Please reconsider declawing your kitten. Declawing is actually amputation of each toe to the first joint, equivalent to having each of your own fingertips amputated down to the joint below your fingernails. But in a kitten's case, not only does she have to suffer the pain of multiple amputations, she also has to carry her entire body weight around on the amputated stumps.

Declawed cats sometimes suffer lifelong, chronic pain in their feet. This chronic pain can lead to permanent litterbox avoidance and/or biting behaviors. These amputation-induced behaviors then often result in the poor, mutilated cat being abandoned or dumped at a shelter. These are such sad and completely avoidable tragedies.

There are certainly things you can do to save your legs from injury until your kitten outgrows this "climbing" phase of her development. First, get her used to having her claws trimmed regularly. Use a fingernail clipper and snip off the very end (the hook) of each claw when it gets sharp. This will keep her claws dull so that they can't break skin if she tries to climb your legs. Second, let her know that climbing your legs is not allowable behavior. Use a squirt or spray bottle of water and give her a soaking when she tries to climb you. If that doesn't work, blow hard directly into her face. If that doesn't work, shake a can with a few coins in it, clap loudly, yell "NO!", or make some other sharp, loud sound to let her know that she has misbehaved. One or more of these deterrents will almost certainly work to stop the climbing behavior.

You can also purchase little plastic tips called Soft Paws that glue onto her claws so that she can't damage anything (including your skin) when she scratches.

Lastly, wear long jeans until you have this behavior under control and/or she outgrows it.

There's really no reason to risk the inevitable pain and possible much worse behavioral issues sometimes associaled with declawing. This climbing behavior will pass, but she will never be able to grow her toes back.

Laurie

Thank you for your reply.If this is just part of growing up I guess I can put on long pants(winter is coming)and withstand the bites and scratches.I have used the spray bottle and she just runs off and within ten min.she back at it again.Don't want her to go through life walking on her knuckles.Thank you again.

You're welcome. Thank you for deciding not to declaw. That is the only humane decision, IMHO.

The key to any successful training is consistency. If she starts biting and scratching again 10 mins after the water spray stopped her the first time, then spray her again. If you have to spray her every 10 minutes for a day or two, then do it. She'll get the message soon enough if you're consistent with the consequences. Kittens aren't stupid, but they can be obnoxiously persistent. You just have to be even more persistent than she is.

Remember, though, that her biting and scratching is perfectly natural and normal kitten behavior. That's how she instinctively hones her hunting skills. Of course in nature she would be inflicting such physical play on her littermates. YOU are now her littermate, so YOU are the one with whom she plays. You need to divert her play to objects other than your own body. Buy a variety of wand toys, some long pheasant or peacock feathers, a laser pointer, a few ping pong balls, and various other toys for her to play with. Then spend plenty of time using these toys to play with her. Let her take out all of that playful kitten aggression on inanimate objects. You'll both be a lot happier!

Good luck!

Laurie

Give the cat an upright and horizontal scratcher. Put a little catnip on both. Praise her when she uses them. They often want to scratch after eating and sleeping, so maybe put her near it when she wakes up. Some cats catch on quicker than others, be persistant.

She might be clawing you because she wants more interaction and wants to play more. My boy cat used to bite us whenever we walked by him (not bad bites, he never broke the skin). He wanted to play a lot, and no matter how much we played with him it wasn't enough. I got another kitten (his younger sister, in fact) and he hasn't bitten us since. One thing I have found that works is to make a high pitched squealing voice when they scratch or bite you. Mine will stop and actually lick the spot when I do that. It seems you have to get the tone right because it doesn't work for DH (he can't get the high pitch).

Good luck! Remember, be persistant.

No you dont want to de claw, it will wreck the temperment at the very worse, maim and cause pain the very least. The only suitations where de clawing is deemed nesscary by vets are IMO suitations where a cat should simply be PTS (or sent to live outdoors as a mouser in someones barn), such as having uncontrolable seriures that cause the cat to inflict pain upon itself, or extereme aggression and behavior trouble towards humans, these types of cats make the best barn cats as they are closer to wildness and better hunters, anyway..

in many countries de clawing cats is illegal, animal rights groups have been trying to get it made illegal for years but stupid fools make them back out simply because they don't want to have more cats put down, thats like saying, we should allow dog fighting because banning it, means some dogs must be put to sleep. Cats everywhere are put to sleep, its a part of life until the owning of intact animals is banned, and IMO though sad its better then wrecking their behavior and temperments over clawing/scratching issues, or idiot landlord requirements.

