior Peppers’ mother. Has there been any talk of trapping the poor girl?
There hasn’t, because she seems to have disappeared. The woman who handed Patty over to us said she’d call if the mother cat showed up again, and as of yet we haven’t heard anything. I am REALLY hoping that she doesn’t show up to drop another litter under that trailer.
5-hour drive to IKEA? I personally do not see a problem with that.
I know! Does anything sound like more fun than renting a little U-Haul van and driving to Ikea, loading up the van, and maybe spending the night before heading home? Because I don’t think so. Fred, however, is a big party pooper who has no idea how to have fun. 🙂
Did the chickens react to the ducklings suddenly in their midst?
The chickens don’t seem to have noticed that there’s anything different at all. The ducks are smart enough to keep out of the chickens’ way, and the chickens just ignore the ducks.
Is there a difference between a gray tabby and a silver one?
I’m thinking a gray tabby would be darker, but I just went and looked at some pictures and, uh, I dunno. I’m thinking they’re pretty much the same thing!
Piggies are so adorable. How can you eat them?? I am vegetarian and one of the things that made me give up meat was the intelligence and cuteness of pigs!
We’re not vegetarians and have no plans to change that, and since we have the time, room, and inclination to raise our own food, I think it would be irresponsible for us not to. Our pigs (and chickens) are spoiled rotten from the day we bring them home until the day they leave, and we’d much rather our food come from happy animals than from those who live their lives in CAFOs.
(For the record, I’m pretty sure the pigs would have no objections to eating you.)
Question about the piggies — how old are they and how much bigger will they get?
They’re about five months old currently and weigh about 125 – 150 pounds. One of them will be leaving us around 10th of October (the man who’s buying that pig prefers to go through a different processor (camp counselor?) than we prefer) and she’ll be 200 – 225 pounds. The other two will be going around the end of October (a little over six months old), and should weigh 225 – 250 pounds at that point.
Love that Buster is back where he belongs — how is he doing with Corbie?
There’s really not been a lot of interaction between Buster and Corbie. The occasional head-butt, the occasional sniffing of each others’ back ends, other than that, nada. As far as they’re concerned, it’s no big deal.
The pig farms I’ve ever driven by have a, shall we say, distinctive aroma. (OK, it smells like pig shit from miles away.) Do you have a problem with piggy smells, or is it not a problem because they have room to roam and are treated more humanely than a farm?
I’m going to guess that the pig farms you drive by have wayyyyy more than three pigs, am I right? If you go out by the pig yard here, the worst smell is that of the pig feed they’ve knocked onto the ground, which has gotten wet and is kind of fermenting. The pigs themselves don’t really stink. The grass that grows in their yard, which is well fertilized by them, is the prettiest, greenest grass I’ve ever seen!
Have you ever had anycat bit you or bunnykick you in your (and their) sleep? We’ve only got 5 cats, and only one sleeps curled up in my side, usually with my arm around her. One night I woke up to a searing pain in my finger. She had bunnykicked me really hard. I had a gash from the top of my finger to the bottom. Last night I woke up to a searing pain in my thumb. She’d apparently BITTEN me pretty badly. I’m certain she did it in her sleep, as, even if I’d been smothering her or otherwise annoying her, if she’d been awake when she did this, she’d have run away, because no matter what, they are not allowed to hurt us. Even if they accidentally catch a claw on us during play, they run away, because they know hurting a human is not allowed. So, since both times, she was still laying where she was after doing this I’m certain she did it in her sleep. Must be some really bad dreams. 🙁 Has anything like this happened to you?
I have to say that that’s never happened to me! That could be due to the fact that Miz Poo is the only cat who sleeps right up against me (I usually get Tommy at the end of the bed and Elwood next to me, but not touching me). That’s certainly not a pleasant way for you to wake up, is it! I’d offer some advice on what to do, but I really cannot think of a thing.
has Molly officially assumed Ciara’s “I’m a cut you” mantle, or is she still trying out for the role?
She’s still trying to decide if the role fits her. I think she’s got the glare down, but she tends to go from the “I cut you” glare to the “I love you” eyes too quickly. She’s got to learn to hold the glare for longer!
Aw look at that buster man — he’s so happy! I cant recall were he and Elwood close before? Or is he just that lovey?
