To Want To Give Kitten Away ?

[charley24]

Bit of background, I posted in March as our lovely cat Figaro (aged almost 1 year) was killed in the road.

We were all very upset especially DD1 (aged 10), we got lots of advice and decided that we would get a new kitten to help her (and us if the truth be told).

We found a kitten on preloved and went to visit, home was nice, and 5 kittens and mother.

We chose one (boy) and we knew there would be a wait. Anyways we visited a couple of times and all was well.

The lady rang (young couple no children) and said he was ready so we picked him up and paid the £50 (I know some people don't agree with buying kittens rather than from homes but we contacted our local cat shelter who said no kittens as we have a young child (age 5) and she only gave kittens to families with no/or grown up children. To be honest she actually made it quite difficult for me on the phone as she was trying to force me into having 1 year old cats who lived with her rather than a younger cat.

Anyways, that is by the by. So we picked up new cat, he was fine, came home, 2 little accidents then using litter fine, eating well.

2 days later the biting started and yes I know kittens bite, but he is actually quite ferocious and attacks both the children and myself (not so much hubby the alpha male). He actually has sunk his teeth into me on a daily basis and broken the skin. He has attacked my face twice whilst I have been lying down (bit my nose) and won't let us touch him, or stroke him.

As you can imagine it is impossible to 'bond' with him and to be honest I am worn out ! All I seem, and the rest of family do is shout and tell him off.

We have been trying methods such a tapping nose, moving him, ignoring him and water spraying (but he seems to like water).

We worked out he was only 6 weeks and 2 days when he arrived and the couple told us that the vet said the kittens were ready to go.

Last week I took him to the vet and he bit the vet, the vet said he may need behaviour therapy.........and that he was taken from mother too young and no vet would have receommended leaving mother at that age. He is now 10 weeks old.

My DD2 (aged 5) is terrified and cries as she can't even walk in the house without being attacked (I had to explain at school about the deep scratches on her legs, arms and even face. You would be suprised the strength in his teeth at such a young age, I have actually cried with the pain when he has bitten me.

We are getting no where and I keep going from, oh give him time, to I really don't think this cat is happy with us and we aren't happy with him.

I feel terrible......we loved Figaro so much and he was wonderful (he was 14 weeks when he came to us) and he was born is a house with children/dogs and was so sociable, never bit nor scratched.

So my dilemma is does he stay or does he go to a family with no children, or a home where someone is in all day every day ?

But how would I find him a home when I couldn't lie and say he was nice natured as at the moment I am checking his fur for 666 !

Please help, I am in such a dilemma and I really don't know what to do. We love animals but I am starting to having to put him in kitchen alone more often as otherwise my DD can't even feel safe in her own house.

Thanks x

Charley - I think you've discovered why the lady at the cat shelter wanted you to take a one-year-old whose temperament she was familiar with! Lots of shelters have a blanket ban on kittens and young children and this is why.

I've fostered a cat like your current kitten and I know how difficult an aggressive cat can be to deal with. Truthfully, I think you probably won't be able to do much with him. In your shoes, I'd call your local CPL or other cat charity with a no-kill policy and explain the situation. If they can get the kitten to some experienced fosterers in a quiet home with no children, they'll probably be able to turn his behaviour around enough to rehome him permanently.

And if you decide you still want a cat, once he's gone, take the advice of the cat shelter on what animal would suit your family best. One year old cats are great - all of the energy and fun of a kitten, with much less uncertainty and adolescent angst.

PS please don't rehome him through Preloved / Gumtree / Freecycle. He needs to go to people who know what they're doing.

i had all my kittens vet checked a kitten is never ready to go at six weeks ever. make sure when you buy it comes from a home with children, the home is clean, the kitten must be a minium of 8 weeks old, also wormed, pick up the kitten and play with it do not rush see the mother cat is she friendly also if the ownwers try to rush you its for a reason! you should try to spend half an hour there even if it means asking silly questions to extend the time. kittens are great pets as you know and i hope it hasnt put your childen off another one i wish you the best of luck i am sorry i cant offer you one of mine i would have happy have but they they have already gone to new homes.

It sounds to me that the father of this kitten was probably a feral cat and no matter how hard you try and how much you cuddle and fuss it, it will always be slightly wild. Wild cats do not usually 'come round' unless they are extensively handled from a very young age.
I think this kitten will always be like this TBH and although he may get better he will probably never be as cuddly as a full domesticated cat. The person you bought it from obviously didn't handle it enough and must have known that the father was feral.
I think you should rehome it rather than put up with it as you won't enjoy the cat. Either rehome it as a farm cat or to someone who knows its not going to be a cuddly cat. We used to have a lot of semi feral and feral cats in the rescue I worked for and often people would come in asking for a outside cat or one just to keep the mice down.

