Rehabilitation for unreasonable cat?

[PourquoiTuGachesTaVie]

Now I know that the cat is right and we're wrong and we should just take each scratch like a human and quit whining, but if there is even a small possibility that the cat may be amenable to improving her behaviour then I'd like to try it.

She's approximately 2 years old. We've had her nearly 18 months now. Rescue cat, not much information about her background other than that her first family moved away and left her behind.

She is very friendly, loves to be in the same room as you and will try and follow you if you go out for a walk or in the car. However, the friendliness turns to biting and scratching within minutes or seconds with no warning. I think she is trying to play with us, but it hurts. She will also pounce on your legs randomly and bit you if you walk past her. She likes to be chased and played with in the garden and is a pretty good hunter. She has free access in and out the house.

Any suggestions for handling this or do I just need to accept that we have a cat who can't really be touched despite her liking to be stroked.

[Fluffycloudland77]

She sounds overstimulated, maybe try a few strokes on the head then stop fussing her.

Pouncing on legs is play behaviour.

[GamerCh1ck]

It's play aggression. The only way I know is lots of interactive play with toys to knacker them out (you want to get them panting) strictly no hands play at all.

[PourquoiTuGachesTaVie]

Thanks, I've done a little bit of reading on overstimulated cats and play aggression and it all looks so familiar! Thanks for the dreamies tip too.

[Carmex]

my girl is like this... well was. She's got better with age but she will still suddenly bite or scratch when we pet her. We have to stroke her for a bit then ignore her. I don't know about your cat but with ours we can see in her face when she's going to switch.