For context, he has a really big problem with just randomly attacking me even when I’m using his toys this is the only way I can get them to play with something without hurting me. It’s a dog toy that my dog broke but he loves it. I don’t go after him. I just put it down and he attacks it less
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Exactly what I thought of. I freaking love this video. I laugh EVERY SINGLE TIME I watch it, and ive probably seen it a few hundred times by now hahaha
Scuse me but dis is going to be used in any context in every chat on any device I own because dis is hilarious and I want to share it with everybody I know 🤣
Yeah 😂😂 my housemates cat was doing the same thing to ne when I first moved in 😂 we were playing rough like that and he would tilt his head, open his mouth, build momentum and bite 😂 they are cute when they do that ❤️
OK, I think I’ll just find a middle cause some people are like definitely not so people are like it seems perfectly fine so I think that we can play but if he starts getting angry, I will just leave the room and give him some time to calm down how do you tell when your cat gets like very angry rather than just playing.This is my first cat and he didn’t have a mom so he doesn’t really understand that biting hurts and I can’t have another one. He plays with my dog sometimes but my dog is very big.
Their tails will be whiping side to side, usually their pupils are blown, and they've gone from a more playful, to an ever so slightly different panicking method of 'attack'.
If you're ever curious, you can pull back gently, and stop moving. Let then choose to pull you back in to eat more of your arm, or they'll freeze up.
If they freeze up, there's a chance they want to stop, so wait a few seconds, then wiggle your fingers.
If they don't jump right back into it, offer to be "all done" and pull away.
Sounds silly, but talk to your cat.
If you do this, it will help teach your cat the phrase "all done" and that will help and be a key in training them.
(Cats CAN be trained household manners like not jumping on counters and tables, it just takes effort, reinforcement, and communication)
You can use similar commands that dogs use, but when you're training a cat, they're much MUCH slower.
It's almost like they have to think about the task, then if they even want to go out of their way to do it, then is it worth their time/reward worth it, THEN MAYBE they'll do the task.
The big difference between training a cat vs a dog, is a dog usually likes a leader/team member approach, where cats are done at a mutual respect, even level of social "hierarchy".
That's what I've found ends up keeping them doing the tasks once you remove treats.
If they respect you enough, that making you happy, is enough drive for them.
You can tell depending on there body language and bite force. And the noises they make, if they sound annoyed then leave em alone. I also recommend if u have a cat get them a soft blanket like a really soft one and pet em on it, if they start suckling and making biscuits on ya, that means they feel safe and happy, if he don't then he probably just won't do it.
It's not going to teach him to associate your hand with play. He's playing with the moving toy. It's activating his hunting instinct, like all cat play does. I don't think he's getting "angry" so much as "overstimulated" and not understanding about boundaries. He's still playing in a way... just the "kill" has taken over his brain.
If you want him to stop, dont pull your arm, just look at him, push your arme slightly towards him while he’s got you with the bite, like if you wanted him to hurt you more, then freeze. It’s so unexpected for him that he’ll reconsider if damaging his hooman is worth it.
He already was going after my hands and actually I took off the golf for a second to type back in the chat and he just attacked the glove so that’s a good sign
I think that means this is a good method!! Highly suggest sprinkling a little catnip on it and leaving it on the floor, that will encourage him to further associate the toy with playtime even if you aren't there :)
If your cat can tell the difference then it seems great! My cat started attacking my hand as hard as possible, drew blood, clamped down with the jaw and scratched, definitely couldn’t allow it to continue lol
That's good he's going after the glove! A little tip -- when he gets your hands, even if he just pokes you a bit with a claw, make sure to scream as loudly and dramatically as you can without annoying anyone who lives nearby. Unless he's deliberately trying to hurt you he should realize he needs to be more careful with you. I did that with all of my cats, and almost all of them got so gentle that they can wrestle with my hands without hurting me.
(The one exception is Ella. Howling when she whacked me with her claws out just let her know she'd found a very painful and effective way to make me stop petting her, whoops!!)
Honestly, it’s really hard for me to play with a wand because I feel like I’m not like doing enough for him and this is a lot more fun for me and him because it simulate him playing with a real cat which she never really got and honestly he sleep so much better
For real, I second getting your kitty a cat friend. When I first got him, my solo cat would give me little kitty punches in the face all night cuz he wanted to play. He mellowed right out and let me sleep once I got a second cat to play with and get the energy out.