I’m trying to remember – I think they were pretty close. Elwood’s pretty good with the little ones, once they’re past a certain size (the little little ones kind of freak him out, but Jake loves them) and by the time Buster left, he was about seven or eight months old and thus just the right size to tussle with Elwood and then snuggle with him.
About those automatic litter boxes, I know of two types, the ones that rake it when they leave and the one that tumbles so the stuff goes into a little holding area. The rake ones can freak them out because of the noise if they havent left the area when it starts, making them afraid to use it. (One of my cats stands outside the box for about five minutes when she’s done, scratching walls and floors like she’s still trying to cover even though she’s not actually IN the box any more…) The tumble ones coat all the sides until it’s like being in a tunnel of poo which most cats can’t deal with, so they’ll tend to hang out the side. I used to think one of those would be great, but now I don’t think it’s worth trying.
A few years ago, back when our permanent residents number was in the single digits (sigh), we had a Litter Robot. It worked well enough, and some of the cats would use it, but some of the other cats were freaked out by it, so we also had to have regular litter boxes. But between emptying the drawer at the bottom of the Litter Robot and then wiping out the inside of the thing once a day so it didn’t get gross, I was spending more time dealing with it than I would have spent scooping the litter box. When the globe cracked less than a year after I got it, I wasn’t sorry to toss the whole thing in the garage.
Peppers v2.0 are too cute! I hope they get adopted together too. Just curious, why the same last name instead of a new one?
It was mostly because I just like the last name “Peppers” for kittens, I think it’s awfully cute. I was originally thinking of naming Charlie “Buster Peppers” because he looks like Buster (and Buster’s “official” Challenger’s House name is Bolitar), but then I thought that might be confusing – and that was before I knew Buster was coming back to us! Charlie and Patty will likely be the last Peppers we have, though.
Charlie’s definitely the more curious (and less scared) of the two. He’s always the first to approach, but once he’s determined that things are safe, Patty comes along behind him.
“What doin’, lady?”
She’s a petite little thing.
Charlie shows off his scratching-post prowess.
He’s a climber (this is how he gets on the bed – he climbs to the top, then steps onto the bed!)
Everett Peppers has two white whiskers, on his left side.
“What you want, lady?”
::glare::
Harlan’s not quite sure what’s going on.
CROOKED ACRES
PRESENTS
THE BEAUTIFUL BOOKWORM BROTHERS
(so you won’t forget how beautiful they are)
Buster monkey-walks across the walkway.
…thinks about it…
and smugly lands on the platform where Loony Jake likes to hang out. Awfully proud of himself, no?
Corbie prefers to sit pretty whilst keeping an eye on the bird in the yard.
A VERY close eye.
(And yes, it’s my goal to get a picture of the two of them together! I hope that much beauty doesn’t break the camera.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Previously
2010: So many toys, so little time.
2009: Off goes my sweet boy Terry, to get his fancy new eyelips.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: “See? My foot IS as big as my head!”
Re: Nibbling/Nipping – I have a year’s worth of experience with a biting cat and this is what worked with him.
The first thing to try is to say, “NO” firmly and stop playing/petting/interacting with your kitten when she nips. The idea you want to convey is that nipping or biting means the good stuff ends. Don’t play with or pet her for ~ 5 minutes after an incident. Be consistent for about a week and see if she is getting it.
If not, add a hiss or growl to the “NO”. Again, be consistent and see if she is getting it. If that doesn’t work, you need to bring out the big guns. Put your hand over her face gently when you say “NO”. Hold your hand over her face for about 10 seconds. Again, be consistent and give her another several days.
Now, if that doesn’t work, pick her up and turn her on her back with the “NO”. Hold her there until she relaxes.
If that doesn’t work, try this the last technique with this addition: every day when she is at her most aggressive, put on a pair of oven mitts and have a “big fight” with her. That means gently mauling her and pushing her over. You don’t want to hurt her or scare her, but you do want to get an aggressive reaction. If she bunny kicks and bites the gloves, that’s perfect. The idea is to burn off her aggressive energy.
Make sure you “win” every fight which means as she tires you turn her over onto her back and hold her there until she relaxes. If she puts her head back to expose her throat to you, that’s perfect. Have a big fight with her at least once a day. That establishes your dominance in a way she can understand and she will be more likely to mind you when you say “NO”.
