6mo old male F4 jumping on girlfriend

[Gfdriscoll]

Hi all, hope everyone is well. Our F4 Quinn is 6 months old and was just neutered yesterday.

His one behavior that is disconcerting is that he will repeatedly jump on my girlfriend'a arm/leg/torso and grab hold with legs and mouth. It is quite frustrating. We curbed it with time outs and a spray bottle but it seems it is back in full swing w him. He will do it to me every so often as well- but more to Alicia.

He is overall a great pet. Plays non stop, will curl up on the couch at night, isn't allowed in our bedroom at night and behaves by himself in his areas. This jumping needs to go though.

Can anyone offer any advice? I'm about to dig into a search on the site to gain some knowledge from the savannah cat brain trust, but was hoping to hear some advice from the pros.

Regards ,

Gerard

 

[WitchyWoman]

What has your girlfriend tried thus far to stop the behavior? Saying "no" in a firm voice and putting him on the floor, redirecting the behavior onto a toy, scruffing him and firmly saying "no" are some things to try.

Is he doing this to get her attention? Is he jealous of her? Does he not like her for some reason?

Marilyn Krieger, the cat coach -- http://thecatcoach.com/ -- can do phone consults and I'm sure she would have some suggestions for how to stop the behavior.

 

[Jim & Baghira]

Heya Gfdriscoll!!!
Baghira use to do the same thing with my wife at that age. All you can really do is get up and leave the room . He´ll get the hint sooner or later. That´s just the way cats like to play really.
Question for ya. Is he your only cat or do you have more cats?
Baghira got better after about 2-3 weeks of leaving him in the room by himself, but it never really stopped till we added another cat. Now that type of play they just do to each other and my wife is saved from it .

Hope that helps ya out a bit.
Jim

 

[Gfdriscoll]

What has your girlfriend tried thus far to stop the behavior? Saying "no" in a firm voice and putting him on the floor, redirecting the behavior onto a toy, scruffing him and firmly saying "no" are some things to try.

Is he doing this to get her attention? Is he jealous of her? Does he not like her for some reason?

Marilyn Krieger, the cat coach -- http://thecatcoach.com/ -- can do phone consults and I'm sure she would have some suggestions for how to stop the behavior.

What has your girlfriend tried thus far to stop the behavior? Saying "no" in a firm voice and putting him on the floor, redirecting the behavior onto a toy, scruffing him and firmly saying "no" are some things to try.

Is he doing this to get her attention? Is he jealous of her? Does he not like her for some reason?

Marilyn Krieger, the cat coach -- http://thecatcoach.com/ -- can do phone consults and I'm sure she would have some suggestions for how to stop the behavior.

She try's the no with grabbing the scruff, but I'm pretty sure he interprets that as "wrestle time"... We can adjust tho and try it again.

No reason not to like her. We both picked him out and brought him home when it was time. We both feed him equally etc.

Not sure if it's to get attention..... Most likely it is though now that I think about it. It will he when she is just walking by etc. Anytime really. When he gets wild we are accustomed to just grabbing the nearest toy and distracting him. Not always possible to do that tho and I really just want to train him to know that it's unnacceptable. I will look into the phone consultation. Thank u for the time you took to reply.

 

[Gfdriscoll]

Heya Gfdriscoll!!!
Baghira use to do the same thing with my wife at that age. All you can really do is get up and leave the room . He´ll get the hint sooner or later. That´s just the way cats like to play really.
Question for ya. Is he your only cat or do you have more cats?
Baghira got better after about 2-3 weeks of leaving him in the room by himself, but it never really stopped till we added another cat. Now that type of play they just do to each other and my wife is saved from it .

Hope that helps ya out a bit.
Jim

Hi Jim- he is our only cat. I can really see how having another cat or a dog would stop it. They would rough house with eachother....

 

[Patti]

Your wife might want to consider the scents she is wearing because these can sometimes attract this type of behavior - perfume, hair spray, hand lotion, shampoo, etc.

Sometimes time-outs are the best way to get the message across, so as soon as he does it, scruff him, put him is a crate, and walk away for five minutes. It this is attention seeking behavior then giving him a time-out is the worst punishment he can suffer.

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

I think that if your kitten is the only pet in the household then he's got nobody but you humans to expend his kitten energy on. Kittens love to wrestle.

So the choice is to get him a companion OR to work on helping him expend his energy in other ways to hopefully reduce his need to wrestle and rough house. Long play sessions where he is left panting. And then continuing the scruff and no. Make sure the scruff is held long enough to see his body go limp in the response they have to mama cat picking them up by the scruff of the neck. And be firm with the no and putting away from you. Leave the room if necessary. The behavior should not get any reward, even if the reward he is looking for is attention. So scruff and no, then leave.

Training a young pet can be work. The first year of my beagle's life was horrendous. He was awful. But we persisted and he's the best doggy ever now... and has remained thus for 13 years now. The work at the beginning was totally worth it

 

[Gfdriscoll]

Thanks to all for the advice. We are contemplating the second cat. For now, the other advice and shared experiences gave us some insight on how to keep at it. I'll try to get some pictures uploaded today ...