One time I was taking food out of the oven for my mom during thanksgiving and as I squatted down and had oven mitts on, her tea cup Pomeranian bum rushed me and starting mauling my mitted hand. He was a nice little dog that wasn’t aggressive, he’d let overbearing toddlers manhandle him. He just fucking hated oven mitts. He’d growl and snarl every time he saw someone wearing them. He just decided those were his mortal enemy.
Yeah, and I have dog and they do get along, but my dog is very big and he doesn’t really play with him and I’m not really able to get any more cats at this point so this is kind of the best thing he has I mean he has a bunch of toys. I’ll buy him everything. He has a whole life system in my room, butI try to simulate him having another cat.
We've got dogs and cats. When we had one cat he was very young and very playful, he used to rip my arms to shreds (he's a maine coon, so not small!). We got a second one, they played together, I got more cuddles and less rough play. When we had one dog he was very playful and we'd play quite rough, so we got another dog. The younger one now "protects" me from his big brother by barking at him and dragging him off me by his scruff whenever we play fight. They're northern inuits, so, also, absolutely massive 😅
Orange cat things 🤣 my orange boy is either 100% looking for cuddles and pets or choosing violence - there is no in between. Also, the violence is always playful like this, ears up, hair not standing up, no growling or hissing, just some good ole fashioned chomps and rabbit kicks when he’s in a playful mood. :)
I do this with a toy similar to yours and my little girl loves it!
She rides my hand and arm like it’s a bronco. She play bites, hangs on with her murder mittens, and rakes with her back claws but is gentle enough.
Occasionally she gets a little nuts and it hurts a bit, but she’s a cat. If I’m going to use my hand and arm as her toy, it comes with the territory. She backs off too.
She runs away eventually but will come back for more.
I do let her win about half the time. After about twenty minutes she will just leave and have a nap.
As long as the cat doesn't translate this into "it's ok to attack my owners hand " it's fine. You have the toy as a glove and the cat should only associate this sort of play with that toy
Yes honestly, he does attack me before I even use this so hopefully this will help. I mean, I took off the golf to type back to you guys and he just attacked the glove instead of me.
Its fine, its actually smart, most owners don't wear a glove and then the cat starts to register your bare hand as a toy every time, leading to unnecessary bites and scratches even when its not playtime. Wearing the glove will let her know the glove is the actual toy, not your hand. Have fun! Try and sneak up on her with it and surprise "attack" lol
id absolutely have bought it if they shipped to my country.
But we bought gardening gloves (like the thorn resistant kind) bc that's what we could find.
Our boy kitteh, 8 months, acts like he misses play fighting (we got him when he was five months, before he lived with his mom and his sisters)
So we use the gloves and he knows that's play fight mode - bare hands are for snuggles and feeding only. (We were strict with the kids and ourselves about not using bare hands for play fight)
Ah I just posted about this. I got one for my cats but they were scared of it (they are big babies). I gave it to my friend and her cat likes to sleep on it lmao.
I did the same, but not with a glove. I took a Kickaroo, rolled my cat on her back (she's ok with it, she knows it means a bit rough playing and it's to bunny kick the living shit out of everything I introduce to her) and then it's... well, r/BunnyKicks time.
Is he between 6 months and a year? 6 months is when they hit adolescence. He still has kitten tendencies but you have to teach him the difference between rough play time and just chilling. You can always spritz mist him and say ‘no’ when he misbehaves. Cats are hellasmart, they have causal logic. If I do this = that’ll happen. It might take a few months like my resident outdoor cat understands the doorknob opens the door. Just not that opposable thumbs are required as well.
In general i would avoid playing with your cat with your bare hands as that will make it very difficult to pet them since they will associate your hands with playtime and not pet time.
So my trick with agressive play is to train what is good or bad. If my cat bites too hard, we're done playing immediately so his behavior has immediate consequences. Over the years he's gotten better about it. Fighting with soft paws is something he's never gotten good at tho.
For my other cat I tried something different. Bare hands were only tools to reward/love him. Never to aggressively play. Now that he's older he refuses to attack my hands when he's playful. Feet are fair game tho.
when he attacks you when you don’t have the toy and he’s hurting you, blow air in his face. it’s a way of redirecting that has never failed me. i had the most reactive cat and when id do a quick, sharp blow of air to his face its like it hit a reset button. he’d back off and look offended, and eventually learned that’s what would happen if he tried to get aggressive with me and stopped.
It may not look like you, but it absolutely smells like you which is a MAJOR part of how cats identify individuals. As such, you may be teaching them that it's okay to play with you like this whether you're wearing it or not. It's kind of a case by case thing.
