We have a lovely cat in care at present who is very sweet, full on affactionate but she os occasionally nippy and with little warning. This makes her a little bit of a challange for homing as although people can learn to love a slightly unprecitable cat- when she nips the people who are thinking about taking her home, it kind of puts them off!
She nips in 2 situations... either when she doesn't like what you're doing/ stroking her in the wrong place or when, I would assume she has had too much fuss as you can be stroking and stroking, she's purring away and looking as though she's lovely and she just suddenly gets you! There's little warning apart from if you're quick enough to notice her head turn and get away just in time. She will then want attention again straight away so it's not like she wants you to go away so her behaviour is a little confusing!
The nips are not quite hard enough to break the skin but are quite painful and enough to bruise... sometimes she combined her teeth with claws, she sort of traps you in her hand if she thinks you're getting away and then it really is sore as she digs ehr claws right in too.
Because she's soooo lovely and such an affectionate, beautiful young cat she really is highly homable and pretty much had a great home lined up... until she bit him and now they are looking at other cats. Does anyone have any tips for helping to get her out of this? I think she has a little bit of petting agression so we're trying the tactic of not rewarding the bahaviour by a big reaction and just withdrawing attention with a 'no'. Attention is withdrawn for a couple of minutes with no eye contact, the fosterer acts as though she's not there and then a couple of minutes later, the petting starts again. The theory is that each time the petting period gets longer. She's a little unpredictable though and isn't consistant with ehr nippiness- sometimes it's several times in one day and then not for 3 days straight even when she gets lots of fuss. The fosterer is also learning to find where she does and does not like being touched but I don't think this is solving the problem, just avoiding it so I am keen to help to get her out of the behaviour altogether. (As much as poss anyway)
Any ideas?
