Is It Normal For Kittens To Bite Your Hands
But luckily for you and your fingers kitten biting naturally decreases as your cat ages and usually disappears by 12 months of age she adds.
Is it normal for kittens to bite your hands. This is generally regarded as mock aggression. A young kitten will pounce chase stalk wrestle bite and scratch its siblings and mother. Never allow your kitten or cat to play with your bare hands fingers or toes. This is all normal behavior for a kitten.
There should be a variety of toys at least three available so your cat does not get bored. If you offer your hands as toys you re encouraging a risky habit. Kittens start losing their baby teeth around 9 weeks of age and from that time until their adult teeth are fully grown in at 5 to 6 months you can count on lots of chewing action. Yes nibbling kittens can look cute when they gently chew on your fingers.
Beginning around 4 weeks of age kittens will start visually track objects that look like prey and practice their pounce. So it s up to you as a kitten owner to train your little furry friend not to continue this potentially destructive and dangerous behavior. How to get kittens not to bite you cats are a predator species so it s perfectly normal for kittens to express their natural instinct to attack chomp and gnaw. When you roughhouse with your hands and fingers your kitten will associate your hands as toys this is confusing for them and you are actually teaching them to bite.
Stuffed animals are a hit with many cats. This is the time when each kitten learns how to use an inhibited bite so as not to. Kittens bite for many reasons. If your kitten won t stop biting you need to set limits and learn effective methods for training such as clicker training for kittens.
Kittens bite because they re teething which happens when they re 2 weeks old and then again around 4 months she says. Fully grown adult cats though can do serious damage to property and people when they gnaw and bite. Offer an appropriate interactive toy for the cat to bite. Da bird or other teaser toys are a great choice.
However normal exploration and kitten games can turn into a cat biting problem. It turns out that kitten biting is part of the play behavior kittens learn when they are with their littermates. All cats should be taught that hands are not toys. Give your kitten 15 minutes of active play several times a day with an interactive toy.
According to cat behaviorists you should switch from using your hands or fingers to using toys. This way they won t mistake them for toys.