Dear Pammy, My kitten won’t stop.
I often get post ideas by looking at what people are googling for. A recent one made me smile:
my kitten wants to wrestle the other cats all day
Dear Readers,
Yes. Of course they do.
This is one of the more popular ways cats play. No one plays more than a kitten does. Whether it’s with their littermates or our ankles, a popular toy or a forbidden object, mindlessly attacking any vague approximation of future prey is what kittens do.
They endlessly rehearse hunting behavior.
This is why one of the most dismaying experiences of our delightful new kitten comes when they bite and scratch our hand. Fortunately, this is our fault.
I say “fortunately” because we can far more easily modify our own behavior than that of our kitten, who is mostly unthinking instinct. It isn’t until the developmental period of adolescence, several months down the road, that kittens develop the ability to think for more than mere minutes at a time.
If we interpret everything kittens do in this lens of “hunting practice” we will be able to maximise our interactions with our kittens for both teaching and enjoyment.
For unnecessary roughness, we can let our kitten know we’re injured by making sad, whimpery noises and letting the hand sag as we pull it away. To invite play, we can gently bonk them on the shoulder. To show friendliness, we can “lead with our forehead” to gently touch theirs.
These are all ways cats communicate with Momma Cat and their littermates. Our kitten doesn’t want to hurt or harass anyone. But they can’t moderate their behavior until they get the proper feedback that there is something wrong.
Other cats are the best sources of proper feedback. But if our kitten did not get enough littermate play, or enough Mama Cat messages, during the prime time to learn this… they won’t learn it.
Then, we have to teach it to them.
The key to kitten training is knowing their attention span.
Got here from a Link or Search?
There’s more ways to care for our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on CAT CARE.
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