Wondering Why does my cat bite me? It’s a common question among the new cat pet owners. If you find your kitty biting you occasionally out of nowhere then, you may doubt your relationship with it. But, don’t worry! Biting is quite a casual behaviour of cats and it’s a normal thing.
You must digest the truth that the cats are weird and their behaviour will be similar even with their owners. Though it’s the behavior problem of the cat, it doesn’t look pleasant when your cat often seems to bite you.
Well, as a cat parent, you must find out the reason behind its biting and how to stop your cat from biting. There are possibly several reasons as to why a cat bites suddenly without provoking. Let’s look into the reasons behind the abrupt biting of cats out of nowhere!
Contents
Why Do My Cat Bite?
Ouch! Did your cat just bite you for no reason? It’s important to identify the reason behind your cat biting in the first place. Most commonly, cats bite their owners out of fear, stress, frustration, predatory impulses, and communication.
Another common reason is that your cat is enjoying its playtime while biting its owner. Cats bite their owners for a plethora of reasons. Whatever the reason could it be, cats usually bite when they are seeking to tell something to you.
By understanding the behavior of your cat, you can try to avoid unnecessary biting while you’re pampering your pet. While biting, you need to pay attention to the body language and behavior of your cat. By recognizing the cause of the sudden bite, you can try to stop it next time.
Is It Normal For Cats To Bite Their Owners?
Yes, it’s quite normal for cats to bite their owners though you don’t wish to hear this answer. One thing you must notice is that cats don’t bite their owners to hurt.
As mentioned earlier, cats bite their owners during their playtime, while pampering, out of aggression, fear, stress, attention seeking, and more. In general, cats are natural-born predators. Hence, it’s quite common to see weird behaviors like biting, scratching, drooling, attacking, and more in cats.
Biting is one of the natural instincts of cats as they are seeking to communicate with you. However, if the biting is extreme then, you can stop your cat from biting by engaging it in various playful activities both physical and mental.
Reasons for Cat Biting
You might be wondering “Why Does My Cat Bite Me Gently Out of Nowhere?” Your feline friend doesn’t bite you deliberately to hurt you. By understanding the reason behind their aggressive behavior of biting you, you can either prevent it or soothe it from being too wild.
Mostly, cats bite their owners when they are being pampered, aggressive, fearful, and more. In some other situations, cats bite when they are depressed, stressed, etc. In this article, we have mentioned various reasons behind cat biting.
Let’s explore various reasons as to ‘Why do cats bite’ listed out in this post.
Aggression Biting
Commonly, cats behave aggressively during playtime. While cats bite out of true aggression, some other times cats express their aggressiveness by biting during their playtime. Sometimes, aggressive biting of the cat turns very serious which leads to infections in the owners.
Aggressive biting in cats could sometimes lead to spitting, hissing, and putting a posture defensively. When you are trying to communicate with your cat by taking it into your hands, cuddling them, or giving a bath your cat starts biting. This type of aggressive biting could be because of their disinterest in interacting with you.
Playful Biting
Cats enjoy their playtime especially when they’re with their loving owners. As part of their play, cats bite their owners out of love and affection. It’s not only with the owners but also happens when two cats play with each other.
If there is yowling while playing then, it’s not considered as a playful bite. Seeing the reactions, behavior, and sounds of the cat, you can tell whether it’s a playful bite or a non-playful bite.
In the early stage, kittens love to play with their feline friends. It’s the right time to make them learn how to use their claws and teeth precisely while playing.
Without getting into aggressive mode, kittens will enjoy their playtime and understand when to get into aggressive biting. In case, your cat bites while playing, try to redirect it to playing with its toys.
Kitten Biting When Teething
During the kitten phase, it’s common for the cats to do kitten biting. It’s commonly referred to as teething. Usually, teething happens between 3 weeks and 6 months of kittens. However, kittens may not be likely to bite their owners while teething.
It’s a rare situation where kittens bite humans due to teething. Mostly, they love to pay at their mouths and chew on toys and other items while teething. It could be funny for you as a new kitten parent for up to 10 weeks.
But, encouraging your kitten to bite while playing and teething could lead to wild behavior in cats. Make sure you give suitable toys to your kittens for biting if they’re teething. Make your kitten understand that your fingers, hands, arms, and feet aren’t toys to play with.
Biting When Petting
Why Do Cats Bite When You Pet Them? In some cats, we may see unprovoked biting that could be intolerable. When you are petting your feline friend placing it on your lap and out of nowhere, it bites your hand abruptly.