Underneaththestream is right. Get a crate or a private area for the cat, it is far too young and utterly terrified.

My Hufflepuff was like this - he is now 11 and drapes himself like liquid over me every day, I can bath him, I can cut the curls from his nails, he is utterly soppy.

At the beginning I used gardening gloeves, ignored him, praised him and was totally gentle with him when he was receptive.

Usually between 6-9 weeks kittens work out all their play fighting with their siblings. Yours has missed out on that. If you keep him, yelp loudly (like you would do with puppies) every time he hurts. Play with string, a ball with him (wearing thick gardening gloves) and let him play fight with that for an hour or so a day.

Do not tap him on the nose.

Why not give Celia Hammond a call. They specialise in feral cats and really do know what they're doing.

www.celiahammond.org/

My mum took in a family of cats which neither the CPL or RSPCA were intreested in. Mum, Dad and two kittens, the first kitten was absolutely fine and very friendly once she had got used to us. The second took a month longer to catch and hated being touched. My mum just used to let her do her own thing, but it show how important those early weeks are for socialisation.

I appreciate it's difficult and you may not have the room but she put the cats in her spare bedroom and spent time in there with them on their terms, gradually letting them out into the rest of the house. the mum never did let herself be touched but loved the couch and fire.

When my mum died she had five cats which with three of my own obviously couldn't take them all. I contacted Celia hammond as I didn't trust anyone else not to put them to sleep. They lived there till they were homed.

The other thing is Zylkene which is a nutritional supplement for stress. Also agree with trying Feliway.

Apologies for length but hope it helps. Good luck

Agree with underthestream and attenborough. The blue cross have animal behaviorists on staff so I would suggest calling your local centre for advice. You may be able to get him to settle down if he feels secure in your home and has his own space, but it not, it may be more sensible to rehome him and get a lovely one year old cat instead. I hope you can work something out.

could you borrow a older bolshy cat from someone for a few days to teach it some manners ? if my old cat was alive you could have borrowed him ,he trained my other cat and dog very quickly !

Hi charley, I just thought I'd let you know that I had the exact same problem with my now 8 month old kitten, he was awful and biting to hurt etc like yours. To be honest the thing that calmed him down was castration! Since then he's become soo lazy and sweet and comes for cuddles every day (worth tellingyou he still nibbles my face to wake me up onthe morning!)

If you are really at the end of your tether id say it is kindest to rehome for everyone. Where abouts are you? If you're in the north west I would be interested, and my mum in north Wales is always adopting!

a couple of little things that I found worked pretty well are to make sure you play with him with a proper cat toy for a good hour a day, and when he tries to fight you just walk away- flicking noses an things seems to just up the aggression if you have a boisterous cat.
Good luck, and let us know how you get on x

We had the exact same problem as you. We got our kitten from a family home, aged 8 weeks.

Within a week or so he had begun attacking us. As he grew larger, the attacks were more sustained. He would literally go straight for you as soon as you got out of bed (attacking bare feet, ankles, biting, scratching). He attacked DD on several occasions.

We took him to the vet, had him neutered. They only managed to take out one testicle though, so had to have a repeat operation. All the while, he continued to try and kill us .

Anyhow, fate intervened when he was around eight months old. He'd been outside, got hit by a car and died at the vet . So, all in all, a tragic and odd life.

That was around five years ago. We then adopted a grown up female cat and she's the most lovely animal ever.

I would recommend calling Cats Protection league or finding out if a rural, semi-feral placement could be found?

I was going to suggest Celia Hammond too. I do think that you should get your money back from the people who sold it to you - they are massively irresponsible selling a kitten that is so young. No vet would have told them he was ready to leave his mother.

You might be better getting an older cat to be honest - you know what you're getting and they are much more likely to be cuddly. It's a struggle to get mine out of the house a lot of the time

Thank you so much for all your insight and your advice on what to do.

We have decided that we will give another month and are trying different things.

For example ignoring when he bites and walking away instead of scolding, apart from a no !

I wonder if he can use the internet as he has been much better today and actually sat on hubbys knee and allowed a stroke....long way to go but think if we give him a little more time and then reassess it may be better.

I really thank all of you for your posts, I don't feel so bad today x

Really really get him an upside down box with a hole for access to give him private space ? and don?t move it even to clean under for as long as you can bear?

Lauriefairycake has given the best advice so far.