I hope this helps. My cat was aggressive from being abused for the first 6 months of his life, so he was a hard case. My guess is that your cat will be easier to train than he was!
Totally agree, Doodle Bean. 🙂
I had a bitey cat as a child, and the thing we should never have done was use our hands as a play-toy. That’s huge. If the kitteh thinks hands=toys, of course they’re going to bite.
But I also wonder, since there’s not a lot of detail…Is she only biting as a reaction to a certain stimulus?
e.g. when her tummy is touched during play? or if she gets too worked up?
(My big tomcat loves to play, and he loves being petted, but if he gets scritched too much, he’ll turn bitey when he’s had enough. It’s easier to be able to see when he’s getting to that point, and stop.)
From the age, the kitten could be teething – the biteyness is a lot stronger when teething.
My cat Oliver, when he was a kitten, used to bite me when I petted him. It can to me rather quickly to stop petting him when he started biting. It didn’t take long at all for him to stop biting all together! He sure used to love being petted 🙂
Just another idea.
Beautiful Bookworm Brothers….SIGH 🙂
Grey versus Silver tabbies –
The difference depends on what you mean by a grey tabby. I have heard of ‘grey tabby’ used as a contrast to ‘brown’, and for tabbies where the stripes are grey. Brown tabbys have a high degree of rufousing, so the hairs between the stripes can show a distinct orange or brown color. Tabbies with low levels will be a pale grey.
If a tabby has the dilute gene, the stripes themselves will be blue grey. Shiela looks like this might be the case with her – are her paw pads purplish or black? There is also some variation of how dark regular non dilute cats are, so it could be that as well.
True silvers have a different gene, the Inhibitor gene, that keeps any pigment from showing. Thus the hair near the skin will be pure white. Chinchilla Persians have this and a wideband gene that makes the pigmented part of the hair restricted to the tip. The black tip over white is supposed to make it look silvery. But if you look on these cats the paw pads and gums show that under it all these cats are black.
So in jargon terms I would call Shiela a blue tabby with low rufousing. The Inhibitor gene would make her background much whiter.
You know way too much! Wow!!! 🙂
RAOFLMBO at pigs eating you. I watched an episode of CSI and that is how one serial killer got rid of his victims. Yes, fiction, but I’m sure it has a basis in fact.
aggh! your post is so long I forgot my other comments – scrolls back…
Bititng kitten. That one is pretty easy (usually). Kittens bite as natural play. They are learning killing tehcniques. So when they bite each other too hard, the bite-e (the one being bitten) will cry out and stop playing. The bite-r’s response is to stop playing and lick the sibling as if to say “sorry”. The way you can help a kitten understand that biting is not a good thing is to immediately stop all movement and cry out “ow” in a high pitched “meow” like tone. You will know you hit it right when the kitten stops and licks you. Now this has always worked for me. The kitten learns that biting you will result in play stopping and won’t do it any more (after a few days of learning this.. it does take a bit) HOWEVER, that being said I did have one kitten “Edgar the Obnoxious” who would stop, lick me, look at me, then start chewing on me immediately. He REFUSED to not chew on me (or his siblings, or anything) so I sent him back for adoption with a huge warning – Bites but doesn’t hurt. Or chews constantly I don’t remember.. But I saw the new owners a few weeks later and they said you were right, he’s a chewer.. 🙂
as to fostering being hard.. it really depends on what you mean by hard.. The actual physical work of doing it really isn’t. Even when you have very sick kittens, it’s more hanging out and cuddling them and a few moments of medicating. EMOTIONALLY it can take it’s toll. Most of us have to remember that we are doing good even when the outcome is not what we want. Kittens die. Unless you take only the healthiest and older kittens you are most likely going to have to deal with a kitten passing on your watch. Or kittens can become really sick and you nurse them back to health and they become really loving devoted kittens and your heart breaks when you have to give them back. out of the hundreds of kittens I’ve fostered, the sick ones are still near and dear to my heart (and so are the ones I have lost). There are a bunch of kittens I no longer remember with out the help of my blog, but there are some that will always pop up in my mind from time to time and will live in my heart forever. You do loose little bits of your soul every time you send those special kittens back, but they are that much stronger and better for having taken it with them.
