Kitten advice please

[calibra101]

My mother has a rescue kitten who is now 6 months old but she is crazy (the kitten not my mother lol). I know kittens play etc but this one is hyper, she continually dashes everywhere, tries to climb the walls, is up on shelves knocking things over, hangs off the curtains, and much  more. She bites my mothers fingers and legs which has to stop. The kitten has plenty of toys. She is due to be spayed soon. Does anyone have advice on possibly calming her down as my mother has mobility problems and is finding it hard to cope with her atm. Thanks.

[fishpieface]

Calibra, how lovely, but it sounds like your Mum's got a very naughty one there!

Spaying may well calm her a little.  Does she do it all the time or just at certain

times of day?

A firm no can do the trick, though may need a few before kitty realises what the

firm no is being applied to.  I always pick my kitty up and say no to him, so he

knows he's done something naughty, then I put him down again before continuing

whatever we were doing.  If he claws, I take his paw gently in my hand and squeeze

it gently telling him to keep his claws in - I don't think he understands the words but

he may well understand the gentle squeeze as he seldom puts his claws out now.

Your mum could get her a scratching post or an old bit of rug or tree branch or

something that he is allowed to scratch.  When he scratches the furniture or curtains,

remove him, say no firmly and put him on the thing he can scratch.

My experience is that kittens need time to adjust and know what they are allowed

to do, and where, and what isn't acceptable.

Hope he gets better behaved!

[captainbovine]

you could get one of those pheremone plug in things, are they called Ferraway?

they say they calm down norty kittez!!!!

kittens that bite, usually do because people have been "playing" with the kitten by putting out their hand and wiggling their fingers, the kitten then thinks that you play with the hand and bite the fingers.

Replace wiggling your fingers with one of those feather thingies in a stick.

[wskneil]

http://www.feliway.com/uk/

[saasher2012]

Just a thought & I'm not really a cat person so it's a stab in the dark? Could it be because it's a rescue kitten that it hasn't been taught or learned the manners a younger kitten would have in a home, also is it just because it now feels at home & is letting off steam?
But I agree with you it must be taught or that excessive behaviour could turn into a problem, cats are intelligent & with gentle but firm repetition when doing wrong , this lucky little cat will reward them with years of pleasure!.

[lhasa.two]

Just a few views to throw in the mix...

Sounds like a feral cat to me... or maybe has an overactive thyroid...

Kittens do mental things like climb curtains and scratch etc but if they're told not to often enough they usually start responding by 6 months old.

This is interesting from the RSPCA web site, noting the difference between a stray and feral cat. Maybe whoever your mother got the cat from thought it was a stray and not feral. 

http://www.rspca.org.uk/allaboutanimals/helpandadvice/straycats

[rsjlew]

Another quick thought, do kitty's toys have catnip in them? Some cats react really strongly to it even though they love it

I remember when we moved house with 2 cats, we sprinkled catnip around the place to try and acclimatise them and make it feel like a good place for them to be. One settled down happily and slept, the other ran circuits all night as if super charged! Totally out of character as she was usually the more timid, quiet one

[calibra101]

In reply to fish she is worse in the morning and calms down towards the evening where she becomes loving. She then snuggles up to my mother and  purrs contended. She hasa scratching post. She has bitten my mother since day one, no teasing involved. My mother does say NO but I dont think her voice is firm enough, unlike mine,   Her history is that she was in a box of kittens found outside a Pets at Home store aged approx 5 weeks, my mother had her at 9 weeks Maybe the foster carer who had her  first  let her run riot.  I will definitely try Farraway  though. Thank you all for your advice and thoughts on the matter.

[calibra101]

No catnip as we were warned against it.

[calibra101]

She is a hellava norty puddytat so far .

[m25jet]

One other suggestion I've just thought of that might work would be for your mother to get another older, more grounded cat, that the kitten could interact with.  By having another cat around the kitten would hopefully pay attention and realise what the behaviour of a normal cat is actually like, and also from seeing what that cat gets rewarded and told off for.  Another advantage would be that if the kitten went too far with the older cat then the adult cat would most likely make it clear from his/her reaction to the kitten's bad behaviour as to what is most likely to result when the kitten oversteps the mark.  It might occasionally result in a catfight but the kitten would learn the rules the natural way, as the kitten would most likely find it easier to relate to another cat than a human.  When I was growing up we had three cats and when the youngest cat got pregnant (the other two had been spayed) the kittens would learn about what was acceptable behaviour by interacting with their mother and the other two cats.  We did have to tell them off occasionally but the fact that they had other cats around to learn from seemed to help the little kittens no end - we never gave them to new homes until they were totally ready to go and were fully prepared for life as somebody's pet cat.  If the kitten has plenty of toys that it is allowed to go wild with then hopefully it won't feel the need to climb up the curtains or claw your mother's hands if it has toys that it knows it can go berserk with without getting told off for doing so.  All cats need to let off steam occasionally - some just take longer to settle down than others, particularly if they've had a bad start in life.  Most eventually do settle down and make nice pets - just be patient with it, give it lots of attention and it should grow out of that behaviour as it gets older.

[caryl576]

Young cats will want to play,

Just having toys is not much use as they don't do much on their own, your mother really needs to activly play with the cat for at least 30 mins a day (or until the cat gets bored and stops) to tire it out

[calibra101]

She gets plenty of play from my mother and other family members but when SHE gets bored she goes off and hangs on the curtains or other destructive behaviour. I phoned the vet this morning and he also reccommended Ferraway. I have booked her in for spaying on Friday so fingers crossed it may go someway to calming her down.

[wskneil]

When I had kittens I always used to clip the tips off their nails. This was after coming home one day and finding that my 4 kittens had been running up my net curtains and shredded them. After clipping their claws they had a few attempts at running up the curtains, fell off and gave up on the idea. Once they got a bit bigger and their claws less needle like I didn't need to do it

[saasher2012]

You had kittens?.lol.

[rose2008-2008]

When my first cat was a baby she was just like that,,,,MANIC. We had to get toys to occupy her, but i think the Feliway might be a good idea to calm her a little. I think they can be like this until they settle so you might have to give it a little time!!!!!. awwww bless.

[wskneil]

---

@saasher2012 wrote:
You had kittens?.lol.

---

The midwife was amazed!

[chips-and-brown-gravy]

Some kittens are like this - I've had a couple, they do calm down with age (mostly). My old vet when we were up country, used to recon there was an 'off switch' which calmed them down a bit when they were spayed.

Just a thought about her biting - get the vet to check her teeth, she may be losing her milk teeth (they can go on 'teething' until they are up to 9 months)  and it could be teething behaviour a sharp 'no' and a gentle tap on the nose should do the trick.

Feliway didn't work on any of mine and personally I would try other avenues first, kittens like puppies are easily trainable as long as it's consistant.

It's a shame your mother didn't get an older cat, they are much calmer.  All of my current three are rescues one was 9, one 6 and one 3, never any problems with them, behaviour wise and they all settled very quickly.

[saasher2012]

Bet that cost you a fortune with Birthday presents?
Bet you had to get the Midwife & OH a Brandy after giving em a shock like that? lol. Sam.

[calibra101]

Thought I'd post an update and another question.

Kitty has been spayed and has seemed to calm down a bit     (still a bit loopy in the morning though). She has her last set of vaccines and wll be frontlined next week. Question now is at what age do you let a cat out on her own and how would you go about it. I do not want her to get lost etc. I have never had a cat (only dogs) so I am unsure on what to advise my mother to do. Thanks.