I'd like to second the advice about ignoring the cat whenever he missbehaves. If he bites or scratches, turn your back on him. Do not acknowledge him at all. I appreciate this may be hard to maintain with dc's in the house.

Also, try not to stare directly into the eyes of the cat - sounds odd but a direct stare is threatening to a cat.

I've "tamed" a feral farm cat and a street cat over the years, the above worked well on both.

Also, too, if you chose to rehome, please don't get another cat right away.

Your loss was too fresh, IMO, to get another cat/kitten in.

It may also teach children that when something dies, to go out in replace it straightaway rather than leave time to grieve through the loss.

Sorry you are going through this.

I agree with everything Underneath has said - you need to create a safe place for him and make sure that your DC know it is absolutely forbidden to pester him when he's in it. Something like this would be fine:

www.itsforpets.co.uk/images/5006018402f.jpg

The cat equivalent of a smile is a long slow blink; try it when he's calm. Also, get a feathery wand from the local pet shop - he is still very young and will need to chase and hunt and catch, so channel it into play and tire him out that way. Does he have some ping pong balls to chase around? Dangling a ribbon from a closed drawer for him to play with is another good way of giving him opportunities to work out his energy in acceptable ways.

We had a cat like this years ago. We acquired a 6mo kitten via a cat rescue group when we were students. Flatmate and her boyfriend went to pick it up from alcoholic man who had taken in a pregnant stray. He didn't know what to do with the kittens, so he put mum and kittens in the bathroom and threw food in once a day. Kitten had been neutered the day before we got him

So what we got was a 6mo feral cat, who had never been handled and was mighty pissed off and upset. He hid under the beds, attacked anyone who came near him, and had diarrhoea all the way up the hall. we used to be scared to come home! After a week, we had him in the basket, ready to take back to the rescue, but flatmate's boyfriend (who was a soft touch) begged us to give him a chance. We gave him a fortnight

Slowly but surely he came round. And ended up being one of the most placid and best- natured cats I have ever known. A real character. He ended up coming with me after graduation and made fans and friends wherever we went. I had him until he was 11 and was hit by a car, while I was on holiday (he was being cat-sat) I have had cats since, but never like him. My kids still urge me to tell stories about him, although they never met him.

Worth giving him a chance, I'd say. But I'd agree about the no tapping etc. We just left our boy alone, and he gradually came to realise we weren't the threat he thought we were, and he turned out to be a cat in a million. Hope yours does the same

Both our boys where like this ,they where neglected rescue cats and wild at 6 months but dd1 [12 at the time] got them tamed, I know it sounds bizarre but she got their blanket and over a period of a few weeks wrapped them in it for cuddles until they got less and less agressive, they eventually started coming to sit on her without it and now 6 years on are the softest pair of cats we've ever had.

We got a kitten about 3 months ago now, he came from a pretty rough environment (there's mess and there's filfth, this was the latter and probably the only reason I bought him there and then!), he was fairly aggressive towards us all (DD1 aged 10, dd2 aged 2.5 and myself) except DH. He would literally attack DD2 as she walked past him! We have treated him as I would treat a naughty child, every time he attacked one of us we would pick him up by the scruff of his neck (not in an agressive way but just so that it was similar to how his mum would do it and slos so he couldn't continue to attack us!) and remove him from the room. When he was in the room and not attacking we would make a lot of fuss of him, lots of stroking and treats/different toys etc to play with. We also had him neutered at 4 months.

He is now an adorable member of teh family, he sleeps on our beds, curls up next to us on the sofa etc. He does have the occasional swipe at DD2 (but generally because she is getting on his nerves!) but he is a different cat. I honestly don't think he had learnt how to be nice.

Thank you for your posts, LisaD1, your story sounds just like mine !

We are going to persevere for the time being and look into having him fixed.

Our lcoal vets won't until they are 5.5 months old (he is 10 weeks), not sure if other vets do earlier, or whether it's good/bad one way or another ?

Perhaps someone who is a vet, vetinary nurse can advise ? 4 months would only be another 6 weeks.

I remember your first thread- sorry to hear it isn't working out so far!

Vicky Halls does a really good series of books called 'Cat Confidential' about dealing with problem behaviour. She used to be a cat behaviour therapist and I think you'd find it really helpful, from what I remember there is lots of info on dealing wiith aggression in there.

Other people have also said but I'd also recommend completely ignoring the cat as much as possible, let him come to you (if he wants to.)

I rehomed an 11 year old cat last year who spent the first fortnight sitting under the sofa. I was starting to wonder what I'd let myself in for, but slowoly but surely she's come round and she's s a lovely affectionate little thing now.