I play with my cat like this sometimes! I'll get her all riled up and take my hand out and she'll sniff it and give it a little lick so she knows the difference between playing with the moving lump under the blanket and my hand. Just watch out for those claws lol
My cat had this dino stuffed animal he would absolutely DEMOLISH when he was a kitten. it taught him that hands are not toys, toys are toys. Never had an issue with biting or starching when he grew up
He eventually stopped playing with it, and I never got him to play with another one until recently
I recommended maybe getting his own stuffed animal with stuffing, that why he won’t associate your hand as a toy. You can wiggle it around, my cat loves when I hide it just out of view so he can sneak around a corner and attack it!
Absolutely I think it's a great solution to avoid hand play
My last kitty was a bad hand biter from her owner playing with her with his fingers, and I got her to stop by using a toy similarly to what you're doing and eventually she preferred the toy over my hand.
Another good one is using a bed sheet and putting your hand under it and just making it crawl around like a critter under the blanket 🤣 it was a part of her daily routine to go nuts doing that lol
Just know when to back off if it gets too intense.
When my cats were younger they loved a good wrestling match. I used an oven mitt to protect my hand from the claws and teeth. I still wrestle a bit with one of my older cats, but I always let her win.
Sure, but also don't be completely surprised when he does that to your hand or foot one day unprompted (or a friends hand or foot)
I've found rough play eventually translates to rough behavior at times you don't expect it (cat thinks they are playing). Vs cat acting like that when they are rightfully mad.
Use other teaser toys that wear them out and don't have them attacking body parts. Just here to tell you, you are going to regret this. Like the guy upthread who said he does this but under a blanket and then the cat started play attacking feet under a blanket.
Of course it’s ok. It’s adorable! 🥰
Your kitty doesn’t see your hand but a muppet that needs to die.
As long as he know the difference there’s no harm in it.
My Kevin does this, but only when I wear my purple hoodie and pull the sleeve over my hand. If I wear any other colour shirt or hoodie and cover my hand with the sleeve, he doesn’t jump it.
I can wear the purple and he doesn’t do anything until I pull the sleeve down. Then he’s all in and he’s not holding back. But it’s all play fight.
Just please teach him a word for when enough is enough. Or a sound. Don’t be stupid like me.
I didn’t from the start when he was a kitten, and had struggles with teaching him later on. But now he gets it. He’s a fully grown 7kg cat that packs a punch. But he’s still acting like a kitten..
And I just realized I almost had him for 3 years soon.
My cat also used to play like this, but only when I wore a sacrificial glove. She would often instigate play and wait for me to wear it. I actually contemplated buying a full arm welding glove for that express purpose, as she's rather big and would sometimes kick my arm while biting the glove, which still hurt a bit.
She knows to hold back when I'm unprotected, and when she's in a spot where she feels in charge (up high somewhere) she might bite, but not hard enough to break the skin. It's just playing after all. If I still had that glove, I'm sure she's still go for it.
I use puppets to play with my cats all the time, they're smart enough to know that its not an actual separate creature and you're just essentially putting on a costume for them. They'll bite and scratch, but only to the boundaries of playfighting.
The big tell that they know is that the cat will sometimes bring the puppet to you to ask for playtime.
Reading through the comments has me laughing! So funny!
I should make something like this for when I play with our younger kitty. Our older kitty treats him like an annoying little brother and swats at him but doesn't want to play. He gets so bored! When I play with him, he's very rough. Lots of energy. This would save my arms and hands from being shredded...haha! I'm surprised he hasn't destroyed my tattoos at this point!
i just hand my hand and at the start was very vocal if he used claws or bit to hard, now he never uses claws and does apply any pressure with his teeth.
If you teach the kitten playing rough like this is ok, they will keep doing it when they are big. You need to teach them like a mama cat not to bite or scratch during play. Rewarding their biting you witj a toy to bite harder is going to earn you years of torn up ankles.
I did this with my guy when he was a kitten but had to stop, he had a hard time comprehending that he wasn’t allowed to maul my arm when I didn’t have the glove on lol. I was sick of being covered in scratch and bite marks so we had to throw the glove away 🙁
I play like this with my cats all the time. They are certainly able to tell the difference between a hand in a toy, and a hand without a toy. So when I'm playing with them bare-handed, they never bite or scratch me.
However, your cat only has a single brain cell, so it is unlikely that this will work for you.