It could happen when you’re petting in an uncomfortable place either the stomach or tail. When your cat feels that it has got adequate attention from you and spent so much time with you then, it starts twitching their tail or flattening their ears to the side.
At that time, you must understand its behavior and stop petting. So, it’s highly important to observe the behavior and body language of the cat while petting.
Love Biting
At the time of interaction with your cat, you may experience love biting. It’s often a sign of affection, acceptance, and communication that your cat requires.
One of the notorious behaviors of cats is love biting. This is not considered a big problem in cats. Mostly, cats love to bite when they are overstimulated. Sometimes, cats give you love bites when they are hungry or seeking attention.
Love biting may look cute in the early phase and as the time runs, it becomes irritating. Try to prevent your cat love biting by redirecting it toward playing with toys or offering them toys to play with.
Biting To Seek Attention
Few cats bite their owners when they’re looking for attention. As a result, cats bite their pet parents instead of meowing. If your cat bites you for attention-seeking, you don’t react too much. Instead, you try to redirect your feline friend to a toy.
When you experience a nip from your cat seeking your attention, you don’t give attention so that it will understand that it’s not the right act to seek attention from the owner. Gently guide them to make them understand how to seek attention from the pet parent.
Depression
Depression is not only common in humans but also can be witnessed in cats as well. Surprisingly, cats have the power to find out when their owners are depressed. When it sees its owner being depressed, it could lead the cat to behave aggressively leading to cat bites.
Due to altered behavior in their owners, cats also change their biting behavior. This could be due to limited attention to the cats from their owners. As per some research, depressed people are often suggested to get a pet into their house especially, a cat.
Biting When Grooming
Grooming is a kind of cleaning process done to pets to make their appearance look good and neat. Cleaning the fur and brushing the hair of pets is all about grooming.
If your cat bites you while grooming then, it’s an indication that your cat is likely trying to hinder interaction with you. Sometimes, it could be normal behavior of the cats to nip their owner while grooming. Few of them say that your cat is expressing its love towards you by biting while grooming.
Whatever the reason it could be, you should not encourage them to bite while grooming. When your cat bites you while grooming, just move from that place so that it can understand what to do and what not to do.
Fearful Biting
Mostly cats bite their owners when they’re extremely stressed. Sometimes, your feline friend may bite you out of fear. To find out the reason behind your cat bites, you need to look at its posture and behavior. If your cat keeps on hissing and biting then it could be a warning sign that the cat is turning wild.
Usually, cats exhibit this kind of behavior while taking it to a vet or while moving to a new house. Whenever you introduce your cat to your friend or relative, it starts biting and looking at the stranger. Cats do this out of fear and stress.
In such a case, try to give your cat some time and let it get into a comfortable position. Sometimes, critical medical conditions of the cat such as hyperthyroidism, rabies, arthritis, etc., could make your cat stressful and fearful as well.
How to Know If My Cat Is Going To Bite?
Cat changes its behavior when it’s trying to bite you either aggressively or for some other reason. Cat owners need to notice and note a few of the common behaviors in their pets before biting. When the cat displays any of the behaviors, you can easily recognize them and prevent them as soon as possible.
Few signs make you understand that your cat is going to bite you. Cats make dilated pupils and flatten their ears backward on their heads when they are about to bite you. Other warning signs to recognize whether your cat is going to bite you or not include the following:
- Rapidly moving its tail
- Pushing your hand away
- Hissing
- Growling
- Dilated Pupils
- Erecting its tail so that its hair will raise vertically
- Arching back
- Flattening Ears backwards
- Enhanced Crankiness
- Skin Twitching
How to Stop Cat from Biting?
One of the working ways to stop my cat from biting is to redirect your cat from biting you to toys so that it engages in playing. When your cat behaves gently, try to encourage its calm behavior.
On the other hand, you shouldn’t praise its aggressive behavior like biting you out of nowhere. Also, there are a few ways to stop your cat from biting you ever again. Try out these techniques to let your cat behave gently with you while petting, grooming, playing, etc.
1. Engage your cat in Playing
Cat biting can be avoided by indulging your cat in playful mode. By spending adequate time playing with your cat, it can help stop your cat from biting. If your cat has immense energy, it tries to bite you out of overstimulation and aggression.
To drain out your cat’s excessive energy, try to engage your cat in playtime for at least 20 minutes. By doing so, you can make your cat calm. You can also give appropriate toys to your cat to diminish predatory behaviors in your feline friend. When you give a toy to your cat, it bites the toy instead of your hands.
2. Rightful Teaching
Another technique to prevent your cat from biting you is to teach them the right things. Some of the cat parents encourage their pets to play with their hands and fingers.
