[Music] hello my lovely cat people it is i jackson galaxy and today we get to it man
you send questions i send answers i send them to you magically across the webs and we get to know
our cats a little better and really that's all i want for you guys is to know your cats a little
better and today we get to know audrey a little bit better and her cat marceline and without any
further ado hey kid audrey hello jackson my name is audrey and i was wondering if you could give
me some advice on my kitten marceline this is marcy when she gets playful she likes to bite
a lot no no what no hey nope no out she grabs on to hands and feet quite often and sinks her
teeth in and kicks with her back paws like they're rabbits or something like that i don't know where
she got this behavior from we never play with her with our hands or our feet it's possible
it's from the foster family i only adopted her about a month and a half ago i've tried squirt
bottles i've tried ignoring it and i've tried just picking her up and moving her from the room when
she starts it and nothing's really reduced it at all i played with her for 15 minutes three times
a day before every meal with like an interactive toy and then more if i can possibly but she still
really likes to come find me and attack my feet and just go into full play mode and i really don't
know how to stop that behavior so if you have any tips and tricks about that i could really
use the advice and there we have it marceline the nibbler marceline the toothy marcelina
and the bunny kicker that crazy bunny kicking you guys would think that getting bit hurts a lot
in nature if a cat is feeling threatened their best tool in terms of eviscerating their aggressor
is their back legs their back claws i mean that is the strongest muscles they got so if something's
on top of them and they start that bunny kick they wrap their paws around and start bunny kicking
good luck mr fox good luck you know mr hawk when that comes down to your arm audrey that's gotta
hurt like heck and that's what we gotta try to stop obviously that's why you wrote to me
marcy is obviously a young cat i mean my guess is just by looking at her right now maybe six months
old so she's a kitten still she's learning things and and you said that maybe this is something she
learned in foster care probably not uh altogether but what we can imagine is that she really didn't
have a whole lot of guidance from her mom and her siblings and then she gets raised by humans and
then yeah it takes a couple of mistakes and she's like oh well now this is fun but i don't want to
throw your foster parents under the bus it may not have had anything to do with it usually foster
parents are well trained in the big no of using your hands as toys and then sometimes she just
figures out that she gets a reaction that she likes that's the the prologue the preface
marcy is marcy and she's marcy at her age and she's really hyper and she's just looking for
fun in apparently all the wrong places okay so that's that now let's get down to what we can do
for you and for marcy so that she has fun and you have all of your skin to me the most obvious
thing here is you have this video right here of marcy playing with a kicker there we go she
loves kickers and it seems like if we get that kicker in her claws before she goes for your arm
okay now we're getting somewhere right now she gets payoff from one thing she doesn't get paid
off from the other thing okay so we have the yes which is the kicker and you should have kickers
all over the house by the way kickers that you have around that she can seek out kickers that
you have just hanging out in a drawer somewhere so that when you sort of see that look in her eyes
you're like here take this and not this that is a great thing the whole no yes i don't want you to
do this you're not going to get payoff from this but you are going to get payoff from the other
thing how do we say no you're not going to get payoff from this so audrey you do say right here
but i've tried everything to stop the behavior i've tried squirt bottles
so you're trying squirt bottles now take a look at this video right here the thing i call squirt
bottle diplomacy it doesn't work squirt bottles are not my friend and they're definitely not
marcy's friend and they're not going to be your friend either why because all they are is a no
all you're saying in that moment is i really don't like this go away and what you're doing with that
go away is you're also instilling just a little bit of fear in what's connected to that squirt
bottle which is you so in the end you are serving to help break down the bond between you and marcy
that is just now being formed so take that squirt bottle open the window and hurl it out now of
course if you live in a high-rise apartment don't do that and and let's go for something that is a
little more mutually beneficial and doesn't serve to build up all that energy in marcy you're either
putting energy into your cat or you're you're draining it out of your cat squirt squirt squirt
and hope it goes away her energy bubble is still growing it's still growing you know that carnival
game where you take the water gun and you fill up the clown's nose or head and then it pops
that's what's going on with marcy you're spraying and she's getting bigger you say no go away it's
getting bigger you lock her out of a room it's going to get bigger and now somebody else in your
home is going to walk up to marcy while she's like this and good luck you know not becoming
legless or armless at that moment because she knows through experience that all she has to do
is attack and that bubble gets smaller again you want to make sure that you have stuffed animals
kickers around the house and it always helps if you can offer it up because again that's something
