I own a menace cat. Help me please

[Azusanga]

Some of you may remember Piper, the sweet little kitten that we hand raised from 2 weeks old to now. He's turned from a curious little baby to a freaking menace.

My arms and hands frequently look like I've been in a serious fight, since he adores attacking them. He's front paw declawed (not my decision) and he was neutered at 2 months old. He has PLENTY of toys to play with, of all varieties. He likes hairties, milk rings, mice, crinkle balls, bells, and rubber bands. We monitor him closely when he's playing with something that could potentially harm him. There's only one toy that he's consistently loved, I mean LOVED. to the point where he would chase it until he was panting. But he destroyed it.

He also terrorizes our other cat, Annabelle. He chases her around and tackles her, biting her until someone breaks them up or she gets hurt enough to smack him with her paw. We have a squirt bottle but it's completely ineffective. He eats food out of your bowl if you're not watching closely, he'll rip open containers to get to the food, he'll chew through plastic to take a chomp out of every piece of bread in the entire loaf. Oh, but believe me. He's far from starved. He is free fed 4health cat food (holistic), get a tablespoon of B4Grains wet food in the morning, and rabbit-meat treats when he's been good about something (getting his ears cleaned, listening to a command, that kind of thing).

Their dry food (Just use 54136 as a zip-code, that's my zip..)
Their wet food
His treats (Annabelle only eats Greenies)  

[Eileen50]

I assume Piper is still quite young, like around a year old or so maybe? For starters, it almost sounds like you're training him to fight/attack your hands. On the extreme side of this, I had an uncle that did that with one of his cats big time, and he actually wore long leather work gloves when fighting with Grunnycakes. Another uncle (younger brother to the first uncle) also trained another cat to be a fighter, but did not use gloves. Unfortunately, Shawn would always attack my grandma, which was not acceptable. The last time he did so, it was with a vengeance and he tore into her pretty good, bad enough as to where they had to put Shawn down as he could not be trusted around my aging grandma anymore. Don't get me wrong though, as I do play a little rough with one of my cats, which always results in getting scratches and pokes on my hands fairly often gonk because Kyo is not declawed.

Cats tend to have an obsession with certain toys and NON-toys. I have 2 cats and several toys to keep them occupied, and they each have their own favorites. Kyo loves the wand toys most. Smokey fears wand toys, running away whenever we pull them out, but she absolutely loves to chase after cat toys thrown across the room, when Kyo will just sit there with no interest whatsoever.

But it seems to be an ongoing battle with a few certain household items that they just cannot leave well enough alone. stare Unfortunately, BOTH of them like to chew on plastic shopping bags and other similar plastics, especially when they are hungry. I have to get after them every single time I can catch them, so I try to keep those kind of plastics out of their reach.

Smokey likes to chew on the thin wires, as found on some headphones, breaking the wire and making them unusable. scream I can't even count the number of headsets we have lost to Smokey since we took her in! gonk Needless to say, we have learned to keep our headphones put away when not in use.

My other cat has an obsession with boxes. Kyo loves to crawl into boxes for his catnaps. When boxes are closed, he tries to chew and claw his way into them, making a mess all over the floor! gonk So I do have a few boxes placed around the house, just for him.

As for people foods, no foods can be left unobserved on the counters or tables, other than my fruit platter on the counter. Otherwise Smokey will be into your food the moment you turn your back. She's a very sneaky one! mad No crackers, breads or other baked goods can be left out, have to store them in either in the fridge or in containers on the counter. Dirty dishes left sitting out in the open are fair game, especially with Smokey around, so all dirty dishes get rinsed before stacking them on the dirty dish counter or in the dishwasher.

As for their cat food, I am unemployed and just cannot afford to feed expensive, specialty foods to my cats. I do feed them Purina Indoor cat food twice daily, soaking part of it in a little water and part is dry. And I give them Temptations cat treats, most often the Dental and Hairball control varieties, in which both seem to work fairly well.

It is rare to see my two cats getting along with each other. Kyo was adopted into this family first, so he's "king of the roost", so to speak. Smokey was taken in a few years later, and she is "the instigator". She is always swatting at him or attacking him, trying to show him who's boss. Kyo usually just backs off from her, ignoring her for the most part. Though every now and then, Kyo stands up for himself and charges at Smokey, who in turn throws a huge hissy fit and runs off. Kyo is King. gaia_crown And since we've had Smokey around, I have not seen a single mouse in the house, so she earns her keep by being our mouser. cool

Oh, and that squirt bottle filled with water is only a temporary fix ... when you can actually get them. rolleyes Smokey has a 6th sense about that squirt bottle ... she watches me watching her as she's causing mayhem. All I have to do is inch my hand towards that squirt bottle and she takes off running! Kyo, on the other hand, understands the command "NO!" and stops when he's doing wrong. Kyo only runs if I'm squirting after Smokey as she runs past him. So yah, Smokey is my intended target 99.9% of the time! xd

In the long run, it's basically just a matter of compromising, adjusting several aspects of your lifestyle in regards to having cats in your household. 3nodding  

[Azusanga]

Annabelle is five years his senior, and does NOT have a dominant bone in her body. She submits to him immediately, but he continues on his cat-ish rampage until she outruns him, outsmarts him, or someone breaks it up.

We've tried EVERYTHING to get him to stop biting. We've hissed (he bites harder) we've said NO in a loud, stern, and unhappy voice (he ignores it). We've blown in his face to startle him, and he goes right back to it. If you remove your hands from the situation, he'll move to where he last saw them and bite the closest flesh, such as your upper arm or your elbow. The only thing close to hesitation I've seen is when I give him a flick on the nose. I don't like to, but I also don't like bloodshed. Only recently has he learned to NOT bite faces, and it's been great to show up to job interviews without a giant slice from my eye to my chin.