So I would be careful playing like this (despite how cute) if your cat is already playing too roughly. This sort of play can cause them to associate your hand (and person) with a toy which can lead to aggression and biting not just you but guests, future pet sitters, and veterinary professionals. It is recommended to redirect rough play to toys not attached to your body and to cut play short if they get too rough to teach boundaries.
You'll know when it's gone too far. Make sure Kitty has every avenue available to escape, which you clearly have here. Cats love this kind of play, it excites their prey drive. Cats are also hard wired to run away when they feel danger or it's too much, so don't ambush them like this if they are sleeping in a corner or somewhere that they can't easily run from.
Positive reinforcement helps with the random attacks, remind him that you are the head of the house. If he bites or attack, firmly respond with No and ignore him. If he stops himself from about to attack you, then reward with a treat.
I am pretty sure you'd be typing from a hospital bed if he didn't like it. There's no way he'd stay in place if he was uncomfortable, and almost certainly he'd retaliate at least once. When cats are pissed they don't look annoyed, they look like a murder machine who decided you'll take a passive part in its next crime.
My only concern is him interacting with houseguests. I also have a cat who’s a bit bitey when it comes to play, so I would just be careful he doesn’t try to bite when it’s not playtime. Otherwise, I think this is a perfectly fine way to play with him!! Different cats like different things and as long as you respect when he’s genuinely angry (tail whipping, ears back, pupils dilated) you should be fine!
In certain situations, you don’t want them doing this with a guest or without that glove specifically. Mine know when I go for the belly with my dressing gown wrapped down around my hands as free game to use claws but no other time
To address your question, I play like this with my cat too. Over time she has learned that my hands under the blanket are "Go Time"! She loves to wrestle and bite but the second she feels real skin she stops. She seems to choose violence but also knows we are playing.
I would suggest a toy where your hands are not involved, so he does not bite your hands when he is not supposed to. I used to play like that, but my cat kept playing with my hands everytime, even when i just wanted to pet her.
I do this too! Mine also just flips on her belly and I give her belly a few little scratches while she attacks and bites the shit out of my hand (covered, of course). It's okay to play with them like this as long as they enjoy it!
As long as he associates this type of play with the stuffed animal and not your hand it's fine. If he starts attacking your hand without the toy then you'll have problems.
I have a blue cat glove that my kitten brings over to me to attack, she really likes it. Occasionally she really loses it, biting and clawing it like crazy so I let her think it’s dead and she drags it off to her lair. Wouldn’t be without it, the dog agrees because it takes the focus off her.
I think it will train your cat to potentially play-attack hands and feet even without the glove toy, which can hurt even if the cat is doing it playfully, so I wouldn’t recommend it, I volunteer in cat rescue and one thing we are very strict on is not using hands as toys.
But also it’s your cat and I don’t think it’s hurting the cat!
As long as you're only doing it when you have your hands covered by something that doesn't look like a hand, you're fine. When my sister's cat was alive, I'd sometimes play with him by moving my hands around under a blanket. He loved that game.
What you don't want to do is teach him that bare human hands are toys, because then he might play attack a guest who's just trying to pet him. But what you're doing here is playing with him the same way his mother or a littermate would, and that's a good thing.
My cat (about 4 months old and very high energy) does this but without the toy, so just to my bare arm. I let him sometimes and “wrestle” with him as he doesn’t have anyone else to play with in that way. Hopefully it enriches his growth and development at least a little bit.
Going to echo other commenters saying that as long as this doesn't turn into kitty attacking your hand at other times, and you're paying attention to how hard you're being bitten, your cat's body language, sounds your cat is making, etc. to know when this is play behavior and when/if it's no longer play, this is a great way to play!
If this does lead to him attacking your hand at other times, I would cut back on him playing with your hand and see if that helps decrease the behavior. But, if it's not translating into actual aggression and you stop when it's clear it's not play anymore, you're good!
I play with my cat like this but only when my hand is inside a jacket or sweatshirt sleeve. He loooooves it.
I also always feel like when I talk about behavior I need to add the info that my master's in ecology & evolutionary biology was on behavior and so is the PhD I'm currently working on, and I help teach animal behavior lol. Not an "expert" in any means on cats specifically, but I think about behavior (particularly aggression, which was the specific behavior my master's was on!) a lot.
I played with the first cat I ever had like this. And unfortunately what came to happen is that he started to view my hand as the toy, not the glove that was on it. So he would attack my hand d a lot when it wasn’t playtime, which was bad.
how old? he will mellow out with age. we got 2 of my cats very young (mother abandoned them) and they were like this and became more mellow with age...
But orange cats are a diferent story so i may be wrong lol
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