Aggression or something else?

[sasseena]

Hey everyone! I'm new to this so I hope I'm doing this right.

Tonight while sleeping, our F4 (7 month old spayed female) was sleeping with us like usual. Every night is the same, I get up to use the bathroom and she wakes up too. No biggie... I come back to bed and she usually goes through a softly biting fingers time before she will fall back asleep. We don't allow this and do our best to end it. Well tonight she kept biting our blanket and I would stop her. I found her claws dug deep into my hand and thought maybe it was an accident and just pulled her claws out of my skin and continued petting her to go back to sleep. Afterwards, she was still biting the blanket and my body pillow for a little (she has ripped holes in our comforter which is why I don't allow it). I thought she had fallen back asleep when I went to roll from my right side to left side...
Mid-roll she bit my stomach (right side) extremely hard which drew blood and obviously very painful. I cleaned it up and it looks like one tooth dug in pretty deep and it's burning pretty badly. My question is, what the hell was that about? She's never been aggressive like that with us. She does attack our domestic cat very often and we spray her with water, I thought we were making a little progress... but she has never bit us hard. Any ideas about what's going on or how to proceed?

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[Patti]

I am not sure why she is biting so hard, part of it may be because she is teething. You may need antibiotics for that belly bite - don't ignore it, cat bites can be nasty! You might consider having her checked by a vet just to make sure there is nothing going on in her mouth that might be aggravating her into biting. You didn't mention how you normally end her nippy behavior, but if she does it again I would immediately pick her up by the scruff and remove her from the room for the rest of the night. If the behavior persists you might want to consider consulting a cat behaviorist to see if they can identify something that you are missing...

 

[Rob1984]

is she seeing movement going on underneath the blanket ? if so im not sure any savannah can resist pouncing on that

 

[sasseena]

I am not sure why she is biting so hard, part of it may be because she is teething. You may need antibiotics for that belly bite - don't ignore it, cat bites can be nasty! You might consider having her checked by a vet just to make sure there is nothing going on in her mouth that might be aggravating her into biting. You didn't mention how you normally end her nippy behavior, but if she does it again I would immediately pick her up by the scruff and remove her from the room for the rest of the night. If the behavior persists you might want to consider consulting a cat behaviorist to see if they can identify something that you are missing...

Thank you for your response. She only nips at my fingers during the night. I end it by making a fist or putting my hands under a pillow so she can't get to them. She has also started biting our mattress. However, our mattress is only 3 days old and I assumed it was because of the new mattress material. I put neosporin on the bite and it seems okay so far. I'll keep and eye out for infection or anything that might resemble sepsis. Thank you for your ideas!

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[sasseena]

is she seeing movement going on underneath the blanket ? if so im not sure any savannah can resist pouncing on that

I don't think that was it. She has pounced and bit before for movement understand the blanket, this was definitely different.

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[Patti]

this was definitely different

She may have simply been asleep and startled/scared awake when you rolled over toward her so instinctively bit to ward off the 'threat'

 

[sasseena]

I don't think that was it. She has pounced and bit before for movement understand the blanket, this was definitely different.

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Underneath***... not understand. Bad typing. Sorry.

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[sasseena]

She may have simply been asleep and startled/scared awake when you rolled over toward her so instinctively bit to ward off the 'threat'

I can understand that too. It scared the crap out of me. Thanks for walking me through this. I was worried she all of the sudden hated me or something. If it happens again, I'll start with the vet and go from there.

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[Patti]

Bites can be very scary and intimidating, and make you quite wary of the animal that bit you. Just realize that it is extremely unlikely that she bit you out of sheer aggression or dislike, something else instinctive triggered it and she's probably forgotten all about the incident by now...