Soft paws is a good soltution to de clawing, though I've never tried it I have heard great things about it.

This kitty ignore everything I have done.Catnip don't work, water spray don't work,popping her on the head don't work.I live in New Jersey and my daughter brought this cat all the way from North Carolina and this is the only thing that saving this kitten.She loves me and in the morning when I wash my face she gets in the sink.When I open the refrigerator if I'm not careful she ends up inside.I might have to end up getting her a playmate.Now I know why people end up with ten cats.

Save your money and rain your cat. Use a squirt gun or water bottle, and Just say NO. In a week or less your kitty will leave you alone. Now I have to ask, why is your kitten scrathing you, what is the feding schedule you have your kitten on, is it trying to get your attention because it might be hungry or is it trying to get you to play with it.

I CAN spell, it just does not look like it I meant train not rain

Very often cats and kittens are not getting enough exercise/play, and so they direct themselves towards their owner. They need to be redirected, not just trained. For example, if your cat is scratching your carpet or furniture, squirting them and saying no will not really help, because they have to scratch and stretch. So they should instead be redirected to a fun type scratching surface, like a cat tree or cat condo. This helps them "be cats" in a non-destructive way.

About playing: if they don't have a playmate, you're it! You do not want your cat ever to associate your hands (or other body parts!) with an acceptable biting source! So use stuffed toys (my kittens have loved the little Beanie Babies, esoecially when they were Beanie Baby sized!) and fishing pole-type toys. This way the cat plays (which is as essential as scratching on surfaces) and tires out.

{{!gwi}}

I have used tape and plastic wrap to deter kitties from things that they seem to be attracted to.

I also find that my kitties have less desire to claw things if I keep them clipped weekly.

Clipped weekly?Can't get a hold on her to clip.As soon as she sees the clippers she takes off.This cat loves me but has a mine of her own.I get up in the morning toating my water spray bottle.If anybody had told me at 78 I would be macthing witts with a four month old tabby cat I would have said "not me"

Relax..Soon she'll outgrow this and be a cuddly lap cat. Two years ago at this time I had a frisky kitten but now he is a big boy who just sits on my lap and ocassionally runs thru the house, but his frisky days are over.

The clipping has to be done when they are really, really sleepy. My boy cat has always tolerated it, the little girl not so much. During the day when they are sleeping and really dopey I trim their nails. I try to do it once a week, but it ends up being more like every 10 days.

In my experience, the water bottle works for things you don't want them to do like jump on the counters. But for things they NEED to do (like scratch), you are better off scooping them up and putting them where it is ok for them to do it. If they are doing something you need to stop right away (biting, for example) yell "no" loudly, maybe even clap your hands.

If you are considering finding a new home for her I would do it sooner rather than later. The smaller she is the easier it will be to find another home for her.

Cats have claws thats one of natures laws. If you have issues with it, get another animal like a Dog, bird,bunny,fish/ect.

With every animal comes trouble, dogs bark and rip up shoes, cats claw furnture, birds scream and are needy, bunnies breed wildly and act nurvious - (this is 'unlike breeding 'reguardless even if you fix them),

Do you play with her to exercise her? We have a high-energy cat and got one of those fishing pole toys with feathers on the end. You can wear her out without getting up from your chair.

If the water doesn't scare her enough when she claws your legs, get some kind of tin can or container with a lid and put some coins in it. Shake it at her when she misbehaves. Make sure it makes a good rattly noise. Our cat hates the noise.

Finally, I assume you have some scratchers for her in the house, one upright post and one of those inexpensive cardboard horizontal scratchers. She should like one of them for her scratching. As for her claws, is there someone who could come over and help you trim her claws?

Stick with it. She will eventually grow up and be a nice kitty, I'm sure, but it's not easy getting there, is it?

Dear Socks.I have always had a dog.Since I'm in a high rise senior apartment and downstairs seems a mile away now that I hit 78.So I got a kitten.If I had known what it was going to be like I would have passed it up.But as you say she will soon grow out of it.I love the little bugger but to have to throw her out of the sink be for I can wash my face and can't go and look at my food in the refrigerator,because she will jump in sometimes is a bit much.Looking forward to the day when she becomes a "lap cat'".I hope I live to see that day.I feel better now that I got this off my chess.Thanks for listening.

Goldy, generally speaking, most cats do grow out of the frenetic phase over the course of a year. Some cats will remain a little more playful and spunky than others after they hit a year while some become strikingly more placid and sedentary, but most do tend to outgrow the kitten craziness!