Try to teach your cats to understand that toys are the right things to bite and play with. By teaching them to use toys, they will bite, claw, scratch, and pounce them. You must teach your cat the right things from the early stage i.e., during the kitten stage.
3. Meet Your Cat’s Demands
To reduce cat biting, you need to meet your cat’s needs like playing with it, giving proper attention, providing appropriate toys to fulfill their desire to play, and more.
4. Give Freedom
Give assurance to your cat that it is in the safe and secure hands of the owner. Also, give your cat the freedom to access outdoors to roam around in the garden. Allow your cat to climb trees, explore hiding places in the house, and more.
5. Consider Your Cat’s Preferences
Cats don’t like being touched in some of their body places. Consider your cat’s touch preferences and stay away from them. While petting and grooming, you touch some places in their bodies.
If your cat stops you from touching certain places, consider it and keep it in mind. Respect the boundaries set by your cat and understand what is enjoyable to your pet.
6. Pay Attention To The Cat’s Signals
The most important thing to avoid your cat from biting is to understand the cat’s body language. By paying attention to certain signals given by the cat, you will be able to allow your cat whatever it wants to do.
7. Get A Companion
When you’re planning to bring a pet to your house, make sure you bring two kittens at a time. The reason is that most kittens love to have a companion to play with, fight, and enjoy the best playful time with each other. Instead of biting the pet parents, they playfully bite each other.
8. Check for Medical Issues
Your cats may bite you out of aggression. Cats may get into aggressive mode due to some medical issues. Some of the serious medical conditions like hyperthyroidism, arthritis, rabies, trauma, etc., may cause your cat to bite more. Check if there are such problems in your cat by consulting a vet.
What to Do If My Cat Bites?
When your cat bites you without breaking your skin then, you need not seek medical help. In this case, you just try to figure out the reason behind this behavior. Also, ensure that you don’t punish them for biting. If you punish or yell at them, they feel threatened and stressed.
If a cat bites you out of nowhere and punctures your skin, you need to treat it immediately to avoid causing the risk of infection. Wash the wound with fresh water. If possible, try to clean it with a saline solution. If the wound is bleeding, put pressure to stop the bleeding. Further, seek medical assistance as early as possible.
There are so many harmful bacteria in the mouths of cats. When a cat bites, it transfers those bacteria into your body that could eventually cause flu, fever, and sometimes death. Your doctor will check the bite and prescribe antibiotics to prevent the spreading of the infection.
How to Pet a Cat in the Right Way?
Petting the cat is one of the important techniques to prevent a cat bite. If you know how to pet a cat properly, you can avoid cat bites frequently.
- Petting should be done mostly on the back, around the cheeks of a cat, head, on the forehead, chin area, and behind the ears.
- Don’t touch the tail base and belly area of your cat while petting. Instead of ruffling the fur of the pet, just rub the fur gently and smoothly.
- Cats love to interact more with their owners and spend time with them. Give proper attention to them while petting them.
- Instead of you going to the cat, let your cat come to you for petting. As a result, your cat feels comfortable while petting.
FAQs
Here are some of the frequently asked questions about cat bites and the ways to stop them. Check it out!
Why My Cat Bites When I Sleep?
When cats are stressed, threatened, and frustrated, they tend to bite their owners to wake them up. They feel the need to secure themselves or seek their pet parents’ help for protection.
Why Does My Cat Bite While I Am Walking?
Cats are natural predators. Even after becoming a domestic animal, it couldn’t overcome its natural predatory behavior. As a result, it tends to bite or attack moving objects. While walking, your cat wants to bite you out of natural predatory instinct.
Why Do My Cat Bite When I Pet Her / Him?
While petting, if you touch some wrong place in the cat’s body, the cat may bite you. It doesn’t wish you touching the cat in an incorrect place even if you’re affectionate towards it.
Is Cat Bite Danger?
Yes, cat bites are dangerous to humans as well as other animals. Usually, cats carry harmful bacteria in their mouths that could cause various infections. If a cat bite leads to wounds, immediately seek medical attention.
Conclusion
That’s all! This is everything you need to know about the reasons behind ‘Why Does My Cat Bite Me.’ Cats bite for various reasons like a playful bite, aggressive bite, love bite, stress, fear, depression, and more. We’ve explained various reasons and ways to prevent your cat from biting in this article.
Go through this in-depth article to clarify your doubts and drop your queries in the comments space, if any. Visit our website TheCrazyCats frequently for more articles on cat behavior, food habits, play preferences, and more.
