Cat Play Aggression: What Is It? & What To Do
One of the most important things a cat will learn as a kittten is how to play. With toys, with other cats, with discarded socks behind the couch. In order to lead a fufilling life, cats need to play, and need to know how to play the right way.
So What Is Play Aggression?
Play aggression is the most common type of aggression in cats, and is the term for rough play that is inappropriately directed towards a human. Play aggression is when a cat exhibits predatory play behaviour towrads their owners. This includes stalking, chasing, pouncing, and attacking. Play aggression is usually directed towards feet and hands. However, a cat may attack any part of the human body.
How Does Play Aggression Develop?
The roots of play aggression is often found in kittenhood. This type of behaviour starts when a human plays with a kitten using their hands. Playing using your hands rather than a toy instills in the kitten the idea that hands ARE toys and it is appropriate to wrestle and attack them whenever and whereever they like. But it doesn’t just end with your hands. Once the kitten is taught that one part of your body is a toy, the rest of you becomes fair game. This is why play aggression is often directed towards feet as well.
But play aggression doesn’t just start with kittens. It is just as easy to teach play aggresion to an adult cat. Especially one with lots of energy to spare.
How To Recognise Play Aggression in Your Cat
The first and most obvious sign of play aggression is, of course, foot and hand attacks. When you’re walking around your house, or picking something up from the floor, and your cat comes and tackles you, thats play aggression. While physical attacks are a large component, their not the only behaviour to look out for.
If you watch your cat’s body language, you’ll be able to tell when your cat is engaging in play aggression and gearing up to attack. When your cat is focused on your feet or hands, is their tail flicking or waging? Are their pupils wide and ears turned back? Are they hunching or crouching, ready to pounce? Do they chase you around the house and try to swipe at you? These are all signs of a cat ready to attack.
What Can You Do?
Cats have very intense prey drives, and a cat who has been taught that humans are giant stuffed toys, can easily be triggered by a person going about their day. Whether you’re standing, sitting, or walking, a cat who wants to play, will.
So what can you do to irradicate this behaviour? Well, there’s a few ways to approach this issue; reaction, redirection, and prevention.
Reaction
How you react, or rather not react to a cat attack is a good way to discourge this behaviour. Yelling, yelping, shouting, running away, or pushing your cat off of you will only serve to intesify their prey drive, and encourage them to continue the hunt.
A non reactive and non moving target is a boring one. Refusing to engage with your cat’s advances ruins their fun, and demonstrates to them that you are not a willing participant. After all, prey that does not act like prey, isn’t interesting.
But do you do with a cat that continues the game, even though you are clearly not interested?
Redirection
When a cat is latched to your foot and won’t let go, you don’t just have to stand there and suffer. The best, and only way to get a cat off your mark, is to redirect their attention (and prey drive) onto something else. Namely, a toy. Shaking or throwing a toy is a good way to entice them off your foot, having a feather wand nearby to wave around is even better. Redirecting them onto a more appropriate form of play is the best way for them to learn that toys are far more rewarding than a hand or foot.
Prevention
Preventing play aggression is to make sure it doesn’t have the chance to appear in the first place. The best way to do this is fairly simple; Playtime! A cat that is given adequet the amount of play everyday is far less likely to resort to hunting you around the house. Cats should be given a minimum of 30 minutes of playtime a day. Play is best when it is broken up through out the day, particulary in the morning and afternoon after being fed, as cats tend to experience a spike in energy on account of just eating. The early morning and late evening is also the time period in which cats are the most active, and you may find that these times are when you tend to get ambushed the most often.
The next thing you can do is make sure that your cat has access to their toys at all times, especially toys they can play with on their own. This prevents your cat from becoming bored and frustrated from pent up energy when you are away and not playing with them. It also gives them the option to choose to play with toys lying about rather than your feet.
Some small things you can also do is clip your cat nails to reduce their damage ability, and wear socks or slippers about the house. Socks give the added benefit of making feet unalluring to cats when worn. Also, make sure that you and your cat adheres to a set schedual. Cats are creatures of habit, and many owners underestimate just how important a daily regimen is to a cat. Too the point that the vast majority of misbehaviours can be chalked up to small changes to routine or daily life. What may seem small and insignificant to us, such as waking up at a different time, or moving the couch a few centermetres, is infact a big change to a small creature that thrives on routine.
Dont’t Punish Your Cat
A cat with play aggression can be a bit of a nightmare to deal with, but they aren’t bring malicious or spiteful. Your cat loves you, and play aggression comes from not knowing any better. After all, how is a cat who was tought it was good, supposed to know now that it’s very bad. When you’re in the throws of a tussle, or you simply have too many scratches and bites, it can be very tempting to try punishing your cat. Unfortuantely for you, and very fortunate for your cat, punishment (aka negative reinforcement) NEVER works. A cat’s brain simply does not have the ability to conect a punishment to a bad action, or that the action was bad in the first place. All punishment will do is negatively impact your relationship with your cat. Cats who have been punished often become fearful, insecure, and stressed. Most of all, punishment almost always has the opposite effect, it can worsen their behaviour, or cause them to start doing new bad behaviours.
Don’t Give Up
Training bad behaviours out of a cat can be frustrating and disheartening. Some days it may seem like all your work is going nowhere. But don’t be discouraged! Like all things in life, repetition and regimen is the key. Staying dedicated to helping your cat curve this behaviour will not only improve your life, but your cat’s life as well.