Not all cats are "wired" to be lap cats, BTW (one of ours is, just with me, and only if I'm sitting up in bed, while our other cat is, but only with my DH, and only when he's sitting or lying down in certain places. The first one mellowed out when we brought the second one home. The second one took a bit longer. They both enjoy being near/with us, and we enjoy being with them.

I promise you, none of them remain kittens forever, and your little bugger will mellow out soon enough.

Best of luck to you and your little one!

Goldy, I totally understand what you are saying. I helped care for my friend's cat which she adopted at age 4 months, and I was glad she wasn't adopted as a little kitten. It made the time of those wild months less, and that was difficult enough!

Hang in there with your kitty. In the end, I don't think you will be sorry you adopted her.

This does serve as a reminder to us all if we don't want to deal with the wildness of a kitten, there are always mature cats who need homes so badly and often are not adopted because everyone wants a cute kitten.

Yes, I was just going to add that it's unfortunate that you got a kitten -- it doesn't sound like a good fit for your lifestyle. I know of several older cats that need good homes that would have worked wonderfully in your situation, goldy.

After my two kitties pass on (they're both seniors now, and one of them is fading fast :( ) , I'm planning on getting two older cats. Kittens are cute as heck, but dealing with the liveliness is just not something I'm interested in doing. The worst is how they run around like freaks in the middle of the night and jump off of things. I'll take older, more sedate cats any day!

This thread has really made me laugh, Goldy! I'd like to add my support with all of the others. I've had many cats over the years, and I am here to tell you that the WORST of the WORST of them (actually, all of the were pretty impossible as kittens) ended up being lap pigs.

Be sure to have plenty of scatching surfaces available as well as play toys. My cats' favorites were simply paper balls! The cat I have now also loves his little stuffed animal, a toy not much smaller than he is. Boy, does it ever get some abuse.

Laughter....the best medicine. That bad kitty is providing you with that in spite of how naughty she is.

Goldy,
Bless your heart--you are a natural born cat staffer. Dogs have owners, cats have staff.
Thank you for not de-clawing. Providing an acceptable scratching post and putting the kitten in front of it when she wants to scratch will eventually give her the idea. Of course, she may have other ideas--she is a cat.
Don't worry about having a kitten--you were kind to adopt her, and the two of you will grow up together!
Have you thought of providing her with her own bowl of water to play in while you wash your face? Believe me, as the main staff person for a calico, the human learns to negotiate, which means we figure out what the cat wants and provide it. Again, bless you, and bless the kitty.

What happened?I saw a response saying to declaw and when I went back to read it It was gone.Was the response "banned"

Was it a response from the 20th or before? There's a note on the forums saying that they've lost some older posts...

Goldy, I think declawing may run about $500 these days. In the past, it was accepted and vets promoted it. These days, they like to remove them when they're young and I'm not sure if vets generally dislike the procedure now or not. While we may not have known, they have always known what they were doing to their feet in surgery, in order to declaw.

I don't think you'll find support for such a decision online, but will say that I have had declawed cats and all were happy, romping, well-adjusted animals, and were without physical problems. I have also known and still know quite a few other declawed cats and none of those have had issues either.

I do know how difficult claws can be to live with. I've got two new cats, and although they are very, very good, they are not perfect and the claws are not fun to have around for a variety of reasons.

While 78 is not terribly old, a kitten is a lot to take on. Have you thought about what will happen as you get older? They live to be about 14, and you would be 92! Sometimes, older animals are a good match, but the health care issues for older animals is very costly and can require a lot of 'work' on the part of the owner as well.

I wonder why your daughter didn't keep her? I would never recommend a typical shelter, where so many are euthanized, but a rescue center might be able to find a home for her if you're not sure you can do this.

I hope you love her : )

Dear Sg.Haven.My daughter loves cats and she already had three,So when the next door friend's cat had kittens she decided to help find homes for them.This kitten is a cat from hell.You gave me something to think about at 78 I should not have gotten into this thing not thinking that I would out live this cat.Well I'm going to try and give this kitten what few years I have left and after that she will be on her own or someone Else's problem.I'm wondering now if my daughter really loves me .She knows I'm and old lady.

I think maybe your daughter just wasn't thinking and was looking to give you some companionship and the kitten a loving home.

Kittens don't have such difficulty finding homes, but once they're older, as cats, they do. Most people want kittens. So down the road, it could be a problem.

I hope your daughter will take her in when you can no longer care for her.