I always segregate. here’s why http://www.kittyblog.net/2010/03/crew-history-fip.html
I took a bit longer the one time I drove to Ikea.. Lost my husband for a couple of hours too since he dropped me off at the door and went to park. 🙂
Oh, the pigs eating you stories are true. My great-grandmother had a farm in SE Georgia, with cows, chickens and HOGS. And there is nothing meaner than a sow defending her piglets. I could go up to the fence and call the hogs, but I grew up hearing the story of a young boy in the county who fell in a hog pen and was killed and partially eaten by the angry sow, so there was no part of me ever allowed in that pen! (Hope no one was reading this while eating lunch!)
Can’t wait to see a side-by-side of The Corbster and Buster. Maybe then we can see where Corbie’s hind-end is smallish. He always looks just fine to me in his pictures (but I worry if Robyn worries). But then again, maybe Buster’s bootie isn’t the best to be compared to!!
I just saw this comment from Robyn in an entry from January and canNOT stop laughing.
“I just spent at least two minutes talking to a cat who was sitting under my desk, up against my foot. I talked to it, petted it with the foot it wasn’t laying up against, and then finally peeked under the desk to see just which cat it was.
It was a slipper. No wonder it wouldn’t purr.”
Oddly enough, earlier today I kicked one of the slippers sitting under my desk and apologized to it before I realized it was a slipper. 🙂
“Look, this cat’s smudgy face bugs me. I don’t want him any more.”
i will tell the lady, “your smudy face bugs the cat too!! give him back to me.”
and that photo of Sheila licking her paws… she looks like you’re holding a big drumstick or big piece of pork in front of her :p
When we have forest cat kittens, it is vital they learn not to claw and chew. We start very early with “no bit, lick” as soon as they are old enough to really play.
An older and already biting kitten is harder to tame, but you pretty much do the same thing. When the kitten bites, you stop and snap your fingers first at their face and later on their nose if the noise itself isn’t enough. You can also tap them on the nose (a little hard but not really to hurt, just get their attention). A firm whap on the nose is what Momma Cat does when kitten is doing something she does not approve of (like biting her tail too hard), the human version is that direct tap and/or finger snap on the nose.
The important thing is to be very firm and to NEVER allow biting to be ignored by ANYONE. Male house-guests (in my experience) can be the worst “training breakers” because they think the biting is “cute,” but it isn’t when the cat is 16 pounds and biting on your leg.
As others have suggested, you can also hold kitty down, wrap her in a towel and refuse to play (depending on the degree of the offense). Many former biters will have episodes, even as adults, where they try to revert to their old behavior and re-training them as if they are kittens is a good idea.
Finally, the idea of bleeding off some of the energy, by giving Kitty something she is allowed to bite (like a gloved hand, and only a gloved hand) is a good one. Personally, I try to avoid the gloved hand myself because I think it is confusing, but a stuffed animal or string toy can work pretty well (depending on the cat).
You have to treat extreme ankle biting/hunting the same way, and the younger the problems are addressed the better.
With a cat over one year of age, you can work on biting but it will probably never totally stop; but teaching diversion to a toy can help as will sheer physical dominance. My mother has a cat that is a serious biter and finally I just pinned him down and shouted “I am bigger than you,” after that I could touch his tummy without blood flowing.
Basically, the cat (even the adult cat) is a kitten to YOUR big Momma cat (even if your really Daddy cat). So, using mild versions of Mom cats do, seems to work the best; kittens do play to rough with each other and with Mom. She does not allow this, and humans shouldn’t either.
I have a couple of male friends that are definitely the worst offenders when it comes to being inconsistent with cats being bitey. I’ve had to tell them several times not to rile up my big tom, because biting is not acceptable play.
I can’t wait for a new photo of Buster on top of the kitchen cabinets. The photo of him looking over the edge is one of my favorites of him.
Do not tell Bilal-cat what I am about to tell you.
*whispering* *looking around for the sweet little nutter*
I think Buster is even more beautiful than Bilal. Especially in that picture of him on the spot that Loony Jake usually likes. (I think it’s the eye make up paired with the nose smudge). Shhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Oh crap! Gotta go! Little nutter just came in the room!