where where it's interactive it's you and her it's a bonding time and she does take cues from
you believe it or not and people don't think that with cats but it is true of course they thrive
on interaction okay so you see that look in her eyes it's like yep over there you know
and redirect her away from you okay you can start the action with something like a laser pointer
laser pointers are effective tools if your cat loves it great because these are things that
you can attach to a belt loop and then if she's starting to go a little nutty whoop out it comes
and she's going that way she's going that way to try to chase a red dot but in the long term we're
talking about that energetic bubble she can't catch that thing so it's i'm so frustrated i
just want to bunny kick something and that's when you can replace the red dot with a bunny kicker
now kick away to your heart's content kick bite gnaw wrestle do whatever it is that you do it's
not my arm or my leg so what we're looking for is an effective way to say no to marcy so that that
yes is even more appealing we've talked about how squirt bottles don't work locking her out not
gonna work all of those things serve to fill up that energetic bubble and then she's just looking
for that little energetic pin to pop it my way of taking care of this is learning marcy's cues
marcy doesn't come out of nowhere and start bunny kicking there's usually a precursor to it now here
in your video let's take a look at this it's not like this language i'm just cleaning myself life
is good ah bring me a mai tai kind of thing that is letting us know that her energy is about ready
to pop so that's a cue for you to break out a toy and show her the fun that she can have with you
that doesn't include presenting your flesh other cues that she could show you is if she's just
walking around looking for stuff if she's finding something and batting it around for two seconds
no that's not fun she's going up into the drapes knocking the drapes around she's trying to get
that energy out and there is no better way for her than to latch on and do her bunny kick with you
so that's a cue for you in that moment to say here redirect here's a toy you present it to her
let her start going to town on it then let go it's saying yes proactively i see it coming let's take
a hard left to something that actually works for us and really all that you need to do is one study
those cues know when that energy bubble's getting big and the second thing is have things on hand to
redirect her with play equals pray she's learning how to be her most mojo-riffic self right now
and play is really the key to that whole thing and finally to the no of this whole thing you've
tried to redirect her you've tried to get into her rhythm and still she just wants a little nibble
off that arm or leg really your no has to be as less explosive as you can make it so the whole
ouch ouch and the whole hey stop it and pushing away and doing all that stuff that's not gonna
work removing her from the situation or removing yourself from the situation is the best way to do
it now you said that she was following you out of the room bite bite bite i need to do this i need
to do this sure that's where redirecting her onto a better toy is helpful but really staying calm
and just getting up and just not giving her the satisfaction is really the key remember you are
rewarding this to a certain degree your ouches and your protestations and all that that is almost an
invitation especially at her age to go and get it some more so the to the best of your ability
calmly just remove and then redirect remove redirect so we've talked about picking up cues
redirecting having appropriate victims on hand the last thing establishing good sort of time habits
and that's about setting her body clock and i've talked about this many times the three r's routine
ritual rhythm if we build a rhythm to her life then we've got ups and downs that are predictable
right and we do that around having ritual and our rituals are we get up in the morning
we feed gonna get a little bit of energy we can play it out of her a little bit especially at this
age it's a really crucial time to get into those good habits and then like you said you play with
her three times a day i'm a big fan of playing before you eat remember they're hunters they're
hunting they then you know they kill their prey and then they eat uh then you might see a little
bit of a kick up of energy right after especially at her age so follow along with that and then
you're gonna start seeing her body start to sink into predictable cycles of up and down and then
you're gonna be able to read that body language more and know when a murderous bunny kick is
coming your way so that's it audrey hopefully i've been of some help to you and marcy don't forget
she is going to grow out of this with time but in the meantime it's never too early to set her
routine her ritual her rhythm into action and you should start to see marcy fall into line okay all
right audrey thank you so much for that question all light and love to you and marcy and for you
guys don't forget you can send in your questions remember to ask the question just like audrey did
show me what's going on just like audrey did and who knows maybe i'll answer your question and
maybe you'll get some sleep and maybe you'll have some skin left on your arms at the end of the day
that's what i'm here for all right you guys until next time don't forget hit the bells hit
the whatever subscribe because this is how we find out what's going on in the world of cats all right
light loving mojo to you guys all right all right that right that right bunny kick buddy kick bunny
kick how do i do that higher higher higher higher anyhow that's it all right made myself sweat
[Music]
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