I'm glad Squrirrelheaven de clawing is becoming so expensive, if I ever move into a group home someday and they try to make me do this awful thing to my cats, I'll just say- cant afford it and then if they insist rehome them- assuming it ever comes up, IMO if their not going ban this outright they should make it so $$ like $8000 so that the only people do it, are the set in their ways, fifthly rich people who in gen own 4 to 6 grand furniture and who nowadays don't really care anyways, like Sam walson owner of wal-mart, he gives/gave less then 2% of his earnings to others while Bill Gates gave 58%.

( not to say that all really rich people like that are like this,most aren't but you know what i mean)

For the people that De claw, or think its a good idea - A employe at my Artist job has a deep cat bite in her arm today, The cats in her pocession were de-clawed because the idiot group home she lives in required it, While its sad that this happened to her. IMO it was good because now hopefully the stupid idiots who made the rules will be sued, filed charges of human endangerment, the woman is hiding her bite from her staff, but Doug our boss saw it, and is probably going to report it whether she likes it or not. I talked to her about de-clawing and why it happened, the woman remains ignorant of the whole root cause and believes she was right in declawing them. The cats are peeing and using the litter box wrong too.

FYI, it is not true that all cats who are declawed have behavioral issues or litter box avoidance problems. I volunteer at an animal shelter and a number of cats come in who are declawed and they do not bite, nor do they avoid using the litter box.

I've never run into anything like that either CatMom. If my two new ones had been declawed it would have been a plus.

Must be so sad working there. All my kids have been throw-aways and rejects, and they have all been the most beautiful, special little lovebugs that could be. I never expect them to be perfect, so someone else's problem might be my little project (no peeing problems, though, please).

True cat mom- not every cat who gets it done ends up like the sterotype, but why do it in the first place?. Esspeically with a disabled adult. It would have been better for her safety and for the cats in the terms of physical suffering if the place had banned her from having the cats and they got sent to a shelter- the worst thing that would have happened at the shelter is a painless injection to make them go to sleep-forever. Now because of their stupidity the cats had to endure, pain, a person was endangered through a cats bite AND the cats will probably either end up biting again/ possibly spreading disease through the pooping/peeing out of the litter box and/or will be put to sleep. IF it HAS to be one of them isn't the first way better then the last?

Its a sad reality that cats/dogs will be PTS but it is a need until a law goes into place making it illegal everywhere in our country to own an intact dog/cat.
Humans are STUPID, sometimes.

I hope no cat ever gets taken to the pound or put to sleep because they have claws, or in lieu of having them removed.

Cats are going to get put to seep no matter what happens, so I politely disagree. Often times de clawed cats are put to sleep BECAUSE of de clawing. A peaceful death is better then a life time of handicaps because of a thoughtless human. Vets often times in labs test new pan meds on de clawed cats to see how strong they are, if its that painful I opt for a shelter.

runsnwalken, unfortunately, cats are more often put to sleep for reasons other than having been declawed (they're actually the first to be adopted when they do end up at the shelter). The fact remains that we are a living in a throw-away society. Some people do end up giving up a pet despite wanting desperately to keep it, due to unforseeable (often, unfortunate) circumstances. Fior many though, people often adopt for "when it's convenient," rather than for the life of the pet. When it's no longer convenient to own a pet, out it goes. Doesn't matter if the cat has claws, no claws, behavioral issues, or the sweetest disposition in the world--I've seen all kinds end up at the shelter in the few years I've been volunteering.

Cats are not usually put to sleep because of declawing. Cats that end up at kill shelters for whatever the reason (and that includes shredding the furniture) can and will be put to sleep if space is needed for newcomers, pure and simple.

I have owned both clawed and declawed cats. I have seen no difference behaviorally (such as litter box issues or inability to defend themselves).

The first new cat I adopted in years was from a shelter where I contractually committed not to declaw. The shelter had clipped her weekly so even now, she's a breeze to clip.

The next cat I rescued it was my choice. Despite being clipped weekly since she was a baby, she hates it. It actually seems to hurt her. I'm not sure what I'll do with her yet. But I will consult her vet and see what options there are - it seems to mainly be her hind legs - she yelps in pain when I clip them.

(by the way she already tends to be a biter - and she hasn't been declawed).

At any rate, cats can have litter and biting issues, even if they are not declawed. One does not = the other. Every cat is different.

I think if a situation only allows declawed cats, a better option may be to seek out cats in the shelters that are already declawed. The shelter I got my older cat at, had several declawed cats up for adoption. As another poster said, they actually get adopted very quickly.